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Property tax in Thailand is not a single payment but several: some are paid once at the time of sale, others every year the property remains in the buyer's name. A foreign buyer pays exactly the same rates as a Thai buyer — the law does not set a higher tariff for non-residents. Before working through the figures below, it is worth reading the complete foreigner's guide to buying property in Thailand, which brings together the transfer fee, closing costs and the position of a foreign buyer in the context of the whole transaction. Thailand property taxes for foreigners and the closing costs Thailand property buyers actually see on transfer day are covered in detail below, tax by tax, with a worked example on a specific price.
Contents
Property taxes and fees when buying in Thailand
Buying property in Thailand involves the following payments:
- A transfer fee — 2%, payable on every sale.
- Specific Business Tax of 3.3% OR stamp duty of 0.5% — an either-or choice, never both.
- Withholding tax — payable by the seller, at a rate that depends on how long they owned the property and their legal status.
All of these are calculated on the appraised value set by the Land Office, not the price stated in the contract, wherever the two figures differ. Together, they make up most of the cost of buying property in Thailand beyond the purchase price itself.
The appraised value itself is not set by the Land Office but by a separate body — the Treasury Department, working alongside the local Land Office: the Treasury values the land, the Land Office values the building and any improvements on it. The schedule is revised every four years, so the appraised value almost always differs from the market price, usually on the low side — this is a feature of the system, not an error worth disputing.
Some of these costs only arise later in the process, at the point of transfer rather than at signing. Where these costs fall in the buying process is set out in detail alongside the reservation deposit and the Land Office procedure itself: the fees are paid on transfer day, not before.
Property in Thailand
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Origin Property
Sunny HoldingTransfer fee of 2% on the appraised value
The Thailand property transfer fee is 2% of the appraised value and is paid when the sale is registered at the Land Office. The rate is fixed and does not depend on the type of property — a condominium, a leasehold villa and land are all charged the same way.
Unlike Specific Business Tax and stamp duty, this fee is worked out strictly from the appraised value, not from whichever figure is higher: even where the contract price is well above the Treasury Department's valuation, the transfer fee is still calculated on the official appraisal, not the sale price.
Transfer fee 2 percent Thailand is usually split equally between buyer and seller, but that is a matter of contract, not law: the parties are free to agree any other split, including having one side pay the whole amount. It is worth confirming the final split at the point the sale and purchase agreement is signed, not on transfer day itself.
A temporary discount of 0.01% on homes under 7 million baht applied in 2025-2026, but only on sales between Thai nationals. It does not apply where the buyer is a foreigner, so the standard 2% rate still applies in full. This is a separate charge from the leasehold registration fee Thailand: the 2% rate applies only where ownership itself changes hands (freehold); registering a long-term lease instead is charged at a different rate — 1.1% of the total rent for the full term, or of the appraised value of the right, whichever is higher.
Specific Business Tax of 3.3%
Specific Business Tax Thailand property applies where the seller has owned the property for less than five years. The rate is 3.3% of whichever is higher, the appraised value or the contract price. The seller pays it, though in practice it tends to be built into the asking price, so it indirectly affects the buyer too.
The rate is not a round number by accident: it is made up of a base tax of 3% plus a municipal surcharge of 10% of that tax, giving 3% + 0.3% = 3.3%. That breakdown matters if a contract or a developer's costing only quotes "3%" — that figure is only part of the full rate.
Where the seller has owned the property for five years or more, stamp duty applies instead of Specific Business Tax — the two are mutually exclusive and are never added together. The length of ownership for this purpose is measured from the date registered at the Land Office, not from the date the seller actually moved in.
Stamp duty of 0.5%
Stamp duty is 0.5% of the appraised value or the contract price, whichever is higher. It applies instead of Specific Business Tax where the seller has owned the property for five years or more — in other words, on most resale deals where the seller has held the property for some time rather than having recently bought it themselves. That is also why an established resale property tends to come with lower combined fees than one that has just changed hands, with a gap of 2.8 percentage points between the two rates that is noticeable even on a mid-range property.
Stamp duty Thailand property is also paid by the seller, though in practice the parties often agree that the buyer covers part of it, in the same way as with the transfer fee. The final split is always fixed in the sale and purchase agreement in advance, not worked out on the day of registration.
