Getting your money into Thailand the right way
This is the easiest part of the whole deal, and it is also the part that most often trips up buyers who do it alone. The money is there, the apartment is there, and registration does not happen because one bank document is missing. The entire problem is solved in a single fifteen-minute conversation before the first transfer. Here is that conversation.
What the requirement actually is
A foreigner can hold a condominium unit in freehold - full, indefinite ownership - provided the purchase money arrived in Thailand from abroad in foreign currency and was converted into Thai baht inside the country. The receiving bank issues a document confirming that inbound foreign currency, and without it the Land Department will not register the transfer into foreign freehold.
That document is commonly called the FET - the foreign exchange transaction form. Its whole job is to prove that the funds came from abroad, in foreign currency, for you. Think of it less as bureaucracy and more as the receipt that unlocks your title.
The logic behind the rule is straightforward: the state wants to see that the apartment was bought with external money rather than income earned inside Thailand. Nothing more sinister than that. The broader ownership rules are in can foreigners buy property in Thailand.
The four things that go wrong
- The money is sent in Thai baht. It must arrive in foreign currency and be converted inside the Thai bank. Baht in, no FET.
- The transfer is split into small amounts. Below certain thresholds the bank may not issue the document at all. Confirm the threshold before you send, not after.
- The payment reference does not state the purpose. The wording about the property purchase should be agreed with the bank before the transfer leaves.
- The sender is not the buyer. When the person sending and the person buying are different, extra documentation is required, and sometimes it simply will not work.
- The money goes to someone else's account - a developer, an agent, a friend. The inbound currency document is issued to the recipient, and then it is not your document.
Every one of these is fixable in advance and painful to fix afterwards. None of them is exotic; they are just details that nobody mentioned in time.
If you are paying in instalments
You need the confirmation for every payment you intend to count towards registration, not just the final one. Collect and file them as they happen, in one folder, with the transfer confirmations next to them.
Two years later, when the building is handed over and registration is being prepared, chasing a bank for a document from a transfer made in the first quarter of construction is genuinely tedious. Saving it on the day costs nothing. The payment structures themselves are covered in developer payment plans.
Outbound rules in your own country
There is a second half to this that is nothing to do with Thailand: the rules for sending money out of your own country. Buyers in India and Pakistan in particular have outbound remittance regimes with their own limits, declarations and processing times - India's Liberalised Remittance Scheme is the usual example.
I do not advise on those rules and I will not quote numbers at you - they are specific to your country and your circumstances, and they change. What I do is raise the question early, so you check it with your own bank or adviser before the first payment rather than after the developer's schedule has already started running.
The practical point is timing. If your outbound paperwork takes three weeks and your next instalment is due in two, the problem is not the money - it is that nobody put the two calendars side by side. That is exactly the sort of collision I watch for.
Do you need a Thai bank account for this?
For registering a condominium into foreign freehold, no. The money must arrive from abroad in foreign currency with the bank confirmation, and the recipient can be the seller. This is one of the most commonly confused points in the whole process.
You will still want a Thai account as an owner - building fees, utilities, rental income, local taxes - and opening one depends on your visa type, which is one more reason to handle the visa question alongside the purchase rather than after it. That is covered in opening a Thai bank account as a foreigner.
Why these documents matter again later
When you eventually sell and want to move the proceeds home, the inbound currency documents come back out of the folder. They evidence the source of the funds and make the outbound transfer considerably simpler.
That is the real reason I ask clients to keep them from day one. They are used twice: once to register your ownership, once to unwind it cleanly. The exit side is in how to sell property in Thailand.
The rule, in one line
Money comes from abroad, in foreign currency, into an account connected to you, with the correct payment reference, and a bank document survives for every payment. Everything else is detail - and detail is much easier to agree in advance than to argue about at the registration desk.
What the conversation actually covers
It is short and it is the same every time. Which bank will receive the funds and which account. Which currency leaves your side and where the conversion happens. Exactly what the payment reference should say. Whether the amount clears the bank's threshold for issuing the document. Who is named as sender, and whether that name matches the name that will appear on the title.
Then one more question that belongs to your side rather than mine: what your own bank needs from you to send it, and how long that takes. I ask it so we can set the first payment date around the answer instead of discovering it afterwards.
That is the whole thing. Fifteen minutes, five answers, and a part of the deal that people write anxious forum posts about simply stops being an issue.
I want to be plain about this: getting money into Thailand is not the hard part of buying here. It is one conversation with clear answers, held before the first transfer leaves your account. It only becomes a problem when nobody mentioned it - when the funds arrive in baht, or split into five pieces, or from a relative's account, and the Land Department politely declines to register anything. I have that conversation with every client at the start, along with a check on the timing of your own country's outbound rules, and after that it runs on rails.
- Projects I work with — developments where I hold direct terms from the developer
- Investment property selection — net yield calculated on specific units
Legal, visa and tax work is not mine — it belongs to partners I use constantly
I am an investment strategist: I select the property, calculate the net return, check the developer and run the transaction. Anything that needs a legal, immigration or tax qualification goes to specialists I have worked with for years.
- Thai lawyers — document and contract review, land title, registration at the Land Office, wills, powers of attorney, corporate questions
- Visa partners — choosing and filing the right route for your situation: investment-based, LTR, Thailand Privilege, retirement, DTV
- Tax specialists — reporting in your country of tax residence, treaty credit for Thai tax, declarations on foreign assets
- Company formation in Thailand — when a structure is genuinely needed and lawful
- Rental management and concierge — letting the property, transfers, yachts, events
I introduce partners personally, matched to your actual question, so that you speak to the specialist who handles it rather than to a general inbox. Message me and I will make the introduction.
Frequently asked
What is the FET form when buying a condo in Thailand?
Can I buy an apartment in Thailand with cash?
Can someone else transfer the money for me?
Lyubov Fortunova
Investment strategist and founder of Fortunova Capital Group. I have lived on Phuket for more than five years and run every deal myself: I select the property, calculate the net return, check the developer and hold the process together until the keys are handed over. Lawyers, visa and tax specialists come from my own circle.
“I count net, not dreams”
Could you help me set up the payment route and the wording with the bank before I send the first transfer?
I answer personally, within the working day, in any time zone. No calls unless you want them. A question about the article is free and commits you to nothing.
