In Thailand, there is not really such taxes as the property tax and the residential tax that exist in other countries. The only taxes which are concerning property are the “Land Tax” and the “Use Tax Structure”.

The Land Tax, of course concerning land, is usually so small that Thai Authorities will in practice not collect it, or at least wait several years so the amounts accumulate.

The second tax, called the “Structure Use Tax” is levied on buildings and collected either by the municipality (municipal office), or by the district (district office). It is applied only to properties used for commercial purposes.

Each real estate sale involves:

• the payment of stamps, which represents 0.5 % of the amount of the property as estimated by the land registry
• ownership transfer costs, amounted to 2% of the purchase price
• in some cases, a specific tax called the “specific Business Tax”, and which is payable by an owner when he has registered his property less than five years before the resale (as the concept of capital gains do not exist in Thai law, the “specific business tax” enable the Thai administration to recover some tax). The specific business tax is 3.3 % of the purchase price.

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Let’s consider the case of a person who bought a house in Thailand less than 5 years ago and is selling it today for € 400,000.

For simplicity, we will assume that the property value estimated by the land department (cadastre) is the actual amount. We will also suppose that the buyer and seller have agreed that the seller should pays the full specific business tax.

Before the reform the costs and taxes are broken down as follows:

• Amounts payable by the buyer

Stamp : 400 000 X 0.5 % = € 2,000

Transfer: 400,000 x 2 % = € 8,000

Total = € 10,000

• Amounts payable by the seller

Specific tax: 400,000 X 3.3% = € 13,200

•  Grand Total = € 23,200

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