Withholding tax on the seller
Withholding tax Thailand property sale is worked out differently for an individual seller and a corporate one. For a company, the rate is a flat 1% of whichever is higher, the appraised value or the sale price — the simplest calculation of the three, and the one that applies if the property was originally bought through a Thai company and that same company is now the one selling.
For an individual seller, the calculation is more involved and runs in three steps:
- A deduction is taken off the appraised value, on the scale below, based on how long the property has been owned.
- The remainder is divided by the number of years of ownership to arrive at a notional annual income figure.
- Progressive personal income tax, from 5% to 35%, is applied to that annual figure, and the result is then multiplied back by the number of years owned.
| Years owned | Deduction from appraised value |
|---|---|
| 1 year | 92% |
| 2 years | 84% |
| 3 years | 77% |
| 4 years | 71% |
| 5 years | 65% |
| 6 years | 60% |
| 7 years | 55% |
| 8 years or more | 50% |
The first year of ownership for this calculation runs from the purchase date to the end of the tax year, rather than as a full 12 months, so the actual holding period and the "year" used for the deduction can be a few weeks apart.
The longer a seller has owned a property, the higher the deduction and the lower the resulting withholding tax — the exact opposite of the logic behind Specific Business Tax, where a longer holding period instead switches the seller onto the lower stamp duty rate. There is no separate Thailand property capital gains tax as a stand-alone charge: economically, any gain in value is taxed through this same withholding mechanism, built into the general personal income tax formula.
All of these payments are made on transfer day by cashier's cheque made out to the Land Office, not in cash and not by card. It is worth having the cheque prepared for the exact calculated amount in advance — on the day itself, the figure can only be confirmed, not recalculated, if the office is close to finishing payments for the day.
Who pays what: buyer vs seller
Who pays transfer fee Thailand is a question settled by contract rather than by law: the 2% fee is conventionally split equally, but most of the remaining charges fall on the seller by default.
| Payment | Who pays by law | How it is split in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Transfer fee (2%) | Not fixed by law | Usually 50/50 by agreement |
| Specific Business Tax (3.3%) | Seller | Sometimes built into the price |
| Stamp duty (0.5%) | Seller | Sometimes partly passed to the buyer |
| Withholding tax | Seller | Almost always stays with the seller |
Hidden costs buying property Thailand most often arise from exactly this gap between "by law" and "in practice": if the contract does not spell out who pays what, the seller and their agent will default to whichever split suits them, and the buyer only finds out at the point of transfer.
It is worth asking for each payment to be confirmed in writing as early as the reservation-deposit stage, rather than at the point the main contract is signed: renegotiating terms once money has changed hands and the property is off the market is considerably harder, since the buyer's negotiating position is weaker by then.
Example: closing costs on a 5 million THB condo
How much tax buying condo Thailand is easiest to show on a specific figure. Take a condominium with an appraised value of 5,000,000 baht (around $150,000), where the seller has owned it for three years.
- Transfer fee (2%) — 100,000 baht, usually 50,000 baht from each side.
- Specific Business Tax (3.3%, since the seller has owned it for under five years) — 165,000 baht, paid by the seller.
- Withholding tax — a 77% deduction for three years of ownership leaves 1,150,000 baht, split across three years (383,333 baht each), taxed on the progressive scale: roughly 15,800 baht a year, or about 47,500 baht across all three years. Paid by the seller.
- A one-off sinking-fund contribution on a 50 sqm unit — 25,000 to 50,000 baht, paid by the buyer.
- A monthly common-area fee on the same unit — 1,500 to 4,000 baht, starting immediately after transfer.
The buyer's share in this example usually comes to 50,000-70,000 baht on top of the purchase price, before legal fees and the bank transfer. The seller, in the same example, ends up paying around 212,500 baht — Specific Business Tax and withholding tax combined.
Any Thailand property tax calculator online works from the same formula — appraised value, the seller's length of ownership, and how the fees are split by contract. The difference between calculators usually is not the maths but which appraised value they default to: the current figure for the specific building, or an averaged figure for the district. Entering the exact appraised value for the property in question, rather than trusting a calculator's default, is the only way to get a precise figure rather than a rough one. Current apartments in Thailand listings for a first-hand figure to plug into the calculation are worth a look before running the numbers.
Annual land and building tax
Land and building tax Thailand was introduced under its own act and replaced the previous system of local taxes. The annual property tax Thailand depends on how the property is used and its appraised value.
