Last updated on August 5, 2026
Short answer: the Foreign Exchange Transaction form (FET, formerly Tor Tor 3) is your Thai bank’s official record that foreign currency came into Thailand from abroad and was converted to baht. A foreign buyer needs it because the Land Office will not register a condominium unit in a foreigner’s name without documentary evidence that the purchase money came from overseas. Your bank issues one automatically for each inward transfer of USD 50,000 or more, or the equivalent. Below that threshold you collect credit advices and a bank confirmation letter instead.
The mistake that kills deals: money that arrives in the wrong name, or described as a gift or an investment rather than a property purchase. Fixing that after the transfer is booked is difficult and sometimes impossible. See how to brief your bank.
What the FET Form Actually Is
When foreign currency is remitted into Thailand and converted into baht, the receiving Thai commercial bank records the transaction under Bank of Thailand exchange control rules. For remittances of USD 50,000 or more, or the equivalent in another currency, the bank issues a Foreign Exchange Transaction form. Older documents and older lawyers still call it a Tor Tor 3, which was the previous form number. It is the same thing.
The form records who sent the money, who received it, how much foreign currency came in, what exchange rate was applied, how many baht resulted, and the stated purpose of the remittance. That last field is the one that matters most to you, and it is the one buyers never think about until it is too late.
The FET is not a tax document and it is not a permission. It is evidence. Its whole job is to prove, later, that the baht used to buy your condominium originated outside Thailand.
Why the Land Office Demands It
Foreign ownership of a Thai condominium runs on two provisions of the Condominium Act B.E. 2522, and both are checked at the counter on transfer day.
- Section 19 bis sets the ratio. Foreign owners may hold no more than 49% of the total sellable floor area of the building. See our explainer on the condo foreign ownership quota.
- Section 19 ter governs the documentary evidence a foreign buyer must produce to qualify under section 19. For the ordinary foreign buyer who is not a permanent resident and not a BOI promoted investor, that evidence is proof that foreign currency was brought into Thailand for the purchase, which in practice means the FET form.
This is not a soft requirement or a local custom that varies by province. In Supreme Court Decision 7500/2552 the court set out the officer’s duty in exactly these terms: the registering officer may only register a transfer to a foreigner once the documents required under section 19 are correct under section 19 ter, and once the foreign ownership ratio, counting both existing foreign owners and the incoming buyer, stays inside the limit in section 19 bis. No evidence, no registration. The officer has no discretion to be helpful.
Getting It Right: What to Tell Your Bank
Three details on the remittance decide whether the form is usable.
1. The name on the money must be the name on the deed
The remitter and the eventual registered owner should be the same person. If you intend to buy jointly, remit in both names or send separate transfers in each name for each share. Money sent by your company, your parents, your spouse under a different surname, or a friend who owed you, produces an FET naming that person, and the Land Office reads the form, not your explanation of it.
2. The stated purpose must say what it is
Ask the sending bank and the receiving bank to record the purpose as the purchase of a condominium unit, and where the field allows it, name the project and unit number. Purposes such as “investment”, “personal expenses”, “gift”, “family support” or the ever popular blank field will produce a form that does not obviously connect to your purchase. Some Land Offices accept a subsequent bank letter clarifying the purpose. Some do not.
3. The currency must arrive as foreign currency
The conversion into baht has to happen in Thailand, at a Thai bank. If you convert to baht abroad and send baht, there is no foreign exchange transaction for a Thai bank to record, and no FET. This catches people using low cost transfer services that deliver baht into a Thai account. Those services are excellent for living expenses and useless for a property purchase.
Transfers Under USD 50,000
Below the threshold the bank does not issue an FET automatically, and that is fine. What you do instead is keep every credit advice for every transfer, and then ask the bank for a confirmation letter listing the inward remittances, the foreign currency amounts, the conversion into baht and the purpose. That package does the same evidential job.
Two practical points. Ask for the letter while the deal is live rather than years later, because bank staff turn over and retrieving old remittance detail becomes a project. And do not deliberately split a single large purchase into sub-threshold transfers to avoid paperwork: it creates more documents to reconcile, not fewer, and it looks exactly like what it is.
The Third Party Payer Problem
This is the failure we are asked to fix most often, and it is worth its own section because it does not look like a problem when it happens.
The pattern runs like this. A buyer arranges for the purchase money to arrive from a company account, a business partner, or a relative, for reasons that are entirely innocent: a currency rate, an existing offshore structure, a corporate treasury, a family arrangement. The money lands. The FET is issued in that third party’s name and often with a generic purpose such as an import payment or an inter company transfer. The seller is paid and everyone is happy. Then the Land Office reads the form, sees that the person registering as owner is not the person who brought the money in, and declines.
