What Can Foreigners Buy

• A foreigner can own a condominium unit outright, but foreigners together may own at most 49% of a building’s floor area. Once that quota is used up, only a 30-year lease remains available.
• Money for a freehold condo purchase must come from abroad; the bank issues an FET (Foreign Exchange Transaction) document, which is required at registration.
• A foreigner cannot own land outright. They can own a building; the land under a villa is lease-only (registered for a maximum of 30 years).
• A 75% foreign quota and a 99-year lease have been proposed but are not current law (as of 2026).

The nominee company route is illegal

A foreigner who cannot own land is sometimes offered a workaround: set up a Thai company in which Thai shareholders hold the required 51%, and have that company buy the land. When those Thai shareholders are not real investors but stand-ins, this is a nominee arrangement, and it is a criminal offence rather than a grey area.

• Under the Foreign Business Act, a Thai national who holds shares on a foreigner’s behalf faces up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 to 1,000,000 baht. The foreigner who arranges it faces the same penalties.
• Under the Land Code, acquiring land through Thai nominees carries up to two years’ imprisonment and a fine, again for both sides of the arrangement.
• The consequences are not only criminal. The Department of Business Development can petition to dissolve a company set up purely to bypass ownership limits, and the Department of Lands can require the land to be sold within a set period — frequently at a loss.

These rules have been on the books for years, but enforcement has stepped up sharply: in August 2026 police arrested 13 foreigners at a single Hua Hin pool-villa estate as part of a nationwide operation, with dozens of further arrest warrants and summonses issued. See the full report for what that operation found.

If a seller, developer or law firm presents a nominee company as the normal way for a foreigner to buy land, treat it as a warning sign about that adviser, not as a solution.