Foreign ownership in Phuket 2026

The single most important shift in Phuket property between 2023 and 2026 has been legal rather than architectural. The 2025-2026 nominee enforcement programme, the Supreme Court’s invalidation of pre-agreed lease renewals, and the coordinated work of seventeen state agencies have together changed the answer to the central question every foreign buyer asks: how do I actually own this. The grey-area structures that were widely used and quietly tolerated through the 2010s are now the subject of active prosecution, and the buyer who proceeds in 2026 on the basis of pre-2024 advice is at material risk of losing both money and property. This article sets out what the legal routes actually are today, what the enforcement environment really looks like, and what the questions are that a buyer must put to a qualified Thai lawyer before any signature.

This is written from a working architect’s perspective. It does not replace specific legal advice on a specific transaction, which only a qualified Thai lawyer can give. It is the framework a serious buyer needs to walk through with that lawyer.

The legal position in one paragraph

Under Thai Land Code Section 86, foreign nationals cannot own land in Thailand. This is not a matter of interpretation. Sections 111 to 113 of the Land Code impose criminal penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment for violations, and the 2025-2026 regulatory programme has made enforcement of these provisions the priority of the Ministry of Commerce, the Department of Business Development, the Revenue Department, the Anti-Money Laundering Office, the Department of Special Investigation, and the public prosecution service, operating as a coordinated seventeen-agency coalition. Within that prohibition, four genuine legal routes remain available to foreign buyers in 2026: condominium freehold under Section 19 of the Condominium Act B.E. 2522, a registered long lease of up to thirty years under the Civil and Commercial Code, superficies rights over a building under CCC Section 1410, and usufruct rights over land or buildings under CCC Section 1417. These four routes work. The route that no longer works, and was always legally precarious, is the Thai nominee company structure that pretended to provide foreign land ownership through shareholders who were never genuine investors.

The four routes that work in 2026

The honest position for a foreign buyer in 2026 is that the choice is between four genuine routes, each with specific advantages, limitations, and contexts where it makes sense. None is a perfect substitute for direct land ownership, and the right answer depends on the project, the budget, and the buyer’s tolerance for different kinds of risk.

Condominium freehold

Condominium freehold under Section 19 of the Condominium Act B.E. 2522 is the only route that gives a foreign buyer outright registered ownership of property in Thailand. The mechanism is that the building’s saleable area is split between Thai-owned units and foreign-owned units, with the foreign share capped at forty-nine per cent of total saleable area. Within that quota, a foreign unit owner holds full freehold title, with the unit registered in their name at the provincial Land Office, and the title is fully transferable, inheritable, and mortgageable on the same terms as any Thai-held condominium unit.

For this route to be valid, the funds for the purchase must be transferred into Thailand from abroad in foreign currency, and the receiving Thai bank must issue a Foreign Exchange Transaction Certificate (FETF, the document formerly known as a Tor Tor 3). Without this certificate the Land Department will not register the foreign ownership. The juristic person managing the condominium must also confirm in writing that the unit is within the foreign quota and that the quota is not full. In popular Phuket developments the foreign quota commonly sells out, and an agent’s verbal assurance that “a foreign unit is available” in a sold-out building is a warning, not a sale.

For a foreign buyer wanting genuine outright ownership of a Phuket property in 2026 without complex structures, a condominium within the foreign quota is the most secure and the simplest route, and it is the route the 2026 enforcement environment has made structurally cleaner rather than harder.

Registered long lease

The long lease is the route most commonly used for villas, where condominium ownership is not the right product. Under the Civil and Commercial Code, a single registered lease can run for up to thirty years. The lease is registered at the Land Office against the title deed and is binding on successor landowners. Lease registration provides the lessee with documented, enforceable rights for the full lease term.

The thirty-year limit, however, is now genuinely the limit. The Supreme Court ruling in Decision 4655/2566, dated 18 March 2025, definitively invalidated the long-marketed “30+30+30” lease renewal structure, ruling that any provision attempting to pre-agree automatic renewals beyond the initial thirty years is void as against public policy and unenforceable against successor landowners. The Court’s reasoning is straightforward: the Civil Code sets thirty years as the maximum term for a single lease, and parties cannot contract around that limit by stacking pre-agreed renewals. Lower courts have actively enforced this precedent through 2026, and any developer or agent marketing a property in 2026 on the basis of a “ninety-year lease” or “thirty plus thirty plus thirty” is selling a structure that the Supreme Court has explicitly held is not what it claims to be.

The correct contemporary lease structure is a single thirty-year registered lease with a renewal mechanism that is genuinely a renewal at the end of the term, agreed at that point between the then-current parties, rather than a pre-agreed automatic extension purporting to bind successors. This is more honest than the structures that preceded it, and for a buyer with a thirty-year time horizon, properly drafted, it provides a defensible, registered, enforceable position. For a buyer hoping for ninety years of guaranteed security, the answer in 2026 is that no such structure exists for land in Thailand and never genuinely did.

