Transfer Fees and Taxes at the land office

Property Transfer Fees and Taxes

Whenever a property in Thailand is bought and sold, there are four taxes that need to be taken into account.

1. Land registration (transfer fee) of 2.0% of assessed value of the land.

2. Stamp Duty/Fee of 0.5% of the assessed value or the sale price – whichever is higher.

3. Specific Business Tax of 3.3% of the assessed value or the sale price – whichever is higher – this will be applied to all sales by companies and to any private sales that occur within 5 years of the date of purchase.

4. Income Tax – this is calculated on a very complex formula based on the assessed value of the property, the length of time owned and the applicable personal income tax rate. In practice, this will work out to under 2% of the price for low to medium value properties, and up to 3% for higher value properties.

The local system of taxing property is based on an arbitrary assessed value as determined by the local Land Department, rather than true market value price. There are no set rules as to who pays for which taxes, and it is just another part of the bargaining process for purchasing property in Thailand.

Fees registering a 30 Years Lease or a Mortgage

Registering a Lease costs approx. 1 % of the rental value. For a 30 years lease you can expect that the fee will be approx. 1 % of the value of the property.

Registering a mortgage is nearly the same, fees are around 1 % of the loan.