Selling Property in Phuket as a Foreigner: Taxes, Fees, and Getting Your Money Home

Selling property in Phuket as a foreigner comes down to a few payments on the day of the sale and one banking step after it. At registration at the Land Department, the seller pays withholding tax, either Specific Business Tax or stamp duty, and a transfer fee that buyer and seller usually share. The proceeds then leave Thailand through a Thai bank, and for that you will need the records of how your money came into the country when you bought.

How the Land Department calculates what you owe

Every tax and fee on the sale is calculated and collected at the Land Department on the day of registration. The office collects the tax part on behalf of the Revenue Department, so the seller does not need a separate trip to the tax office.

The calculation starts from the government appraised value, the official valuation of the property set by the state. It can differ noticeably from the price in your contract. The transfer fee and an individual seller's withholding tax are calculated on the appraised value, whatever the sale price. Specific Business Tax and stamp duty are calculated on whichever is higher: the appraised value or the contract price.

Phuket property tax rates on a freehold sale are:

transfer fee: 2% of the appraised value;
Specific Business Tax: 3.3% if the property has been yours for less than five years;
stamp duty: 0.5% where Specific Business Tax does not apply;
withholding tax: a progressive scale for individuals, 1% for companies.

There is no separate capital gains tax in Thailand: these are the only payments the seller makes.

The sale and purchase agreement sets out who pays which charge.

Specific Business Tax or stamp duty

How long you have owned the property decides which of the two you pay. Under Revenue Department rules, a sale within five years of acquisition is treated as a sale for profit and attracts Specific Business Tax: 3% tax plus a 10% local surcharge on it, 3.3% in total. If the property has been yours for five years or more, stamp duty of 0.5% applies instead. The two are never charged together.

There is a second case where stamp duty replaces Specific Business Tax, and it matters to owners who live in their condo or house. Royal Decree No. 342 exempts a seller whose name has been in the property's house registration (tabien baan) for at least one year from the date of acquisition. The decree draws no line by nationality. A foreigner needs the yellow house registration book (Tor Ror 13), which the district office issues to a foreigner who lives at the address on a long-stay visa. A sale after that first year then carries stamp duty at 0.5% instead of 3.3%.

The five years run from the date ownership was registered in your name. For off-plan buyers that is the registration after completion, not the date of the developer contract, and the gap can be a couple of years.

Type	Specific Business Tax	Stamp duty
When it applies	Owned for less than five years and your name has not been in the house registration for a year; on a sale by a company, as a rule regardless of the holding period	Owned for five years or more, or your name has been in the house registration for at least a year
Rate	3.3%	0.5%
Base	Whichever is higher: appraised value or contract price	Whichever is higher: appraised value or contract price
Where it is paid	Land Department, on the day of registration	Land Department, on the day of registration

That is why Specific Business Tax in Phuket is worth factoring in when you decide when to sell: on an expensive property the gap between 3.3% and 0.5% runs to hundreds of thousands of baht.

How withholding tax is calculated: formula and example

Withholding tax is the seller's income tax on the proceeds of the sale, deducted at the Land Department on the day of registration. For an individual seller it is calculated from the appraised value by formula; neither what you originally paid nor the contract price enters the calculation. The formula works like this:

A standard expense deduction is taken off the appraised value. It depends on the holding period and is set by Royal Decree No. 165: 92% for the first year, 84% for two, 77% for three, 71% for four, 65% for five, 60% for six, 55% for seven and 50% for eight years or more.
The remainder is divided by the number of years owned, up to a maximum of ten.
The progressive personal income tax scale is applied to the result: the first ฿300,000 at 5%, the next ฿200,000 at 10%, with higher rates above that.
The tax is multiplied back by the number of years owned.

Take a resale condo with an appraised value of ฿5 million ($151,500) that has been yours for six years. The six-year deduction is 60%, or ฿3,000,000, which leaves ฿2,000,000. Divided by six years, that gives ฿333,333 a year. Tax on the first ฿300,000 at 5% is ฿15,000, and on the remaining ฿33,333 at 10% it is ฿3,333, so ฿18,333 a year. Multiplied by six years, the withholding tax comes to ฿110,000 ($3,300). Had you owned the condo for three years, the deduction would be 77% and the same steps would give ฿70,000 ($2,100).

Now add the other charges. The contract price is ฿6.5 million ($197,000), and the parties split the transfer fee equally.

Charge	Owned 6 years	Owned 3 years
Withholding tax	฿110,000 ($3,300)	฿70,000 ($2,100)
Specific Business Tax 3.3%	—	฿214,500 ($6,500)
Stamp duty 0.5%	฿32,500 ($1,000)	—
Half the transfer fee (1%)	฿50,000 ($1,500)	฿50,000 ($1,500)
Total for the seller	฿192,500 ($5,800)	฿334,500 ($10,100)

Dollar figures at ฿33 to $1, October 2026.

