Buying a condo in Thailand as a foreigner: the money route decides, not your visa

The usual answer to “can a foreigner own a condo in Thailand?” is “yes, up to 49 per cent of the building”, and both halves of it are slightly wrong. The Condominium Act does not ask who you are so much as how your money got here: for a buyer who is not a permanent resident, eligibility is a single line about foreign currency crossing the border, and the paper that proves it has to exist, covering the whole price, before the Land Office will register you. The quota, meanwhile, is not counted in units at all.

Which laws you are actually under

Buying a unit touches five separate sets of rules, written by five different bodies, none of which cross-refers to the others. Most confusion comes from reading one of them and assuming it is the whole picture.

• Condominium Act B.E. 2522, Royal Gazette volume 96, part 67, special issue, 30 April 1979, as amended by Acts No. 2 (1991), No. 3 (1999) and No. 4 (2008). Sections 19 to 19 undecim are the foreign-ownership code; sections 6/1 and 6/2 govern developers’ advertising and contracts; sections 18, 29 and 40 are what the building can charge you.
• Department of Lands Regulation on ownership of condominium units by foreigners and alien juristic persons, B.E. 2547 (2004), amended in 2011 and again by Regulation No. 3 B.E. 2562, signed on 15 March 2019. This is where the evidence of foreign money is specified.
• Contract Committee Notification making the business of selling condominium units with reservation a contract-controlled business, B.E. 2567 — Royal Gazette volume 141, special part 275 Ngor, pages 13–14, 3 October 2024, with a standard reservation contract annexed. It came into force 120 days after publication.
• Ministerial Regulation prescribing fees and expenses relating to condominiums B.E. 2553, signed 1 September 2010, and the Ministry of Interior’s time-limited fee reductions made under it.
• Civil and Commercial Code sections 457 (who pays for a sale) and 538–541 and 569 (leases), and Revenue Code sections 50(5) and 52 (withholding on a sale of immovable property) with the stamp duty schedule.

Five kinds of foreigner, and the one that is open to you

Section 19 begins: a foreigner, or a juristic person the law treats as foreign, may hold ownership of a unit if it is one of the following. The list is closed. Each heading comes with its own evidence at the Land Office (section 19 ter) and its own list of events that force a sale (section 19 quinque), and those three columns are worth reading side by side.

Read down the first column and it becomes clear why the fifth line matters so much. Heading (1) is residence in the immigration-law sense — the Act ties it to the alien residence certificate, the document of permanent residence — not a retirement extension renewed every year. Heading (2) is for people admitted under the investment-promotion law. Headings (3) and (4) are companies. If none of those describes you, section 19(5) is the only door, and it is a door with no personal qualification at all: it asks nothing about your visa, your job or where you live. It asks where the money came from.

Two consequences follow from the third column, and neither appears in the usual summaries. A permanent resident who qualified under heading (1) can be forced to sell everything if that residence is revoked. A buyer who qualified under heading (5) has exactly one listed trigger that turns on their own status: being deported without leniency, after which they must notify the Land Office in writing within sixty days and dispose of every unit within one year, failing which the Director-General of the Department of Lands sells it for them. A visa expiring is not on the list. Leaving Thailand for good is not on the list.

The money route, read slowly

Section 19(5), in the wording given it by the Third Amendment of 1999, qualifies a foreigner “who brings foreign currency into the Kingdom, or withdraws money from the baht account of a person resident outside the country, or withdraws money from a foreign currency deposit account.” Section 19 ter(5) then says what must be shown at the Land Office: evidence of one of those three things “in an amount not less than the price of the unit to be purchased.”

Four practical rules fall straight out of that text.

1. The evidence has to cover the whole price

Not the deposit. Not the final instalment. The statutory measure is the price of the unit. If part of what you paid came from a Thai savings account that is not one of the three named sources, the evidence you can produce for the qualifying part will fall short of the price, and section 19 ter gives the officer nothing to register you with. Nothing in the section requires a single transfer; what it requires is evidence that adds up.

2. It has to exist on transfer day

Section 19 quater says the officer registers the transfer to a foreigner once the documents and evidence under section 19 ter have been received and checked, and the quota confirmed. There is no provision for producing the evidence afterwards. For an off-plan purchase paid in instalments during construction, that means every instalment is part of your eligibility file from the day you pay it.