Superficies

Superficies rights, registered under CCC Section 1410, allow a foreign national to own a building on land they do not own. The default rule under CCC Section 1337 is that whoever owns the land owns everything built on it, and superficies is a statutory exception that detaches the building from the land for legal purposes. When a superficies is registered alongside a thirty-year land lease, the foreign buyer’s name is on the official building permit and the title to the structure, the building is the foreign owner’s property, and the foreign owner has a registered right to the land for the lease term.

For a buyer building or buying a villa on leased land, superficies is the route that provides documented ownership of the building itself, separate from the lease over the land. It is registered at the Land Office, recorded against the title, and binding on successors in the same way as the lease. Superficies is also one of the rare structures under Thai property law that can be drafted to be inheritable.

For most foreign villa buyers in Phuket who do not have a condominium-product option, a registered thirty-year lease combined with a registered superficies over the building is the strongest available structure in 2026 and the one most reputable Thai lawyers will recommend.

Usufruct

Usufruct rights under CCC Section 1417 grant the foreign holder the right to use property and to collect its income for a fixed term (up to thirty years) or for the holder’s lifetime. Usufruct is more limited than superficies in some respects, principally that it terminates on the holder’s death under CCC Section 1422, and so it does not pass to heirs in the same way superficies can. But for a buyer who wants documented, registered use-rights over a property for the duration of their occupation, usufruct can be useful, particularly in family situations where land is held by a Thai spouse or family member and the foreign partner needs registered protection of their position.

Usufruct registration is recorded against the title deed and is enforceable against successor landowners during the holder’s lifetime or for the registered term. Like the other routes, it operates within the broader framework of foreign-ownership law rather than around it.

The route that no longer works: the Thai nominee company

For decades the most widely used foreign-ownership structure in Phuket was the Thai limited company holding land, with Thai national shareholders holding fifty-one per cent of the shares and the foreign buyer holding forty-nine per cent plus operational control through preference shares, side agreements, or powers of attorney. The Thai shareholders were typically employees, associates, or paid nominees with no genuine economic interest in the company.

This structure was always illegal under Section 36 of the Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 (1999), which prohibits the use of Thai nominee shareholders for the purpose of holding land for a foreign principal. The use of such structures carries criminal penalties of up to three years’ imprisonment for both the Thai nominees and the foreign principals, fines of one hundred thousand to one million baht, and additional daily penalties for continuing violations. Enforcement was sporadic for many years, which produced the widespread but mistaken belief that the structure was tolerated. In 2025 and 2026 that has changed comprehensively.

The current enforcement environment, accurate as of May 2026, is unprecedented. The Department of Business Development issued Order 2/2568, effective from 1 January 2026, requiring Thai shareholders in mixed-ownership companies to prove pre-payment of share capital through three months of bank statements and to evidence genuine independent funding. Order 1/2569, effective from 1 April 2026, closed a further amendment loophole and now requires every company-amendment filing to certify that all shareholders invested their own funds and are not acting as nominees, with in-person verification at the DBD office. The DBD’s Intelligence Business Analytic System, an AI-driven screening platform, has flagged some fifty-three thousand risky corporate structures and over six thousand foreign-majority companies for active investigation. Operation Lightning Strike in March 2026 raided law and accounting firms in Pattaya, revoked business licences, and blacklisted one hundred and forty-six Chonburi companies. In May 2026 the Department of Special Investigation opened investigations into thirty-four companies on Koh Samui and Koh Phangan, with the Prime Minister visiting Phangan personally during the raids, and credible reporting indicates the enforcement programme is now moving south, with Phuket the next focus.

Industry lawyers describe the Thai nominee company structure as effectively dead for the purpose of holding land for a foreign principal in 2026. A buyer presented with such a structure in 2026 is being offered a property arrangement that is illegal under existing law, is the subject of active prosecution by seventeen state agencies, and exposes both the buyer and the Thai shareholders to criminal liability. There is no defensible reason in 2026 to proceed on this basis when four genuine legal routes are available.

What buyers must know about proposed changes

Two further legal changes have been proposed and are widely discussed but have not been enacted as of May 2026. A buyer should be aware of them and should not make decisions on the assumption that either will become law.

A ninety-nine year leasehold proposal would replace the current thirty-year maximum with a longer single term. This has been discussed since 2024, has faced significant public opposition on the basis that it would amount to de facto foreign land ownership, and remains unenacted. A buyer in 2026 must plan around the existing thirty-year cap.

A proposal to raise the condominium foreign-ownership quota from forty-nine per cent to seventy-five per cent has also been discussed and is unenacted. The forty-nine per cent quota remains the current rule and must be the basis of any condominium purchase decision.

A third proposal, more concerning for buyers in existing irregular structures, is the proposed amendment to Section 94 of the Land Code that would change the consequence of foreign nominee land-holding from “land must be disposed of, with proceeds to the holder” to “land forfeited to the state without compensation.” This proposal is also unenacted but reflects the direction of regulatory thinking, and is one of several reasons that holders of existing nominee structures should be considering restructuring through qualified Thai lawyers rather than waiting.

What an architect tells clients about ownership

From an architect’s perspective, the implications of the 2026 ownership landscape for a foreign buyer planning a Phuket project are straightforward.

