Most buying decisions are made without a clear picture of the exit, which is odd, because the exit is where a property investment is finally settled. This note sets out what selling a Thai condominium as a foreign owner involves: who may buy it, what the state takes, what leaves the country, and which parts of the timeline are outside anyone's control.
It contains no estimate of what a unit will sell for and no view on when to sell. We publish developers' asking prices; we hold no resale prices, no achieved sale data and no time-on-market figures for any building.
Who can buy my Thai condominium when I sell?
Three kinds of buyer, and they are not interchangeable. A foreign-quota unit has three possible buyers, and they are not interchangeable. Another foreigner keeps the building's quota position unchanged — a foreign-to-foreign transfer consumes nothing new — which is the quiet structural advantage of owning inside the quota already. A Thai buyer can always buy, and doing so releases quota back to the building. A foreign buyer taking the unit out of Thai quota, by contrast, needs the building to have headroom on the day.
The constraint most sellers underestimate is the one that applied to them: your foreign buyer must bring the purchase money into Thailand from abroad in foreign currency and document it, under section 19 of the Condominium Act. That is straightforward for an overseas buyer and awkward for a foreigner already living in Thailand on baht income. It narrows the pool in a way a Thai-quota unit's does not.
What does it cost in tax to sell a Thai condominium?
Four charges arise at transfer, and on a resale the seller carries most of them by custom. The transfer fee is 2% of the Land Department's appraised value — not your sale price — and is customarily split. Specific business tax of 3.3% including municipal tax applies where the seller has held the unit for less than five years, assessed on the higher of price and appraised value; an individual who was registered as resident in the unit for at least one year can fall outside it earlier. Where specific business tax does not apply, stamp duty of 0.5% does. You pay one or the other, never both.
The fourth is withholding tax, and for an individual seller it is not a flat percentage. It is computed on the appraised value: a standard deduction is applied according to the number of years the unit was held — falling from 92% for one year to 50% for eight years or more — the remainder is divided by the years held, the progressive personal rates are applied to that annual figure, and the result is multiplied back out. The effect is that a long hold is taxed more lightly than a short one, and that the computation is done on the state's valuation rather than on your gain.
There is no separate capital gains tax in Thailand. A gain on property is ordinary assessable income under the Revenue Code, and for an individual seller the tax withheld at the Land Department may be treated as final under section 48(4) rather than carried into the annual return — an election worth taking advice on, because it is not always the cheaper outcome.
How do I get the sale proceeds out of Thailand?
Through a commercial bank, against the paperwork. Repatriating sale proceeds is routine when the paperwork exists and painful when it does not. Under the Bank of Thailand's foreign exchange regulations a non-resident may remit sale proceeds abroad through a commercial bank; the bank will want the original inward remittance evidence from the purchase — the Foreign Exchange Transaction form or credit advice — the sale documents, and evidence that the tax at transfer was paid.
This is the single strongest argument for the filing discipline the buyer guide asks for. The document that lets your money leave is the document your bank issued when it arrived, sometimes a decade earlier. Keep it with the title deed, keep a scan, and give a copy to whoever would act for you if you could not.
How long does selling a Bangkok condominium take?
Weeks once a buyer is agreed — and an unknown length of time before that. The parts that can be scheduled are short. Once a buyer and price are agreed, a straightforward resale commonly runs a matter of weeks to transfer: the juristic person issues the debt-free letter and, for a foreign buyer, the foreign quota letter; any mortgage is discharged at the same appointment; the Land Department registers the transfer in a single visit. If you cannot attend, a properly executed power of attorney lets someone attend for you, and the form matters — irregular powers of attorney are a recurring cause of failed transfers.
The part that cannot be scheduled is finding the buyer. How long a specific unit takes to sell depends on the building, the floor, the plan, the asking price and conditions nobody publishes in advance. We hold no time-on-market data and will not offer you a number dressed up as a range.
One further timing rule is worth knowing before it is urgent. Where a foreign heir inherits a unit and does not qualify to hold it under section 19 of the Condominium Act, the Act requires the unit to be disposed of within a fixed period — one year — rather than held. It is a good reason to make sure the person who would inherit knows the unit exists, where the documents are, and who to call.
- Original FET form or credit advice from the original purchase
- Title deed and the seller's identity documents
- Debt-free letter from the juristic person
- Foreign quota letter, where the buyer is foreign
- Mortgage discharge arrangements, where one is registered
- Power of attorney in the prescribed form, if you cannot attend
- Written agreement on who pays which of the four charges
What this note does not tell you
Every note in this section carries this block. It is not a disclaimer bolted on at the end — it is the part that decides whether the rest can be trusted.
- This note does not tell you what your unit will sell for, whether it will sell at a gain, or how long it will take. We hold no resale prices, no achieved transaction data, no time-on-market statistics and no historical price series for any building on this site — the prices we publish are developers' current asking prices for unsold stock.
- Nothing here is a recommendation about when to sell or hold. A holding period is a personal financial decision that depends on facts we do not have and are not qualified to weigh.
- Tax rates, reliefs and the appraised values the charges are computed on all change, and governments have periodically reduced transfer fees for defined periods. The figures above are the standing framework, not a quotation. The exact charges for a specific transaction should be confirmed at the Land Department office that will register it.
- The withholding computation for an individual seller, and the election to treat it as final, are areas where the arithmetic and the advice genuinely matter. This is general information, not tax advice.
Sources
Named instruments and named public bodies, with their dates. Where a figure comes from our own price sheets instead, the file it was computed from is named in the same list.
- Condominium Act B.E. 2522 (1979), section 19 and section 19 septemConditions on which a foreigner may hold a unit, including the requirement to bring funds in from abroad; and the requirement that an heir who does not qualify to hold the unit disposes of it within one year. Department of Lands (dol.go.th).
- Land Code and Land Department transfer fee scheduleTransfer fee of 2% of the appraised value at registration of a transfer of a condominium unit. Department of Lands.
- Revenue Code, sections 48(4), 50(5) and 91/2; specific business tax on immovable propertySpecific business tax at 3.3% including municipal tax on a sale within five years of acquisition; stamp duty of 0.5% where specific business tax does not apply; withholding on the appraised value using the years-held standard deduction, which the individual seller may elect to treat as final. Revenue Department (rd.go.th).
- Treasury Department appraised values, current revision cycle effective 2023The valuation the transfer fee and withholding are computed on, which is normally lower than the transaction price and is revised on a multi-year cycle.
- Bank of Thailand foreign exchange regulationsOutward remittance of sale proceeds by a non-resident, and the inward remittance evidence a bank will ask to see. Bank of Thailand (bot.or.th).
These notes are general information for foreign buyers, not investment, tax or legal advice. No rental income, occupancy, yield or capital growth is projected, promised or implied, and no figure here is verified or endorsed by Suwanvara Property as a return. Figures are either computed from the developer price sheets we hold, attributed to the named public source shown, or entered by you. Rules, rates and procedures change and individual situations differ; take Thai tax and legal advice on your own position.