The tax-free threshold depends on the type of property and whether it is registered as the owner's main home:
| Type of property | Tax-free threshold | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| A house with land | Up to 50 million baht | Registered as the owner's main home |
| A condominium | Up to 10 million baht | Registered as the owner's main home |
| Any property not used as a main home | None — taxed from the first baht | Second home, investment or rental property |
For a property not registered as a main home — the usual case for a foreign investor letting out a condo or holding a second property — tax applies from the first baht, at rates of roughly 0.02% to 0.1% depending on the value of the property.
On the same 5,000,000-baht condominium, not registered as a main home, the annual tax at the lower end of the scale comes to roughly 1,000-1,500 baht a year — a small figure next to the one-off fees on purchase, but one that is due every year the property is owned, with penalties for missing payment. From 2026, Thailand is applying the tax at its full statutory rate, with none of the pandemic-era discounts of previous years, so that relief should no longer be factored into a budget.
Payment generally falls in the first half of the year: local authorities send out assessment notices, and the deadline for the 2026 tax year has been pushed back to June, having previously fallen in April. The notice is sent to the property's address or the owner's registered address, so a foreign owner who does not live in Thailand full time should arrange with a managing agent or lawyer to track these deadlines. For a house or villa with land, where the tax-free threshold is higher than for a condominium, the difference is particularly noticeable — current listings in that segment can be found in the villas and houses in Thailand section.
Condo maintenance fees and the sinking fund
Thailand condo maintenance fees and the sinking fund Thailand condo are two different charges that are often confused:
| Common-area fee (CAM) | Sinking fund | |
|---|---|---|
| Frequency | Monthly | One-off, at purchase |
| Range | 30-80 baht/sqm per month | 500-1,000 baht/sqm one-off |
| Purpose | Day-to-day upkeep of shared areas | Major repairs in future |
In a building with a pool, a gym, security and a concierge, both figures tend to sit near the top of the range; in a simpler building with fewer shared facilities, they sit near the bottom. Both charges are set by the building's management company rather than by law, so the variation between buildings is considerable. Both figures are usually already stated on the property listing in the condominiums in Thailand section, which makes it easy to budget in advance.
Tax when you rent out or sell the property
Rental income tax Thailand property is paid by the owner as an individual, on the progressive personal income tax scale, regardless of nationality or residency status. A standard allowance of 30% of gross rental income is deducted first, with no supporting documents required, and the progressive rates of 5% to 35% then apply to what remains. Actual expenses can be claimed instead of the standard allowance if they are higher, but supporting documents are then required.
Where the tenant is a company rather than a private individual, it must withhold 5% of the rental payment and remit it to the Revenue Department on the owner's behalf; that amount is then credited against the owner's tax bill for the year, rather than being paid on top of it.
Filing an annual return requires the foreign owner to hold a Thai tax number, obtained from the local Revenue Department office covering the property, usually on production of a passport and the property documents. Without that number, a return will not be accepted, even where tax has already effectively been withheld by a corporate tenant.
Every rule covered above applies again when the same property is later sold, including withholding tax based on the actual period of ownership. It pays to plan letting and any future sale together, since the ownership structure affects the tax position in both cases, not just the underlying ownership rights.
Rental income and a one-off sale are declared separately and at different times: rental income annually, at the end of the calendar year; a sale at the point of the transaction itself, through withholding tax deducted directly at the Land Office. The two should not be confused: paying withholding tax on a sale does not remove the obligation to have declared rental income for the years the property was let. How taxes differ by ownership structure — a freehold condominium, a leasehold and ownership through a Thai company are all taxed differently specifically around registration and running costs, rather than the headline tax rates themselves — is covered in full in the article on ownership structures.
Current listings for any type of property can be browsed in the property in Thailand catalogue, with a filter by city and property type to narrow the search before working through the costs above.
Frequently asked questions
The law does not fix the split — 2% is usually shared equally by agreement between the parties, set out in the sale and purchase agreement.
For the buyer, typically 50,000-70,000 baht on a property worth around 5 million baht, excluding legal fees — the exact figure depends on how the fees are split by contract.
Yes, under the land and building tax act. A tax-free threshold applies to a main home; an investment property is taxed from the first baht.
No, the rates are identical for foreigners and Thai nationals — any difference comes from the ownership structure chosen, not from nationality.
For an individual, by a deduction based on length of ownership followed by the progressive 5-35% scale. For a company, a flat 1% of whichever is higher, the appraised value or the sale price.
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