Rental income tax for individual owners
Income from property located in Thailand is taxable here whether the rent is paid inside or outside the country (Section 41). Periods totalling 180 days in a tax year make you a person residing in Thailand; a non-resident is in principle taxed only on Thai-source income, which your Pattaya rent is.
- Necessary expenses under Sections 42 bis–46 come off first, then a 60,000 baht allowance for you and, where the conditions for it are met, 60,000 baht for a spouse. The deduction amounts and the progressive brackets are set by those provisions and by Royal Decree, so we work them out with you instead of printing figures here.
- ภ.ง.ด.90 (PND90) covers several categories of income, ภ.ง.ด.91 (PND91) employment income only, filed within March on the form the Director-General prescribes. Whether a year's income passed the filing threshold is something we check before anything is filed.
Rental income held in a company
A Thai limited company holding the condo or villa pays corporate income tax on net profit, not on the rent collected: income from the business during the accounting period, less the expenses the law allows under the conditions set in Section 65 bis, on the accrual basis — while the items Section 65 ter lists are not treated as expenses at all.
- ภ.ง.ด.51 (PND51) within two months after the end of the accounting period's first six months, on half the estimated full-year net profit; ภ.ง.ด.50 (PND50) within 150 days from the period's last day, where the half-year tax paid is usually credited.
- Understating that estimate by more than 25% of actual net profit without reasonable cause adds a surcharge of 20% of the tax payable or of the shortfall (Section 67 ter). The tax rate itself and the depreciation rates come from Royal Decree, which is why no figure for either appears here.
Audit, penalties and the questions every company asks
Withholding tax when your tenant pays the rent
A payer of Thai assessable income such as rent withholds tax at the time of payment (Section 50), issues you a withholding tax certificate (Section 50 bis) and files the monthly withholding return together with the remittance (Sections 52 and 59). The duty sits with the tenant as payer, not with you; tax already withheld is credited against the tax payable at your annual reconciliation.
- ภ.ง.ด.3 (PND3) where the recipient is an individual, ภ.ง.ด.53 (PND53) where it is a company or juristic partnership; the remittance and monthly filing deadline follows the rules set by the Revenue Department, and where you are the payer we confirm it for your company before your first filing. The duty falls on the payer whoever that is — a company, a juristic partnership, a government office or an individual — not only on a corporate tenant.
- The rate on rent is set separately by ministerial regulation or Royal Decree rather than in the text of the sections, so we confirm it against your lease. A payer that withholds too little is jointly liable with you for the shortfall (Section 54).
Land and building tax
Whoever owns or occupies the land or building on 1 January is the taxpayer for that year, even if it changes hands later; where the taxpayer is a juristic person, its representative is responsible for payment. There is no self-assessment: the local administrative organization assesses the tax, sends a notice of assessment within February, and it is paid in full within April — or, where you qualify, by instalments you apply for, the number of instalments and the minimum amount following the ministerial regulation.
- Rates go by use — the Act divides use into agricultural, residential, other, and land or a building left vacant or not put to proper use — and it sets ceilings only: 0.3% of the tax base for residential use and 1.2% for other use including commercial. What is actually collected comes from that year's Royal Decree and the local ordinances, is usually lower and may change from year to year. Which of those categories a rented unit or a holiday-let villa falls into decides the rate, so we check that with you rather than assume it.
- Late payment brings a penalty of 40% of the tax in arrears — 10% if you pay before the warning notice, 20% if you pay within the period it sets — plus a surcharge of 1% a month, a fraction of a month counting as a month, reduced to 0.5% where an extension is approved and you pay within it, counted from the expiry of the payment deadline and not exceeding the tax payable.
Stamp duty on leases
A lease of land or buildings is stamped at 1 baht for every 1,000 baht of total rent for the whole term, any fraction of 1,000 counting as 1,000. The lessor bears the duty and the lessee affixes the stamp; a contract with no stated term is deemed to run three years.