With the shorter holding period the withholding tax is lower, but Specific Business Tax more than cancels the saving. Had the seller in the second case been in the condo's house registration for at least a year, stamp duty of ฿32,500 would replace Specific Business Tax and the total would fall to ฿152,500 ($4,600). The Land Department works out the exact amount from its own valuation, so it pays to run the numbers before you agree a price.

Foreign seller tax obligations: individual and company

For an individual, foreign seller taxes in Thailand are the same as for a Thai seller: if the property is in your own name, nationality does not change the calculation. The calculation differs when the property is held by a company. A company's withholding tax is 1% of whichever is higher, the appraised value or the contract price, and it is credited against the company's annual corporate income tax. A sale of property by a company is, as a rule, subject to Specific Business Tax whatever the holding period.

Beyond the taxes on sale, an owner pays the annual land and building tax. That is a separate Thailand property owner tax, covered in our article on property tax for foreign owners. A buyer may ask to see the receipts for the current year before registration.

What a condo buyer pays

It helps a seller to know the other side of the deal, since it shapes how the costs are split in the contract. A buyer's taxes and fees depend on who they buy from and under which ownership form.

Type of purchase	Buyer's taxes and fees
From a developer, freehold	About 3–3.3% of the price: the costs are shared between developer and buyer
Leasehold	About 1.1% (1% registration fee plus 0.1% stamp duty), paid in full by the buyer
Resale	As agreed with the seller; the transfer fee is often split equally

The total cost of buying a condo is the price plus these taxes and fees, plus one-off payments that come with a new build: a contribution to the building's sinking fund, on average about ฿800 ($24) per square metre, and meter installation, up to ฿20,000 ($600). After that the owner pays the common area fee, on average about ฿80 ($2.4) per square metre a month, usually settled once a year. In Phuket the agency commission is, as a rule, paid by the developer or the seller, and the buyer does not pay it. Our article on transfer fees and taxes has the full breakdown.

Getting the proceeds out of Thailand

Foreign exchange in Thailand is regulated by the Bank of Thailand, but you apply for the transfer at your commercial bank, and the bank makes the decision. To repatriate funds from a Thailand property sale without delays, three steps help.

You take the first step when you buy. When you sent the purchase money, the bank issued a document showing that the currency came from abroad. For $50,000 or more it is the Foreign Exchange Transaction (FET) form; for smaller amounts, a credit advice or a bank letter. The document shows where the money came from, and the bank checks against it when you sell.

The second step is receiving the buyer's payment into your account at a Thai bank. The buyer usually pays at registration, and the money is credited to the seller's account.

The third step is the transfer itself. Thailand property repatriation rules allow the bank to skip supporting documents for transfers under $200,000, though it may still ask for them. For larger amounts the bank will ask for the sale agreement, the Land Department tax receipts, a copy of the title deed, your passport and the record of the currency transfer from your purchase. Gather them in advance and ask your bank what it needs before the day of registration.

Documents and timeline for a Phuket sale

Thailand property sale documentation is best gathered before you list, so the buyer can check it straight away:

the title deed or the registered lease;
your passport;
receipts for the annual land and building tax;
for a condo, a letter from the building's juristic person confirming there are no outstanding common fees; on a sale to a foreigner it also confirms that the unit fits within the foreign quota;
the currency transfer records from your purchase.

Once a buyer is found, the Phuket property sale process usually takes from a few weeks to a couple of months. In that time the buyer checks the documents and, if they are a foreigner buying freehold, transfers the money from abroad. Registration at the Land Department itself takes one appointment. You do not have to attend in person: a representative can act for you, as explained in our article on transactions by power of attorney.

Freehold and leasehold: how a sale differs

Everything above on taxes at sale applies to freehold: a condo unit in the foreign quota or a villa building registered in your name. Phuket freehold property tax on a sale follows the same scheme whether it is a condo or a house.

Selling leasehold in Phuket works differently. You pass your rights as lessee to the buyer for the remaining term, and the Land Department registers the assignment under the rules for leases, with different rates. If you hold a villa's building freehold and its land on lease, the house is sold under freehold rules and the land lease is assigned separately. Lease rights can be transferred if the lease agreement allows it or the lessor consents, so read your agreement before you sell.

Information current as of October 2026. Check the tax calculation for your own sale, including the holding period and withholding tax, with a licensed Thai lawyer or tax adviser.

Undersun Estate for sellers

Undersun Estate Co., Ltd. is a real estate agency in Phuket, co-founder of the Phuket Property Association and a partner of the Phuket Real Estate Association (P-REA), the local industry body. We work with buyers and sellers alike, and our database holds more than 200 resale properties. For sellers we help set the price and find the buyer: we list properties for sale on more than 110 portals in over 80 countries, so buyers from many countries see them.

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