Renting a villa in Phuket for a year: how a long let works

In six steps. Set your brief: shore, bedrooms, dates, budget, pets and who comes with you. Get a shortlist of homes that are actually free for your dates. View them, in person if you can or by live video if you cannot. Put every term in a written contract, in a language you read, before money moves. Pay the deposit and rent as the contract sets out, against receipts. At handover, sign an inventory with photographs and make sure the owner has filed your TM30 with immigration within 24 hours, which Section 38 of the Immigration Act requires. A one-year lease needs no Land Office registration; that applies only to leases over three years.

Whatever the owner asks for that home, which is why we show real homes rather than an average. A villa's rent depends on its shore, size, pool, whether pool care, garden and cleaning are included, and how the electricity is billed, so an island-wide figure describes no villa anyone can actually rent. Our guide lists every Phuket home we hold for a long let at its owner's asking rent, with its shortest term. On 1 October 2026 we held none with a published rent; tell us your dates, bedrooms and shore and we will come back with homes that are free and their rents in writing.

No. A licence is needed for hotel business, and the Hotel Act B.E. 2547 excludes from its definition of a hotel any accommodation let only by the month or longer (Section 4). A twelve-month residential lease is an ordinary tenancy between you and the owner. The licence question arises only when a home is let by the night or the week, which is hotel business under Sections 4 and 15 and carries the penalties in Section 59 when done without one.

The TM30 is the immigration form that reports where a foreigner on a temporary stay is living. Section 38 of the Immigration Act places the duty on the house master, owner or possessor of the residence, who must notify the immigration office within 24 hours of the foreigner's arrival; in Phuket that is the immigration office on the island. It is the owner's obligation, but you are the one asked for the receipt when you extend a visa or report your address, so make the filed TM30 part of the handover.

Only if the lease allows it. Section 544 of the Civil and Commercial Code says a tenant cannot sublet or transfer the lease to a third person unless the contract provides otherwise. Letting the villa on by the night would also be hotel business under the Hotel Act and need a licence. If there is any chance you will want to sublet, or to have someone else take over the lease if you leave early, have that written into the contract before you sign.