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How soon a Thai landlord has to return your deposit depends on the lease and, if the landlord lets three or more residential units, on a 2025 notification from the Contract Committee that applies alongside it: straight away once the lease ends, or within 7 days at a damage-free inspection, or within 14 days if repair costs are deducted. We have not checked the official gazetted text ourselves, so treat that benchmark as a starting point and confirm the figure that actually applies to your contract. Neither kind of landlord can deduct for ordinary wear and tear, only for damage you caused; what counts as a valid deduction beyond that depends on which of the two regimes covers your landlord.
This guide is for tenants renting a condo, house or villa for a month or longer, which covers most long-stay residents, retirees and remote workers on the island. Daily or short-stay bookings fall under the Hotel Act instead, and we do not cover that here.
The landlord won't pay back: step by step
If the money has not come back and the deadline has passed, the steps run in roughly the same order every time.
- Move-out inspection. Ask the landlord to walk through the property with you on the day you leave, compare it against your move-in condition report, and photograph every room again. Hand back the keys against a signed receipt or at least a message with a photo.
- Wait out the deadline. Which deadline counts depends on your landlord. For a private owner of one or two units, the notification does not apply: check the return deadline in the lease and the general rules of the Civil and Commercial Code. If the landlord has three or more units, the notification's mandatory rules apply on top of the lease, so check whether the lease clause meets them rather than treating the lease alone as proof of an acceptable deadline. The 7-or-14-day figures are reported by secondary sources, so confirm them against the official text or with a lawyer before you rely on them.
- Send a written demand. Once the deadline has passed with no refund, or with a deduction you think is unjustified, put your demand in writing.
- Negotiate, and complain if the landlord runs this as a business. The landlord's reply is often the start of a negotiation. In parallel, if the landlord lets units as a business, you can file a complaint with OCPB or the Consumer Council.
- File a small claims case. If negotiation fails, a court case is the remaining option.
Here is a worked example. A villa rents for THB 60,000 a month, and the deposit is two months' rent, THB 120,000. On move-out, the landlord deducts THB 35,000 for repainting and furniture replacement. Repainting after ordinary living in the property is wear and tear, and section 562 of the Civil and Commercial Code puts that cost on the landlord, not you. Scuffed furniture or marks that were not on the move-in report could count as genuine damage. Ask the landlord for photographs, a description of the damage and the calculation behind the deduction, and keep in mind that ordinary wear and tear does not count as damage. The deposit, THB 120,000, sits comfortably under the figure sources report as the small claims threshold, THB 300,000.
What Thai law says about rental deposits
Two regimes apply, depending on your landlord.
The general one covers everyone: a residential lease is a lease of property under the Civil and Commercial Code, from section 537 onward. The code has no dedicated article on deposits, so the deposit amount, the return deadline and the grounds for any deduction come from the contract itself, while the code supplies the general rules on the condition of the property and liability for damage.
The second regime comes from a 2025 Contract Committee notification on residential leasing as a controlled-contract business, issued under the Consumer Protection Act and published in the Royal Gazette on 6 June 2025. Sources report an effective date of 4 September 2025, though we have not verified the official text, so check whether it applies to your lease against the date it was signed and any transition provisions. It covers landlords with three or more residential units, houses, condo units or apartments included; the threshold used to be five units. Leases arranged through online platforms are covered too, while hotels and dormitories are not, since they sit under their own rules. Leases signed under the older 2019 notification may still run to the end of their own term.
| Private landlord, one or two units | Landlord with three or more units | |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit amount | Whatever you agreed, subject to ordinary contract law | Reported cap: deposit plus advance rent together no more than three months' rent for a short-term lease or a long-term lease with monthly rent, or one year's rent for a long-term lease paid annually; check the exact wording |
| Return deadline | Whatever the lease says | Reported benchmark: immediately at lease end; 7 days at a damage-free inspection, 14 days if repair costs are deducted; unverified at official level |
| Deduction for wear and tear | Not allowed: ordinary wear and tear is not chargeable (CCC section 562) | Not allowed, and a clause trying to shift that cost to the tenant is reported to be unenforceable even if signed |
| Move-in condition report | Worth having: without one, you are presumed to have received the property in good repair (CCC section 561) | Required: both sides sign it, and it forms part of the lease |
| Where to complain | Demand letter, negotiation, court | Demand letter, OCPB or Consumer Council complaint, court |
To work out which regime covers your landlord, ask directly how many units they let, and read the lease itself. A property under a management company does not automatically mean three or more units; ask how many units that company actually manages. There is no official guidance yet on exactly how units are counted across owners or portfolios, so a tenant of a private, single-unit landlord should not assume the 7-or-14-day benchmark as a guaranteed right; the lease and the general code are usually enough on their own.
What to do at move-in
A saved contract, a signed condition report and photographs make recovering a deposit far easier if a dispute happens later. We recommend going through this list before you transfer the deposit.
- Check that the lease states the deposit amount, the return deadline and the specific grounds on which the landlord can deduct money. Add a deadline if the draft does not have one.
- Sign a move-in condition report with the landlord. Under section 561 of the Civil and Commercial Code, without a signed report you are presumed to have received the property in good repair and to owe it back in the same state; proving otherwise later falls on you.
- Photograph every room, piece of furniture, appliance, wall and fixture, especially any chips, stains or cracks, and send the photos to the landlord by message so they carry a timestamp.
- Attach a furniture and appliance inventory to the report and record the electricity and water meter readings on the day you move in.
- Pay the deposit and rent by bank transfer and keep the confirmations. If the landlord asks for cash, get a signed receipt.
