Buying a villa in Phuket as a foreigner
Updated · ZODIAC Co., Ltd.
A foreigner cannot own the land under a Phuket villa, but can lawfully hold it under a registered lease of up to 30 years and own the house itself, often backed by a registered right of superficies. Structures that put the land in a Thai company with nominal Thai shareholders are nominee arrangements and are illegal. The sound approach is a registered lease plus building ownership, priced as a 30-year asset.
The legal starting point
Thailand's Land Code reserves land ownership for Thai nationals and Thai companies, while a foreigner can own a building. A villa is land plus a building, so a foreign buyer needs two things: a lawful right to occupy the land and a lawful claim to the house. The market has settled on a standard toolkit for this, and a well-drafted villa purchase in Phuket uses some combination of the following rights, each registered at the Land Office.
- A registered land lease of up to 30 years, the maximum under Section 540 of the Civil and Commercial Code.
- Ownership of the house, either through a building permit in your name for new construction or a registered transfer of an existing building.
- A registered right of superficies, allowing you to own structures on the landowner's land for up to 30 years or for a lifetime.
- Sometimes a usufruct, giving a right to use and take income from the property, more common between family members.
How developers usually structure villa sales
Most Phuket villa developers keep the land in a Thai company or with a Thai landowner and grant each buyer a 30-year registered lease of the plot. The house is either transferred to the buyer as a building or built under a permit in the buyer's name, and many developers add a superficies over the plot. Service charges for the estate's roads, security and common areas are then governed by a separate management agreement.
Contracts often promise two further 30-year renewals. Following Supreme Court judgment No. 4655/2566 in March 2025, pre-agreed renewals that are meant to take a lease beyond 30 years are unenforceable. A developer may still offer a new lease at the end of the term, but you cannot rely on it, so price the purchase as 30 years of use.
Why nominee structures are illegal
The older workaround was a Thai limited company in which the foreign buyer held 49% and Thai shareholders held 51% without contributing any real money, often with preference shares or signed share transfer forms to give the foreigner control. That is a nominee arrangement. The Land Code penalises a foreigner who acquires land this way and anyone who acts as their nominee with up to two years' imprisonment and fines, and the land can be ordered sold. Where the company also breaches the Foreign Business Act, the nominee offence carries up to three years' imprisonment and fines of up to THB 1 million.
Enforcement is not theoretical. Land Offices ask Thai shareholders about the source of their investment, and the Department of Special Investigation has brought nominee cases. A company that exists only to hold your house is also exposed to annual accounting and tax obligations and to problems when you try to sell or pass it on. A lawful Thai company with genuine Thai partners running a real business is different, but it is not a home-ownership structure.
What to check before you pay a deposit
Villa due diligence is more involved than condominium due diligence because land and building rights are separate. Your own lawyer, not the developer's, should check at least the following.
- Land title: a full title deed (Chanote, Nor Sor 4 Jor) is the strongest; weaker documents such as Nor Sor 3 Gor carry more risk. Check the boundaries and survey.
- Owner and encumbrances: who owns the land, whether it is mortgaged to a bank, and whether other leases or rights are already registered.
- Zoning and permits: whether the land use allows residential villas and whether the building permit covers what is being sold, including pools and extra floors.
- Access: legal road access registered as a servitude or public road, not only a track across someone else's land.
- Utilities: electricity, water and drainage connections and who pays for them.
- Company status: whether the landowning company is active, filing accounts and genuinely owned by its registered Thai shareholders.
The contract package
A typical off-plan villa purchase involves several documents: a reservation agreement, a construction or sale agreement for the house, a lease agreement for the land, a superficies agreement and a management or services agreement. Make sure they are consistent with each other, that the lease states it will be registered for the full 30 years, and that the lease allows assignment and passes to heirs. Payment schedules should be tied to verifiable construction stages, and the contract should say what happens to your money if the permit is refused or construction stops.
Costs at registration
Registering a lease costs 1% of the total rent for the whole term plus 0.1% stamp duty. If the villa is structured as a building transfer, the building is subject to the normal transfer charges on its appraised value. Superficies registration has its own fee schedule. The contract should say who pays each item. Annual land and building tax is levied on the owner of the land and building; your lease should state whether you reimburse the landowner's share.
Resale and succession
Leasehold villas resell as assignments of the remaining lease plus a transfer of the building. That works when the lease allows assignment without unreasonable consent requirements or fees. A buyer in year ten acquires only 20 years, so values tend to reflect the remaining term. For succession, the lease should expressly pass to your heirs; otherwise a lease is treated as personal to the lessee. A Thai will covering the lease and the building is advisable.
When you buy a resale villa, the same logic applies in reverse. Check how many years remain on the registered lease, whether the lessor has consented to assignment, whether the building permit and any extensions are legal, and whether the estate's service charges are paid up. A resale with 22 years remaining is a different asset from a new 30-year lease, and the price should reflect that.
Villa prices in our Phuket catalogue
Our catalogue lists 90 villa projects in Phuket. Among the 89 with a published starting price, the median starting price is about THB 29.9 million, with half of projects starting between roughly THB 22.5 million and THB 49.5 million. Eighteen projects start below THB 20 million and 22 start at THB 50 million or more. By status, 59 are under construction, 16 are completed, 12 are in pre-sale and 3 are partly completed. Prices per square metre of built area are higher closer to the sea: villa projects within 1 km of a beach have a median of about THB 150,000 per square metre, against about THB 74,000 for projects more than 3 km inland.
Bang Tao and Cherng Talay account for 58 of these villa projects, followed by Layan with 10. These figures describe the projects we list, not the whole Phuket market, and starting prices refer to the smallest or cheapest unit type.