ที่ดินสำหรับผู้สมัครในประเทศไทย: ระยะเวลาสิ้นสุดในเดือนธันวาคมปี 2026

ปรับปรุงล่าสุดเมื่อ 26 ตุลาคม 2569

Nominee land in Thailand has moved from a tolerated grey area to an enforcement priority with a date attached. On 19 October 2026 the Prime Minister, who also holds the Interior portfolio, instructed provincial governors to complete priority investigations into land held for foreigners by the end of December. The Department of Lands put preliminary figures on the table the same day: around 14.01 billion baht of property under scrutiny, 2,360 plots linked to 1,397 suspected nominee holders, and some 5,467 rai in question.

If you own a house, a villa or a plot of land in Thailand through a Thai company, a Thai partner or a Thai spouse, this is the moment to understand what the officials are now being told to look for. Nothing in the October order created a new power of confiscation. What it did was tell land offices and governors to use the powers that have been sitting in the Land Code for decades.

What counts as nominee land in Thailand

The starting point is Section 86 of the Land Code: a foreigner may acquire land in Thailand only where a treaty permits it, and no such treaty is in force today. Everything else follows from that prohibition. A nominee arrangement is any structure whose real purpose is to put a foreigner in the economic position of a landowner while a Thai name appears on the title deed.

Thai law does not require a written confession to reach that conclusion. Because the object of the arrangement is to defeat a statutory prohibition, the underlying agreement is void under มาตรา 150 แห่งประมวลกฎหมายแพ่งและพาณิชย์, which strikes down any juristic act contrary to an express legal prohibition or to public order. That is why the side letters, loan agreements and share pledges that foreign buyers are often given as reassurance tend to be worth less than they appear.

Two broad patterns attract attention. The first is the Thai limited company whose only asset is the family home and whose Thai shareholders never paid for their shares. The second is land registered to a Thai individual, a spouse, partner or employee, bought entirely with the foreigner’s money.

What the 19 October 2026 order actually requires

Four instructions in the October directive change how land offices behave in practice.

1. Look for beneficial ownership, not names. Investigators are told to identify who supplied the capital, who makes the decisions and who takes the benefit, rather than stopping at the person on the deed or the shareholder register.
2. Follow the chain of nominees. Where land has already been sold under an enforcement order, officials must check whether the buyer is genuinely independent or simply the next nominee in line.
3. Examine how the company was financed. Land offices may look at shareholders, capital contributions and the source of funds both before registration and after it. A company that acquired land years ago is not beyond review.
4. Finish the priority files by the end of December. Provincial governors carry the deadline. It is a deadline for investigating, not for completing every prosecution, appeal or forced sale.

The legal authority for the questioning itself is Section 74 of the Land Code, which allows the competent official to enquire into the parties and the nature of the transaction before registering it. That provision has always been there. What is new is the instruction to use it systematically, and the data-matching behind it. The scale of the current review is larger than anything the August 2026 company crackdown involved, because it is being driven from the land registry side rather than from the company registry.

Figure released 19 October 2026	Reported scope
Property value under scrutiny	About 14.01 billion baht
Parties linked to suspicious arrangements	13,088 in total
Companies suspected of illegal foreign shareholding	1,550
Entities suspected of holding land for foreigners	11,538
Plots linked to suspected nominee holders	2,360 plots, 1,397 holders
Land area in question	About 5,467 rai
Investigation deadline for governors	End of December 2026

These are preliminary investigation figures, not confiscations. Being counted in them is not a finding of wrongdoing. Source: reported statements of the Department of Lands Director-General, 19 October 2026; the Department’s own announcements are published at the Department of Lands.

The two thresholds that trigger a check

The order sets value triggers for enhanced scrutiny at the land office counter. Either of the following is enough to open a check:

• A purchase price above 2 ล้านบาท, หรือ
• ​ assessed value above 5 million baht.

In most Thai provinces that captures an ordinary suburban house, not just a luxury villa. Practically, it means buyers in that range should expect to be asked where the money came from, and should have a documentary answer ready before the transfer appointment rather than at it. Our การตรวจสอบสถานะทรัพย์สิน process now treats the source-of-funds file as part of the standard pre-transfer checklist.

Thai spouses and the source of the funds

This is the part that worries mixed couples most, and it deserves a precise answer. A Thai citizen married to a foreigner may still buy land. That has not changed, and the October order does not treat money that passed through a foreign spouse as automatically making the purchase a nominee holding.

