Selling Property in Thailand as a Foreigner (2026 Guide).

Can a foreigner sell property in Thailand? Yes, if you own it legally

Selling property in Thailand as a foreigner follows a clear process when your ownership is clean. If your name is on a condominium title, or you own a building or a registered lease, you can sell that interest and register the transfer at the local Land Office. The buyer pays, the Land Office records the change, and you walk away with the proceeds.

The complications are rarely about whether you can sell. They are about the paperwork that proves you owned the property properly, the taxes due at the counter, and getting your money back out of Thailand. Get those three right and a sale can close in a single morning.

This guide covers what you are actually selling, the sale agreement, the transfer, the taxes and who pays them, and how to move the proceeds abroad.

What you are actually selling

Foreign owners in Thailand usually hold one of three things, and each sells a little differently. The rules on what foreigners can own decide which one you have.

• A condo unit in your own name. The cleanest case. You hold freehold title and sell it like any other owner, and the process a buyer goes through mirrors your sale in reverse. The one extra factor is the building's foreign ownership quota, covered below.
• A house or villa with a registered lease or other right over the land. You can sell the building you own and assign the lease, but the landowner's consent and the remaining lease term both shape the price.
• A unit or right held through a Thai company. Selling means either transferring the property out of the company or selling the company itself. Each carries different tax and compliance consequences, and this is the case where advice pays for itself.

The condo quota still matters when you sell

A condominium project can hold up to 49% of its saleable floor area in foreign names. If you are a foreign owner selling to another foreigner, the building needs quota room for the buyer to take freehold title. If the foreign quota is full, your foreign buyer can only take the unit on a leasehold basis, which narrows your buyer pool and can affect the price. The condominium juristic person (the building's management) confirms the current quota in writing, and it is one of the first things to check before you market the unit.

The sale and purchase agreement

The sale and purchase agreement sets the price, the deposit, the closing date, and what happens if either side pulls out. As the seller, the clauses that protect you are the ones covering the buyer's deposit and the deadline to complete. A property lawyer drafts or reviews the agreement so the deposit is genuinely forfeited if the buyer walks, and so the costs at the Land Office are split the way you agreed rather than the way the buyer assumes.

Expect a serious buyer to run due diligence on the unit before closing: a title search, a check on outstanding common-area fees, and confirmation the quota allows the transfer. Having your title documents, tax records, and a clean common-fee statement ready makes you look like a low-risk seller and keeps the timeline short.

The transfer at the Land Office

A Thai property sale completes in person at the Land Office that holds the title. Both sides, or their representatives, attend, the officer checks the documents, the taxes are paid on the spot, and the title is endorsed into the buyer's name. The money usually changes hands the same day by cashier's cheque.

If your buyer is a foreigner taking a condo in their own name, they will need evidence that their purchase funds came into Thailand in foreign currency. That is their paperwork, not yours, but a buyer who is not ready with it can delay your closing, so confirm it early. The mechanics of the counter appointment are the same ones covered in the guide to transferring a condo title.

The taxes and fees, and who pays

Four charges can come up at the Land Office when you sell. Who pays each is negotiable and is usually settled in the sale agreement, not fixed by law.

• Transfer fee: around 2% of the appraised value.
• Specific business tax: about 3.3%, generally where the seller has owned the property for less than five years and has not been registered there as their main home.
• Stamp duty: 0.5%, charged instead of specific business tax when that tax does not apply.
• Withholding tax: a charge on the seller worked out from the appraised value and the number of years owned. Thailand does not levy a separate capital gains tax on a property sale, and this withholding stands in for it.

The appraised value set by the Land Department, not your sale price, is the base for most of these. Rates and thresholds change, so confirm the current figures with the Revenue Department or the Land Office before you agree who pays what.

Getting your money out of Thailand

This is the step foreign sellers most often overlook. To send sale proceeds abroad, a Thai bank generally wants to see how the money first entered the country. For a condo you bought by bringing foreign currency in, the bank's record of that inflow, the Foreign Exchange Transaction (FET) form, is what supports sending the proceeds back out. Keep the FET form from the day you buy, because reconstructing it years later is slow.

Larger outward transfers run through a commercial bank under the Bank of Thailand's exchange-control rules, and the bank will ask for the sale and transfer documents. The current thresholds and paperwork are set by the Bank of Thailand, and your bank's foreign-exchange desk can confirm what it needs before you complete the sale.

Selling from overseas

You do not have to be in Thailand to sell. A properly drafted power of attorney lets a representative sign the agreement and attend the Land Office for you. It has to name the specific property and powers, and it usually needs to be notarized and legalized in your country and at a Thai embassy or consulate. A lawyer can prepare one the Land Office will actually accept, which avoids a wasted trip or a failed appointment.

Where it pays to get help

Most foreign sales are clean. The ones that go wrong tend to involve a company-held property sold the wrong way, a lease assigned without the landowner's consent, or proceeds that get stuck because the original inflow was never documented. A short conversation before you sign the agreement is far cheaper than fixing any of these afterward.

When you are ready, you can compare property lawyers in Thailand on Justenda, message a few directly, and get a fee quote for the contract review and the Land Office transfer before you commit.

A note on what this guide is

This is general information to help you understand how a property sale works in Thailand, not legal or tax advice, and the rules, rates, and thresholds change. Confirm the current requirements with the Land Office, the Revenue Department, or a qualified Thai professional before you sell or sign anything.