Leasehold or freehold in Phuket: what a foreigner actually owns

The Condominium Act B.E. 2522 is the only Thai statute that lets a foreigner hold immovable property outright, and it does so for one format, the condominium unit. Section 19 lists who qualifies, and the common route is Section 19(5): a foreigner who has brought foreign currency into the Kingdom to pay for the unit. Section 19 bis then caps what all foreign owners together may hold in one building at 49 per cent of the space of all its units. Inside that share a unit is yours: your name on the title deed, registered at the Land Department, saleable and inheritable as property.

Everything else on the island is land, and a foreigner cannot own land. A villa, a townhome on its own plot, and the plot under a resort estate are all offered to a foreign buyer as a lease of that land, registered at the Land Department. A condominium whose 49 per cent is already allocated falls into the same lane: the freehold route is closed until a foreign owner sells to a Thai buyer, so what remains is a lease of the unit. A resort address does not change the count. A lease is a real right for its registered term, and the term is capped by Section 540 of the Civil and Commercial Code at 30 years.

The fourth case is the one most often blurred. Section 540 permits a renewal, but only by an agreement made at the time, for up to 30 years from then. A promise given today to grant that renewal is a contract between the parties who sign it. It is not a second registered term, and nothing at the Land Department records it as one.

Two sections of the Civil and Commercial Code do the work. Section 538 says a lease of immovable property for more than three years is enforceable beyond three years only if it is made in writing and registered by the competent official, which on Phuket means the Land Department. Section 540 says the duration cannot exceed 30 years, cuts any longer term back to 30, and allows a renewal that must not exceed 30 years from the time of the renewal. Those two together are the whole of what a registered lease gives you: up to 30 years, protected because it is on the register.

The register also protects the term against a change of landlord. Section 569 says a lease of immovable property is not extinguished by a transfer of ownership of the property, so if the land is sold in year twelve, your registered term runs on. What the register does not carry is the promise to renew. That is a clause in a contract, and what it is worth depends on the drafting, on who exactly is bound by it, and on whether the person bound still owns the land in year 30. Have Thai counsel read the clause with those three questions in front of them, and price the home on the registered term.

Section 19 bis of the Condominium Act says that in each condominium the foreigners and foreign-controlled companies listed in Section 19 may together hold not more than 49 per cent of the space of the whole of the units at the time the condominium was registered. Three things follow. It is measured on space, so a 400 square metre penthouse uses more of the quota than a 45 square metre studio. It is measured per building, so a sold-out quota in one tower says nothing about the tower beside it. And it is a ceiling, not a target: a building where every unit was sold to a Thai buyer has used none of it.

The share is finite and it moves. On a building that sells mostly to foreign buyers it can be allocated well before completion, and the brochure will not say so. Before you reserve, ask the developer for the quota position in writing: how much of the 49 per cent is allocated, how much is unallocated, and whether the unit you are being shown is inside it. Section 19 ter requires the transferor to declare the proportion of space already held by foreigners at each transfer, so the number exists and can be given to you.

Raising the cap has been discussed in public. The Bangkok Post reported on 21 June 2024 that the government would study lifting the foreign share in condominiums from 49 to 75 per cent and lengthening leases. It had not become law when this was written, and the Act still reads 49.

The rule sits in the Act, not in bank custom. The common route to foreign freehold is Section 19(5), a foreigner who has brought foreign currency into the Kingdom, and Section 19 ter requires that person to present the evidence to the competent official when the unit is transferred. The evidence is the receiving Thai bank’s record that foreign currency arrived from abroad in your name and was converted here: the Foreign Exchange Transaction form, the FET form, on a qualifying transfer, or a credit advice or confirmation letter for a smaller sum. Which one the bank will issue depends on the amount and on the bank, so ask before you send, and ask for the transfer to carry the unit number and the word purchase. The Land Department asks for it at transfer.

A registered lease has no such rule in the Condominium Act, because it is not a transfer of a unit under that Act. Keep the same records anyway. They are what a future buyer, a bank, or a tax adviser will ask for, and they cost nothing to keep on the day.

Angsana Oceanview Residences is the register’s one completed Banyan condominium, 33 residences in three buildings inside Laguna Phuket. Its record does not print a tenure for the building. It says tenure is confirmed per residence at resale, because what a buyer can hold now depends on how the specific unit was first sold and what has happened since, and it asks the buyer to establish the title, whether the residence sits inside the 49 per cent foreign freehold quota, the owner-benefit terms, the fees and the rental agreement before agreeing a price.

Lakelands Waterfront Villas is villa and land product, and its record says so plainly: ordinarily offered to foreign buyers on a registered lease rather than freehold, because Thai law restricts foreign land ownership, with the structure, the term and the renewal mechanics not stated in Banyan Group’s Property Development Overview of 5 February 2026. Banyan Tree Grand Residences, nineteen pool villas on the same estate, carries the same note: the exact term and renewal mechanics are being confirmed against the developer’s documentation, and until then any figure quoted verbally is unverified.

The exception is Banyan Tree Beach Residences Oceanus, where the developer’s own page of September 2026 offers a choice: freehold within the 49 per cent quota, or a 30-year registered lease with two further 30-year options. The record reads the second route exactly as this article does, thirty years plus a promise. The plain conclusion across the register is that most Banyan projects have not confirmed their tenure to us yet, and a buyer should treat that as the first thing to settle, not the last. The two short answers that sit behind this piece, whether foreigners can buy property in Phuket and whether Laguna Phuket is freehold or leasehold, say the same thing in fewer words.

1. Which route this unit is sold on, and under which section of which Act.
2. For a condominium: how much of the 49 per cent is allocated, how much is unallocated, and whether this unit is inside it.
3. For a lease: the registered term, its start date, and the exact wording of any renewal clause, with who is bound by it.
4. What part of the price is for years beyond the registered term.
5. What document the bank will issue for the inward transfer, and what the Land Department will accept.