What the Thai spouse must be able to show is that the purchase money is genuinely her own separate property rather than marital property in which the foreigner shares. That is the whole function of the joint declaration that a Thai spouse and a foreign spouse sign at the land office, in which the foreigner confirms the funds belong to the Thai spouse alone and that he claims no interest in the land. We cover that document in detail in our guide to the land office confirmation letter.

The declaration is not a formality

Signing that declaration while both parties privately understand the opposite is a false statement to a competent official. The exposure sits in the Penal Code, principally Sections 137 and 267, and it lands on both signatures, not only the foreigner’s. Couples who signed years ago without advice should read what they actually signed before an investigator reads it to them.

What happens if you are found to be a nominee

The consequences are not a single penalty but a stack of them, which is why these files escalate quickly.

• Forced disposal of the land. Under Section 94 of the Land Code, land acquired unlawfully by or for a foreigner must be disposed of within a period fixed by the Director-General of the Department of Lands. If it is not, the Director-General may dispose of it. A forced sale is rarely a good sale.
• Criminal liability of the Thai helper. Section 36 of the Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 penalises a Thai national who holds shares or otherwise assists a foreigner in evading the Act, with imprisonment of up to three years, a fine, or both.
• Money laundering and tax files. Where the funds trail is unexplained, AMLO and the Revenue Department become involved, and asset freezes can precede any land ruling.
• Immigration consequences. A conviction can feed into deportation proceedings. The current framework is set out in our note on the 2026 deportation rules.
• No recovery from the nominee. Because the arrangement is void, a foreigner who later falls out with his nominee usually cannot ask a Thai court to enforce it and hand back the land.

The lawful alternatives that still work

None of this means a foreigner has no secure way to hold Thai property. It means the secure ways are the registered ones.

• Condominium freehold. A foreigner may own a condominium unit outright, subject to the 49 percent foreign quota in the building.
• A registered lease. Up to 30 years, registered at the land office, and effective against a later buyer of the land.
• Usufruct, superficies or habitation. Registered real rights that give use, or ownership of the building separately from the land. The differences matter more than most buyers expect, and we compare them in usufruct versus lease versus superficies.
• Section 96 bis of the Land Code. A narrow route allowing up to one rai of residential land against a qualifying investment of 40 million baht, with ministerial approval. It is used rarely because the conditions are demanding.
• A genuine operating company. A Thai company with real Thai shareholders who paid for their shares, real business activity and proper books may hold land for that business. The problem has never been the company form; it is the empty company. See our guide to การจดทะเบียนบริษัทในประเทศไทย.

What to do before the end of December

With roughly ten weeks on the governors’ clock, the useful work is documentary and it is better done early than under a summons.

1. Pull the file: the title deed, the transfer documents, the company’s shareholder list and capital payment records, and any declaration signed at the land office.
2. Trace the money honestly, on paper, from its origin to the transfer. An explanation that exists only in memory is not an explanation.
3. Check whether the Thai shareholders in a land-holding company actually paid, and whether the company has filed accounts and held meetings.
4. Where the structure is weak, take advice on restructuring into a registered right, a lease, usufruct or superficies, before an investigation fixes the position.
5. If you have already been contacted, answer through a lawyer. Volunteered explanations become evidence.

For wider background on what a foreigner can and cannot hold, our คู่มืออสังหาริมทรัพย์สำหรับชาวต่างชาติในประเทศไทย และหน้าของเราเรื่อง ผู้ถือหุ้นนอมินีชาวไทย set out the framework in full.

คำถามที่พบบ่อย

This article was written and reviewed by Sebastien H. Brousseau, LL.B., B.Sc., who has been based in Thailand since 2004 and has run ThaiLawOnline since 2006. Our team has restructured nominee holdings into registered leases, usufructs and superficies for foreign owners across Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai and Isaan, and we handle land office enquiries on clients’ behalf. If you are unsure whether your structure would survive a source-of-funds review, contact ThaiLawOnline for a confidential assessment of your title and your company file.

This article is general information about Thai law and is not legal advice. Enforcement practice is moving quickly and the figures quoted are preliminary official statements rather than final findings. Your own position depends on your documents and your facts, so please take advice on your specific case before acting or deciding not to act.