Can a foreigner own a home on Koh Lanta? Yes, but not the land under it

Most of what gets said about foreigners owning property in Thailand is either wrong or sold by someone with an interest in you believing it. So here is the plain version, for anyone who has a house on Koh Lanta or is thinking about buying one.

You cannot own the land. That has been true since the Land Code of 1954, and since 1970 there has not even been a treaty exception. Nothing about that changed this year, whatever you may have read.

What surprises people is how much you can lawfully hold, and how long those options have existed.

You can own the house. Just not the ground

A building can be legally separated from the land under it and registered in your own name. Your name goes in the house book, the yellow one for a foreigner, the blue one if you have permanent residency.

Under that house, you hold the land a different way. A registered 30-year lease is recorded on the title deed at the Land Office, and it survives the landowner selling the land or dying. There is also superficies, a registered right to own your building on someone else's land, and usufruct, a right of use that can run for your lifetime.

Condominium units are the one case where a foreigner owns outright, within the building's 49 percent foreign quota. Koh Lanta is not a condominium island, so for almost everyone here the realistic package is a lease of the land plus the house in your own name.

This is the assessment of Sebastien H. Brousseau, founder of ThaiLawOnline, who has practised property law in Thailand for twenty years and who gave us these answers directly. In his words: "Thai law gives a foreigner almost everything except the last word."

What it costs

Less than people expect, on his figures. Registering a 30-year lease runs to about 1 percent of the total rent across the term, plus a small stamp duty.

Unwinding an existing company structure costs more, because the company has to sell the land at a real price: a transfer fee of around 2 percent of the appraised value, specific business tax of 3.3 percent if the company sells within five years of acquiring, and legal fees on top. He puts it at a few hundred thousand baht all-in for a typical villa.

These are his numbers, given as a practitioner's working figures. We have not independently checked them against the Revenue Department's schedules, and rates and appraised values change, so treat them as the shape of the cost rather than a quote.

The restriction nobody enjoys hearing

Time. A lease is thirty years, and that is the actual registered right.

Contracts promising "30 plus 30 plus 30" are common on this coast. Brousseau is blunt about what they are: a renewal clause is a contractual promise binding the person who signed it, not a registered right that binds the land. His line, which is worth repeating exactly: "Anyone selling you a 'guaranteed 90 years' is selling a promise stapled to a hope."

There is one more lawful route, and it is the one the whole nominee industry existed to avoid. A company with a genuine Thai partner, who really pays for their 51 percent, and really receives 51 percent of the rent and of the eventual sale proceeds, is entirely legal. Almost nobody wants that deal. That is the point.

Why this matters more than it did last year

Because the structure most people on this island actually used, a Thai company where the Thai shareholders never paid for anything, is the one the authorities began enforcing against in 2026. We covered that separately in our piece on the nominee crackdown.

The relevant point here is what people gave up by taking that route. Thai courts have repeatedly declined to help foreigners recover money paid under nominee arrangements. So the company structure did not protect the buyer, it exposed them: an asset worth millions held through two people who could, in law, outvote them, refuse to sign, die, go bankrupt, or sell the house to a buyer acting in good faith.

Brousseau's summary of twenty years of these files: the foreigners in trouble today are not in trouble because Thai law gave them no options. They are in trouble because the lawful option said "tenant for thirty years", and someone on a beach said "owner forever", and the second sentence was the nicer one to hear.

Is Koh Lanta different

Not legally. Property law is national and applies identically across Thailand. What does vary is the local Land Office: registration practice differs a little from province to province, and one office may ask for papers another does not. Similar rules, slightly different counters.

What to do with this

If you already hold a house through a company, the useful first step costs nothing: get your complete company file from whoever administers it, while relations are still friendly. The share register, the certificates, the transfer documents, the evidence of who actually paid for the shares. People are regularly surprised by how much of it does not exist.

Then take proper advice on your own situation from someone licensed to give it. This piece is a description of what the law allows, not advice about your house, and the difference matters when the asset is your home.

Our thanks to Sebastien Brousseau at ThaiLawOnline, who answered at length and gave us permission to quote him. Legal work at his firm is carried out under Thai-licensed attorney Wichuda Atthamethakon.