- Stamping counts only once the stamp is affixed before or immediately upon signing, at not less than the duty due, and cancelled. For a lease executed in Thailand, submit it for payment within 15 days of the day complete stamps should have been affixed and you owe the duty alone; after that the additional tax is 2 times the duty or 4 baht, whichever is greater, and 5 times or 10 baht, whichever is greater, once more than 90 days late — a lease signed abroad we check separately. Where non-stamping or under-stamping is found through inspection or a complaint instead, a lease with no stamp at all costs the duty plus 6 times it — or 25 baht, whichever is greater — and one stamped short costs 6 times the shortfall, which is why back-duty is worth paying before anyone asks.
- A lease not completely stamped and cancelled may not be used in evidence in a civil case until the stamps have been completed and cancelled (Section 118).
If you employ a cleaner, a gardener or a housekeeper
A villa or condo in Na Jomtien is usually kept by somebody — a cleaner between guests, a gardener, a live-in housekeeper. Where that arrangement is employment, a second set of duties starts, separate from everything above: under Section 33 of the Social Security Act every employee aged at least 15 and under 60 is a compulsory insured person, and an employee who is already insured and, upon reaching 60, is still employed by an employer subject to that Act is deemed to continue as an insured person. The employer registers them on the แบบรายการขึ้นทะเบียนนายจ้าง and the แบบรายการขึ้นทะเบียนผู้ประกันตน with the Social Security Office within 30 days of the employee becoming an insured person, in the form and procedure the Secretary-General prescribes (Section 34), and keeps deducting and remitting for them after 60. Insured status turns on whether an employment relationship exists, not on whether the work is probationary, temporary or part-time, so a cleaner who comes twice a week is not outside it for that reason; coverage for someone who has left employment is the separate voluntary route under Section 39, which works differently.
Whether a private owner with one cleaner is an employer the Social Security Act reaches is not settled in the SLF Accounting guides beside this page: they state the duty for every Thai employer hiring staff in that age band, and also state that the Act applies to an undertaking with 10 or more employees (Section 103), and neither passage deals with a private household. They close by saying that registration and monthly filing have to be confirmed case by case — so that is what we do before anything is registered or filed in your name.
- Contributions: the employer and the employee each contribute 5% of wages at present — a rate prescribed by ministerial regulation rather than in the Act, with the minimum and maximum wages used for the calculation prescribed the same way and adjusted from time to time, so we confirm the current figures rather than print them. The employee's share is deducted each time wages are paid (Section 47).
- Monthly: the deducted employee share and the employer share are remitted to the Office with the contribution list by the 15th of the month following the deduction, and a joiner, a leaver or a wage change is notified by the 15th of the month after the change. Late or short remittance carries a surcharge of 2% a month on what is outstanding, which may not exceed the contribution due; an employer that never deducted makes up the employee's share in full itself and still owes the surcharge, while what the employee is entitled to is unaffected (Section 49).
- Wages: once a minimum wage proclamation is in force, an employer within the Labour Protection Act's reach may not pay below it and must post the proclamation in a conspicuous place at the workplace (Section 90). The Wage Committee sets the rate, weighing facts such as the cost-of-living index and the inflation rate (Section 87), the Cabinet approves it and it is published in the Royal Gazette; the figure for each province is not in the statute, so we confirm the current Chonburi proclamation for you instead of printing a number. How the minimum wage applies varies with the job category and the latest proclamation and has to be confirmed case by case, and what “workplace” means for a villa the SLF Accounting guides beside this page do not say — so we settle both with you before relying on either duty.
- What we do: the monthly payroll, the SSO registration and the contribution list, the reports when someone joins or leaves, and the payroll withholding return ภ.ง.ด.1 (PND1) — with its rate and its deadline confirmed against the Revenue Department's current rules as we file, not stated on this page.
Staff, payroll and social security in full · Must I register staff with the SSO, and how much is it?
Records to keep
A company holding the property closes its accounts once every twelve months (Accounting Act Section 10), prepares accounts and financial statements, keeps its books and supporting documents at its place of business and retains them for not less than five years from the date the accounts are closed. Whatever its size, a limited company must have its annual financial statements audited and an opinion given by a CPA, and the audited annual balance-sheet must then be submitted to a general meeting of shareholders for adoption within four months after its closing date (Section 1197) — a company closing on 31 December usually meets by the end of April — after which the directors file a copy with the Registrar, in practice the DBD, within one month after adoption (Section 1199; Accounting Act Section 11), which for that year-end means by the end of May. Both periods run from your company's own closing and adoption dates rather than from fixed calendar dates, which is why we diarise them company by company.