3. An ordinary Thai savings account is not one of the routes

The three sources are closed: foreign currency brought in; a non-resident baht account, the account family the Bank of Thailand keeps for persons whose residence is outside the country (our guide to opening a Thai bank account explains where it sits); and a foreign currency deposit account. Salary paid into a resident baht account in Bangkok is none of the three.

4. The statute qualifies a person, not a sum of money

The subject of section 19(5) is the foreigner who brings the currency in. Read that with the Department of Lands’ evidence rule below, which requires the bank’s document to identify the person who made the transaction and to state its purpose, and the careful course is plain: the money should arrive in your name, and the document should say, in terms, that it is to buy this unit. Money sent years ago for something else, or sent by a relative in their own name, is precisely what an officer is entitled to query. That is our reading of how the two texts fit together, not a quotation from either.

The form everyone tells you to ask for no longer exists

English-language guides still tell buyers to ask their bank for an “FET form” — a Foreign Exchange Transaction form. In Thai that is baep kan tham thurakam ngoen tra tang prathet, and the Department of Lands’ own Regulation No. 3 of 2019 opens by recording that the Bank of Thailand, in its exchange-control reform, abolished it, replacing it with transaction evidence issued by the licensed institution itself. The regulation cites the exchange-control officer’s Notification No. 26 on the rules and procedures for exchange.

What the regulation then prescribes is specific. For foreign currency brought into the Kingdom from 13 October 2018 onwards, and separately for withdrawals from a foreign currency deposit account from the same date, the evidence is a document supporting a foreign-exchange transaction, issued by an institution licensed by the Bank of Thailand, which must contain:

1. information identifying the person who made the transaction;
2. the amount;
3. the exchange rate;
4. the date the transaction was accepted; and
5. details of the purpose of the transaction.

If your bank or agent still calls that document an “FET”, the label does not matter. The five contents do, and the fifth is the one that is lost most easily: a transfer described as “savings” or “family support” is a transfer whose stated purpose is not a condominium.

We read the 2019 amendment. We did not obtain the text of the 2004 regulation it amends or of its 2011 amendment, which means there are three things we cannot tell you: what the Land Office asks for where money arrived before 13 October 2018; what evidence it requires for the non-resident baht account route; and whether it asks where the balance in a foreign currency deposit account originally came from. The 2019 amendment is silent on all three.

The quota is floor area, frozen at registration

Section 19 bis, in its 2008 wording, caps foreign ownership in each condominium, all section 19 foreigners combined, at not more than 49 per cent of the area of all the units in the building, as at the application to register the condominium.

Two words in that sentence do most of the work. Area: the count is in square metres of unit, not in units, so the same building can be full after its penthouses are sold to foreigners and have room left after a run of studios. And as at the application to register: the denominator is fixed on the day the developer registered the building. It is the same baseline section 14 uses to divide the common property, which is why your share of the common charges and your contribution to the quota come from the same number on your title.

The Act then puts the counting on specific people. Under section 19 ter, on any transfer to a foreigner, the transferor — the seller, whether the developer or a private owner — must give the officer the list of section 19 foreigners already holding units and the proportion of area they hold. Under section 19 quater, the officer registers only if existing foreign holdings plus yours stay within the cap. The practical question to ask a seller before you pay anything is therefore not “is there foreign quota?” but “how many square metres of this building are in foreign ownership, against what total?”

“Foreign freehold” is a sales term; the Act never uses it. What the Act regulates is holding ownership of a unit. That is also why the quota does not count tenants: a foreigner renting a unit, or holding a registered lease of one, does not hold ownership and does not use quota. See our guide to checking a condo lease before you sign for that side of the market.

What you do not need, and what you must not do

Nothing in section 19(5) requires a visa, a work permit, a yellow house book or an address in Thailand. A buyer who has never lived here qualifies on the same terms as one who has lived here for twenty years, because the test is the money, not the person.

What you must not do is solve an eligibility problem by putting the unit in somebody else’s name. Section 67 makes it an offence for any person to hold ownership of a unit as owner on behalf of a foreigner — whether or not the foreigner would have been entitled to own it — punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to 20,000 baht, or both. The same section applies the forced-sale machinery of section 19 quinque, so the Director-General may sell the unit. The words about entitlement matter: a nominee arrangement is an offence even where the foreigner could have bought in their own name.