At that point the options are all expensive. You can try to obtain a corrected or supplementary bank certification, which depends on the bank’s records and its willingness. You can remit fresh, correctly documented funds and unwind the first payment, which means the seller is holding money that has to come back. Or the transfer stalls while the contract’s completion deadline runs down and the deposit forfeiture clause starts to matter.
The same defect resurfaces years later. When you sell, the evidence supporting the outward remittance of your sale proceeds is the evidence of how the money came in. A file with a mismatched FET is a file that will be questioned at exactly the moment you are trying to leave.
Fixing a Missing or Wrong FET
If the money is already in Thailand and the paperwork is wrong, work in this order.
- Get the bank’s actual record before deciding anything. Request the remittance advices and the bank’s certification of the inward transfers. What the bank has recorded, not what you remember instructing, determines your options.
- Ask for a corrective certification. Where the money genuinely came from abroad in the buyer’s name but the purpose field is wrong or blank, many banks will issue a letter confirming the purpose. This is the cheapest fix and it works surprisingly often.
- Check the Land Office’s position early, through your lawyer, before transfer day rather than on it. Practice on marginal documentation is not uniform across offices, and knowing the answer a week in advance is worth a great deal.
- Consider re-remitting. If the funds are still recoverable, sending them again correctly documented is slow and irritating but certain. This is a decision to take with the seller in the room, because it changes the payment timetable.
- Re-paper the deal only with advice. Restructuring who buys, or adding a party, to match the money that arrived is occasionally the right answer and frequently a much worse problem, particularly if it edges toward a nominee arrangement. Thai courts treat nominee holdings harshly.
Taking the Money Out Again When You Sell
The FET has a second life at the end of your ownership. When you sell the unit and want to remit the proceeds abroad, the bank handling the outward transfer wants to see that the funds correspond to money that was originally brought in, plus any gain. A clean set of inward FETs makes that conversation short.
Keep the originals, keep them with the deed and the purchase contract, and keep a scan somewhere you will still be able to reach in ten years. Buyers who lose the paperwork are not usually blocked outright, but they spend months reconstructing what a folder would have proved in an afternoon.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the FET form the same as the Tor Tor 3?
Yes. Tor Tor 3 was the older form number for the same Bank of Thailand record of an inward foreign currency remittance. Banks and Land Offices use the names interchangeably. Some banks also call it an FETF.
What is the FET threshold in Thailand?
Banks issue the form for inward remittances of USD 50,000 or more, or the equivalent in another currency. For smaller transfers you collect the credit advices and ask the bank for a confirmation letter, which serves the same evidential purpose.
Can the developer collect the FET for me?
Yes, and for off-plan purchases it is common. If you remit directly to the developer rather than to your own Thai account, the developer’s bank issues the form and the developer passes it to you. Make sure your name appears as the source of the funds and that you actually receive the original before transfer day, not a photocopy afterwards.
Do I need an FET to buy a leasehold or a house?
No. The requirement comes from the Condominium Act and applies to registering freehold ownership of a condominium unit in a foreigner’s name. A registered lease, a usufruct or a house purchase in a Thai company or spouse’s name do not trigger it. That said, bringing money in cleanly and documenting it still matters for taking the money out later, and for proving whose funds bought what if the arrangement is ever disputed.
Can I use money I already have in a Thai bank account?
Only if you can show that money came from abroad in foreign currency and was converted here, which means going back to the original inward remittance records. Baht earned in Thailand, or baht that arrived already converted, will not support a foreign purchase.
What happens if the FET is in my wife’s name?
Then the evidence says your wife brought the money in. If she is Thai, the unit does not need the foreign quota at all and can be registered in her name, but you then own nothing, and that is a decision with consequences well beyond this page. If you intend to own the unit yourself, the remittance needs to be in your name. Talk to us before, not after.
We Brief the Bank For You
FET handling is included in every one of our condominium packages: we tell you exactly what to instruct the sending bank, confirm with the receiving bank that the purpose and the names are recorded correctly, and check the form before transfer day rather than at the counter. Contract review alone is THB 9,000. The full condominium package is THB 19,900, or THB 34,900 with us attending the Land Office.
See the full 25-point condominium check and the fixed fees | The complete guide to buying a condo in Thailand | Moving money to Thailand from abroad
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