- Not keeping accounts carries a civil fine of up to 30,000 baht and filing the financial statements late a civil fine of up to 50,000 baht, the exact amounts being subject to the official rules — where genuine necessity makes timely filing impossible the Director-General may grant an extension or a postponement (Accounting Act Section 11). A company that keeps no accounts, or does not produce its books and supporting documents to the assessment official, can be assessed at 5% of gross receipts or gross sales before any deduction of expenses, whichever is higher.
- Those are the Accounting Act's duties and they fall on juristic persons. From an individual owner we just need stamped leases, rent receipts and bank statements, tenants' withholding tax certificates, the land and building tax notice, and — where someone works at the property — the payroll and social security paperwork for them.
Does my company need an annual audit?
How we help owners
Your leases, receipts and certificates live in the SLF Management System, the practice platform developed by PandaAI Co., Ltd: it reads documents into the books, matches bank statements and tracks each client's deadlines. Send them by email, photo or the client portal; we book the month and copy you on every filing.
- Owners: the annual ภ.ง.ด.90 return, with credit for the tax your tenants withheld — ภ.ง.ด.91 only where employment is your sole income — and we confirm which returns a year requires before we file anything. Companies: monthly bookkeeping, ภ.ง.ด.51 and ภ.ง.ด.50, auditor liaison and DBD financial-statement filing.
- Monthly ภ.ง.ด.3 / ภ.ง.ด.53 when you are the payer, with the withholding tax certificates issued to your payees; lease stamping and back-duty; the land and building tax cycle, from checking the notice to a disputed payment; payroll and social security for the staff at the property; and back-filing past years with an application for penalty relief — relief is granted under the Director-General's published regulations, so we apply for it rather than promise it.
- VAT: whether letting a condo or a villa touches VAT at all is not a question to answer on a web page — it turns on your own figures and documents, and we confirm the position for your case before anything is registered.
Frequently asked questions
I live abroad and rent out a Jomtien condo. Do I file in Thailand?
Income from Thai property is taxable here whether the rent is paid inside or outside Thailand, and a non-resident — under 180 days in the tax year — is in principle taxed on exactly that income. Where the taxpayer resides abroad, a representative, for example the manager of the business that generates the income, carries out the filing and payment obligations (Section 57).
Why does my company tenant pay less than the rent in the lease?
Because a payer of rent withholds tax at the time of payment, issues you a withholding tax certificate — two copies with identical contents, immediately each time tax is withheld — and remits it with a monthly return. Keep every certificate: the tax withheld is credited against the tax payable at your annual reconciliation.
The unit was empty all year. Is there still land and building tax?
The taxpayer is whoever owns or occupies it on 1 January, and the February notice still comes. One thing to watch if it stays empty: where land or a building is left vacant or not put to proper use for three consecutive years, the fourth year adds a further 0.3% to the vacant-use rate under Section 37(4), with another 0.3% for every further three years and the combined rate not exceeding 3% (Section 43). Those are the statutory figures; what is actually collected still comes from that year's Royal Decree and the local ordinance, so we work it out with you.
Our cleaner also works for two other villas. Does that change what I have to do?
Where one insured person works for several employers at the same time, each employer must separately fulfil its own contribution and filing obligations (Section 48). How the wage base or the contribution ceiling is apportioned between those employers is not set out in the SLF Accounting guides beside this page, and nor is the position of a private household — so we settle your position with the Social Security Office before registering or filing anything in your name.
I have rent from past years that was never declared. What now?
Income tax penalties and the surcharge are deemed to be tax and may be reduced or waived under regulations the Director-General publishes, and filing the missing returns yourself, before anyone comes looking, is what relief is normally built around — the earlier they go in, the smaller the damage. Once an assessment notice arrives, the tax, penalties and surcharge fall due within thirty days.
General information drawn from the SLF Accounting guides, not advice on your own situation. Rates, thresholds and deadlines can change; check with us before acting.