The disposal clocks are enforced by a smaller penalty of their own. Section 66 fines a foreigner who fails to give the written notices the Act requires — on inheriting, on losing Thai nationality, on a forced-sale event — up to 10,000 baht, plus up to 500 baht a day while the failure continues.

Buying off-plan: three documents, three rulebooks

An off-plan purchase passes through three documents, and each is governed by a different instrument. Buyers tend to read only the one the sales office hands them.

The reservation

Since early 2025, a business selling condominium units with a reservation has been running a contract-controlled business. The Contract Committee’s 2024 notification defines the reservation as a contract under which the consumer pays reservation money, or a similar benefit, that is not a deposit or a down payment, as assurance of entering into an agreement to sell later. It covers reservations made online, and it extends its rules to sales made through a digital platform acting as intermediary. The contract must be in Thai, in letters at least two millimetres high, on terms matching the annexed standard form, and the consumer must be handed a signed copy on the spot.

The notification forbids eight kinds of term outright, among them any clause letting the business keep money unless the consumer is in breach, any clause re-labelling the reservation money as a deposit or down payment, any charge for transferring the reservation to someone else, and any clause giving the business the right to use the common property. The standard form then sets out when each side may walk away:

A refund owed under the form is due within 15 days of termination where you paid in cash, by transfer or by cheque, and within 45 days where you paid by credit card, less the card charge.

The agreement to sell

The second document is the agreement to sell, and it is governed by the Condominium Act itself. Section 6/2, added in 2008, requires any agreement to sell or sale contract between the developer and a buyer to follow the form prescribed by the Minister of Interior, and provides that any part of it which departs from that form and is not favourable to the buyer has no effect. A developer breaching the requirement faces a fine of up to 100,000 baht under section 63.

Section 6/1 adds a rule that is worth more than most negotiating: the developer’s advertising and brochures are deemed to form part of the contract, and where they conflict with the contract’s wording, the conflict is read in the buyer’s favour. The developer must keep copies of its advertising until every unit is sold and lodge a set with the building’s juristic person. Keep your own copies of the brochure, the floor plan and the specification sheet as they stood on the day you reserved.

Both sections bind the developer — “the owner of the land and building under section 6” — and not a private owner reselling a unit. We did not obtain the Minister’s prescribed form itself, so we cannot tell you what it says about area tolerances, completion dates or defects.

The transfer

The third document is the one that makes you an owner, and it cannot be registered early. Section 20 forbids registering transactions over a unit, with narrow exceptions, until the building’s juristic person is registered, and section 31 has the first transfer of each unit filed together with the application to register that juristic person. Until then you hold a contract, not a title.

Transfer day: what is charged, and whose it is

The Land Office collects everything on the day of registration, which is why buyers tend to think of it as one bill. It is several, and the law assigns them differently.

Three things in that table are routinely misstated.

The fee cut does not apply to you. Two Ministry of Interior announcements dated 30 June 2026 reduced the transfer fee from 2 per cent to 0.01 per cent, and the mortgage fee from 1 per cent to 0.01 per cent where the mortgage is registered at the same time, for the period 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, on units whose sale price and appraised value are both not more than 7 million baht. The Department of Lands’ own announcements of the measure describe the beneficiaries as natural persons of Thai nationality. The 0.01 per cent line has existed in the fee regulation since 2010, but only for reductions the Cabinet decides, on criteria the Cabinet sets — and this round’s criteria exclude foreign buyers. Advertising that quotes a “0.01% transfer fee” without that qualification is describing a Thai buyer’s bill.

The split is a default, not a custom. Section 457 of the Civil and Commercial Code says the costs of making a sale contract are borne by buyer and seller equally. A developer contract that puts the whole transfer fee on you is a contract departing from the default, and the departure is part of the price.

The taxes are the seller’s. Stamp duty on the receipt is owed by the person who issues the receipt. Specific business tax is a tax on the seller’s business. And the withholding tax, although the Revenue Code makes the payer withhold it and section 52 forbids the officer to register until it has been handed over in full, is income tax on the seller’s proceeds. A contract that makes the buyer bear any of them on top of the price is simply a higher price, and worth pricing as one. We have deliberately not printed the specific business tax rate or the withholding calculation; both depend on the seller’s circumstances, and the seller’s adviser should be computing them.