For a buyer wanting outright ownership of a property in Phuket, the route is condominium freehold within a building’s foreign quota, with the FETF transfer process completed correctly and the quota position verified in writing by the building’s juristic person. The condominium market in Phuket is mature, with significant supply across the price range from entry-level Phuket Town and Cherngtalay condos through to ultra-luxury branded residences in Bang Tao, Layan, and Cape Yamu. For a buyer who wants outright registered title and is flexible on property type, this is the route.

For a buyer building or buying a villa, the route is a registered thirty-year lease over the land combined with registered superficies over the building, drafted by a qualified Thai property lawyer with experience of villa structures, and registered at the relevant provincial Land Office. The lease must be drafted to the statutory thirty-year maximum without reliance on pre-agreed renewal language that the Supreme Court has now invalidated. The superficies must be registered at the same time as the lease. The lessor must be a genuine, properly funded Thai entity or individual with documented economic interest in the land, not a nominee.

For a buyer in a family or partnership situation where land is held by a Thai spouse or family member, usufruct rights can supplement the family structure to provide registered protection of the foreign partner’s use of the property.

For a buyer presented with a Thai company structure as the recommended route in 2026, the right response is to walk away from that transaction and consult a different lawyer, because the structure being offered is at active enforcement risk and the agent or developer presenting it is either not current on the law or not acting in the buyer’s interest.

The questions every buyer must ask before signing

In 2026 the conversation a foreign buyer must have with their Thai lawyer before any signature includes specific questions, every one of which has a defensible answer in the legal routes set out above and an indefensible answer in structures that the 2026 enforcement programme is actively dismantling.

What is the specific legal route through which I will hold this property: condominium freehold, registered lease, superficies, usufruct, or a Thai company. Why is this the right route for this property and my situation. If a Thai company is proposed, can you explain how the Thai shareholders satisfy the DBD’s Order 2/2568 and Order 1/2569 requirements with documented evidence of genuine investment and source of funds. If a lease is proposed, is it a single thirty-year term registered at the Land Office, and have all references to “thirty plus thirty plus thirty” or “ninety years” been removed from the documentation in light of Supreme Court Decision 4655/2566. If a condominium is proposed, has the juristic person provided written confirmation that the foreign quota is not full and that this specific unit can be acquired under foreign freehold. Will the lease and any superficies be registered concurrently with the transaction, with both recorded against the title at the Land Office. Have you verified, independently of the seller and agent, the title type (Chanote or Nor Sor 4 Jor as the gold standard), the history of the land, and any indigenous-community or protected-area issues affecting the title.

A lawyer who can answer these questions clearly and provide documented evidence is providing the kind of due diligence a 2026 transaction requires. A lawyer who cannot, or who proposes a Thai-company structure without addressing the DBD requirements directly, is not the right lawyer for a foreign buyer in this market.

What this means for the Phuket market in 2026

The combined effect of the 2025-2026 enforcement programme on the Phuket property market has been to make legitimate transactions structurally cleaner and the alternative structures progressively unavailable. This is, on balance, good news for serious buyers entering the market in 2026. The buyer who proceeds through condominium freehold, properly drafted lease and superficies, or family-supported usufruct is operating in a more transparent and more secure legal environment than at any point in recent Phuket history. The buyer attempting to replicate pre-2024 grey-area structures is operating in an environment of active prosecution that is unlikely to ease.

For the architect’s client, the legal route is upstream of the design, the build, and the project. A foreign buyer who has not resolved the ownership question with a qualified Thai lawyer should not be commissioning design work, viewing land, or considering specific properties. Once the route is settled and the lawyer is in place, the project can proceed safely. Until then, even the most attractive opportunity is exposure rather than asset.

Where to go from here

The detailed legal series on The Tropical Architect knowledge hub covers each route, the relevant statutes, the Supreme Court ruling, and the current enforcement environment in depth. The area-specific guides on this site cover the property categories (condominium, villa, heritage, marina) and the area-level diligence that complements the ownership-structure work. The buying step-by-step pillar piece sets out the eight-stage process in which the ownership question fits.

If you are at the stage of considering a Phuket property in 2026, the most useful first step is a conversation with a qualified, independent Thai property lawyer who has experience of the 2025-2026 enforcement environment, in parallel with a preliminary architectural land viability assessment on any specific plot you are considering. That dual track of legal and architectural diligence, done before any commitment, is what separates the buyer whose transaction completes cleanly from the buyer whose problems begin at signature and compound from there.

Considering a Phuket property purchase or build in 2026? Get in touch for a preliminary land viability assessment to run alongside your legal due diligence. You can also visit our YouTube channel for videos about these areas and find essential planning advice at www.thetropicalarchitect.com

Note on regulations and enforcement: foreign-ownership, lease, superficies, usufruct, condominium, and corporate-structure rules are subject to change and to specific interpretation in individual transactions. The 2025-2026 enforcement environment is unprecedented in its scope and is evolving on a rolling basis. Always confirm current rules and the specifics of any transaction with the Land Office, the Department of Business Development, the relevant provincial authority, and a qualified Thai property lawyer independent of the seller and agent before relying on this article for any acquisition or build decision.