Since 2020, Thailand has charged an annual tax on the ownership of land and buildings — a recurring property tax most foreign buyers don’t hear about until the first bill arrives. The good news: for a typical condo the amount is small. The catch: it’s a real, yearly obligation with its own categories, rates, exemptions and deadlines, and it’s completely separate from the one-time fees you paid at purchase. Here’s exactly how it works, what a normal condo costs, and the one thing — your house registration — that decides whether you get the big exemption. Owner and investor focused, never paid placement.
Thailand’s Land and Building Tax (from the 2019 Act, effective 2020) is an annual tax the local government charges the owner based on a property’s appraised value and use. A residence is taxed in the lowest band — a 5,000,000 baht condo that isn’t your registered primary home runs about THB 1,000 a year. Register it as your primary home on the tabien baan and a large exemption can wipe most of it out. It’s not the same as the transfer fees you paid at closing.
Editorial analysis compiled and periodically refreshed by BAANLYY’s research team — not a live data feed.
Analysis last reviewed 2026-07-06.
Before 2020, Thailand’s recurring property taxes were a patchwork of the old House and Land Tax and the Local Development Tax — narrow, inconsistently enforced, and easy for owner-occupiers to escape. The Land and Building Tax Act B.E. 2562 (2019) swept those away and replaced them with a single, broad-based annual property tax that took effect on 1 January 2020.
Three things define it. It is annual — you owe it every calendar year you own the property, not just once. It is local — assessed and collected by the authority where the property sits (the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration in Bangkok; the municipality or Subdistrict Administrative Organisation elsewhere). And it is value- and use-based — the bill is the property’s official appraised value multiplied by a rate that depends on how the property is used. That last point is the key: the same building is taxed very differently depending on whether it’s a home, a business, or sitting empty.
The Act sorts every property into one of four use categories, each with a maximum (“ceiling”) rate written into the law. The rates actually charged are set lower by Royal Decree and have been adjusted over time, but the ceilings frame the whole system:
For a condo owner, the practical takeaway is to make sure your unit is correctly classed as residential — the difference between the 0.30% residential ceiling and the 1.20% commercial ceiling is enormous. How you actually use the unit (live in it, long-let it, or run it as nightly accommodation) drives that classification. For the short-let rules that can tip a unit into the commercial bracket, see our short-term rental law guide.
Within the residential category, the single biggest variable is whether the unit is your primary residence. Thailand decides that not by where you sleep but by a document: the house registration book (tabien baan). If your name is recorded on the tabien baan for the unit, generous exemptions apply:
This is where many foreign owners land. Getting onto a Thai house registration as a foreigner is possible but not automatic, and plenty of expats never do it — so their condo is treated as “other residential” and taxed from the first baht. The amounts are still modest, but it’s worth knowing why your neighbour with a tabien baan might pay nothing while you get a bill. To understand how foreigners hold units in the first place, read foreign condo ownership & the 49% quota.
For residential property that is taxed (i.e. the portion above any exemption, or the whole value for a non-primary home), the rate climbs in steps with appraised value. The bands used since 2020 are approximately:
These are a long way below the 0.30% residential ceiling, which is why an ordinary condo’s annual tax lands in the hundreds or low thousands of baht rather than anything painful. The government has also issued temporary reductions in some years (a 90% cut during the 2020–2021 pandemic period, and a partial reduction in 2023), so the headline rate isn’t always what you finally pay. Treat the bands above as the framework, and confirm the current year’s decree before you budget exactly.
The Act sets an annual rhythm: the local authority appraises and issues an assessment notice early in the year, and payment is due by April. In practice the government has repeatedly extended these deadlines since 2020, so the exact dates move — but the shape is the same: a notice arrives, and you pay the authority that sent it.
Because the tax follows the owner of record on 1 January, timing around a purchase matters — sort out with the seller and your lawyer who carries the tax for the year of transfer. For everything else that lands on a condo owner monthly, see condo fees & the sinking fund and utility bills in Thailand.
Take a Bangkok condo with an appraised value of THB 5,000,000, owned by an individual who uses it as a second home / investment (their name is not on the unit’s tabien baan), so it’s “other residential” and taxed from the first baht:
Now change one fact. If the same owner makes this their primary residence and gets onto the house registration, the unit can fall under the primary-home exemption — and a 5,000,000 baht value sits well within the exempt threshold, dropping the bill toward zero. That’s the whole game in a residential condo: the rate is tiny, but the primary-residence status is what decides whether you pay the small amount or nothing at all. Scale the value up and the progressive bands kick in, but for the vast majority of units the annual number stays comfortably modest.
The Land and Building Tax sits alongside several other property costs that owners routinely mix up. Keeping them straight saves a lot of budgeting confusion:
A condo owner who lets out a unit can therefore touch all four: a one-time transfer bill at purchase, the annual Land and Building Tax, monthly condo fees, and income tax on the rent. None of them replaces the others. For the bigger picture of what owning versus renting really costs, weigh it up with renting vs. buying in Thailand.
The annual tax is small — but it’s one line in a bigger picture. Get the full cost of owning straight, then explore units built for foreign buyers.
General information only — not financial, tax or legal advice. The Land and Building Tax Act B.E. 2562 rates, appraised-value bases, use classifications, primary-residence and other exemptions, payment deadlines and any temporary government reductions change over time and depend on the specific property, owner and use; confirm current figures and your own classification with the relevant local authority (BMA, municipality or SAO) and a qualified Thai tax adviser or property lawyer before acting. BAANLYY never takes paid placement.
Primary and official sources are cited above. Government rules, fees and procedures in Thailand change over time and vary by office; always confirm current requirements with the relevant authority before relying on them. BAANLYY never takes paid placement in editorial content.