One adjacent point, because the two rules never mention each other: sending money into Thailand is also the event that can make foreign income taxable for a Thai tax resident. Whether any of your purchase money is taxable is a separate question, answered in our guide to tax residence and the money you bring in.

After the keys: what the building can charge you

Ownership of a unit comes with ownership of a share of the common property, and the Act fixes how that share is calculated and what it costs.

• Your share is area-based. Section 14 sets each unit’s share of the common property as its area over the area of all units at registration. Section 18 then divides the building’s taxes by that ratio, and its common expenses by that ratio or by the benefit to each unit, as the registered by-laws provide.
• The developer pays for what it has not sold. Section 18’s third paragraph makes the developer a co-owner of every unit not yet transferred, liable for its share of the charges. Unsold stock is not a cost the early buyers carry.
• “Sinking fund” is not a statutory term. Section 40 lets the juristic person collect advance payments of its expenses, capital on commencing an activity under the by-laws or a general-meeting resolution, and other money under general-meeting resolutions. The lump sum you are asked for on transfer is one of those, and its amount comes from the by-laws, not from the Act.
• Arrears are expensive and specific. Late charges run at up to 12 per cent a year, simple; at six months or more in arrears, up to 20 per cent, with possible suspension of common services and loss of your vote at general meetings (section 18/1).
• The building ranks ahead of a lender. Section 41 gives the juristic person a preferential right over your unit for common charges, and once the manager has lodged the debt with the Land Office it ranks ahead of a mortgage.
• You will need the building to sell. Section 29 lets the officer register a transfer only once the unit is clear of common charges and a current debt-free certificate is produced; the manager must issue it within 15 days of your request once you have paid in full.

Our guide to moving in and out of a condo covers what the juristic person can and cannot do on the day the lorry arrives.

Leasehold: what thirty years actually means

If the quota is full, or the money route is not available to you, the alternative is to lease rather than own — and the Civil and Commercial Code is short and unsentimental about leases of immovable property.

• Thirty years is the ceiling. Section 540: immovable property may not be let for more than thirty years, and a longer term is reduced to thirty.
• Renewal happens at the end, not at the start. The second paragraph of section 540 allows the lease to be renewed when the term has ended, for not more than thirty years from the renewal. A contract signed today for “30 + 30 + 30” is one thirty-year lease and two promises to grant further leases later.
• Registration or three years. Section 538: a lease of more than three years, or for the life of either party, that is not made in writing and registered is enforceable for three years only. A lease for life is expressly allowed by section 541.
• A sale of the unit does not end the lease. Section 569: the buyer of leased property takes over the landlord’s rights and duties towards the tenant.
• The fee is on the rent. Registering a lease of a unit costs 1 per cent of the rent for the whole term plus any key money; a lease for life is counted as thirty years for the fee.

What the Code’s text does not answer is whether a promise to renew binds somebody who later buys or inherits the unit, or what becomes of a lease when the tenant dies. Thai courts have decided both questions in individual cases; we have not read those decisions, and any leasehold priced on its renewal promises should be looked at by a lawyer with them in hand.

The 75 per cent quota is a plan, not a law

In June 2024 the government announced that it would amend the law to let foreigners hold 75 per cent of a condominium instead of 49, and lease land for 99 years; the then Prime Minister said, as reported by the government’s Public Relations Department, that the share above 49 per cent would carry no voting rights. The idea has been repeated since, and a good deal of property marketing treats it as settled.

It is not. We found no amending Act in the Royal Gazette, and the compilation of the Condominium Act currently posted by the Department of Lands still ends at the Fourth Amendment of 2008. Until an amending Act is published in the Gazette, the quota is 49 per cent of floor area, and a unit sold to you “above quota” on the strength of a future amendment cannot be registered in your name today.

When the owner dies

The Condominium Act has its own rules for foreigners who inherit a unit, and they are stricter than most owners assume: a foreign heir who is not in one of the five section 19 categories must notify the authorities within sixty days and sell within a year, and even a qualifying heir must shed units that take the building over its quota. Our guide to making a will and inheriting in Thailand sets those rules out alongside the rest of Thai succession law.