- Ask to see the landlord's title document and ID, or the manager's power of attorney, so you know who you are actually contracting with.
- Rental agreements carry Thai stamp duty, generally 1 baht for every 1,000 baht (or part of it) of rent and any key money over the full term, payable by the landlord. A document that has not been stamped cannot be used as evidence in a civil case under section 118 of the Revenue Code; how that rule plays out in a deposit dispute has not been officially clarified, but it can become a practical problem in court, so it is worth agreeing up front that the duty will be paid.
What else to check in a lease before you sign is covered in what a rental contract should say, and housing and paperwork for a move to the island are covered in moving to Phuket: housing and paperwork.
If a letting agent or management company holds the deposit
Many English-speaking tenants rent through a letting agent or a property management company rather than dealing with the owner directly, and that changes how you work out who to claim against. Before you pay, check whether the agent signs the lease as the owner's agent, as a sub-lessor in their own name, or does not sign it at all and is only handling the keys and money on the owner's behalf, and keep every receipt and message the agency gives you. If the agency goes quiet, give a lawyer the lease, the documents showing the agent's authority and your payment records, so they can work out from those documents who your demand letter should go to — the landlord, the agent, or both — and send a copy to the agency as well.
A formal demand letter and negotiation
A demand letter states the lease, your move-out date, the deposit amount and the sum you are asking back. If the landlord has deducted money for wear and tear, cite section 562 of the Civil and Commercial Code; cite the 2025 notification too if it applies to your landlord. Set a deadline for a reply, for example 7 days, and give your bank details for the transfer. Attach the condition report, the move-in and move-out photographs and any relevant messages. Send the letter in both Thai and English to reduce the risk that the landlord claims they misunderstood it.
Before we send a demand letter for a client, our lawyers review the contract, the condition report and the correspondence, and check whether the 2025 notification applies to that particular landlord, because that decides which rules the letter can cite. We then draft the letter in Thai and English and send it in a form that can be proven in court later if it comes to that.
If the landlord runs the rental as a business, you can complain alongside the demand letter. The Office of the Consumer Protection Board (OCPB) takes complaints — check the current channel at ocpb.go.th, since we have not confirmed details such as a hotline number, a provincial office or whether the service is free — and the Thailand Consumer Council, a statutory body, takes complaints on 1502 or through the form on its own website. A complaint does not by itself guarantee a refund, and if the dispute is not resolved this way, recovering the money may still take a court case.
Call 1155 to ask whether the tourist police can help you communicate with the landlord. There is no official guidance describing their role in deposit disputes, and this is a civil, not a criminal, matter, so do not count on them for the money itself.
Small claims court: time and cost
A small claim is heard under the simplified procedure in the Civil Procedure Code (sections 189 to 196). Sources report a threshold of THB 300,000 for this track and a filing fee for the claimant of no more than THB 1,000, but we have not checked the official decree text, so confirm both figures with the court. Hearings are scheduled quickly, the court tries to conciliate the parties first, and the defendant can respond orally at the hearing. If the claimant does not appear without the court's permission, the case can be struck out, so arrange representation in advance if you cannot attend yourself.
If the landlord lets units as a business, your case may instead fall under the Consumer Case Procedure Act B.E. 2551 (2008), reported to allow an oral complaint and a filing-fee exemption; we have not verified sections 18 and 20, and whether a private owner of one or two units counts as a "business operator" has not been officially clarified, so we do not rely on these advantages against a small private landlord.
Jurisdiction depends on the claim amount, the type of case and territorial rules we have not verified for Phuket's court structure, so we do not name a single filing address here; confirm with the court whether you can file where the defendant lives or where the dispute arose. There is no official data on how long such a case takes or what it costs in practice, so we assess timing and cost once we have seen the documents.
If you have already left Thailand, a Thai lawyer can run the case for you under a power of attorney.
Our team can run a case like this under a power of attorney, but we assess first whether the amount in dispute is worth the cost of pursuing it.
The landlord also has a deadline. If the landlord wants to claim damages from you beyond the deposit, the claim has to be filed within six months of the property being returned (Civil and Commercial Code, section 563). That six-month rule applies to the landlord's own claims; what deadline applies to a tenant's claim for the deposit has not been officially clarified, and it is worth checking before you go to court. We would rather you file sooner than later.
When it is actually a scam
If the landlord is real, owns or is authorised to let the property, and the lease was signed in good faith, a landlord refusing to pay back the deposit is a contract dispute. It is resolved with a demand, negotiation and a civil claim, and the police do not recover money in that kind of case.
Fraud is different: it starts with a lie from the beginning, a fake listing, a "landlord" who does not own the property and has no authority to let it, taking your money without ever intending to let you move in. That is an offence under section 341 of the Criminal Code, punishable by up to three years in prison, a fine of up to THB 60,000, or both. A case under section 341 is brought on the victim's complaint, and the parties can settle it (section 348). But if the deception was addressed to the public rather than to you alone — for example, a listing advertised to many prospective tenants — it may instead fall under section 343, which section 348 does not let the parties settle; whether a particular fake listing is classified under section 341 or section 343 needs to be checked with a Thai lawyer. How long you have to file the complaint depends on how the offence is classified, and it is worth confirming without delay with a Thai lawyer or the investigating officer; we have not verified the official wording of this time limit in the materials we used.
What's next
If your deposit has not come back, or a deduction looks wrong to you, start with a consultation. Our lawyers will review the contract, the condition report and your correspondence, tell you which regime your landlord falls under and what you can rely on, and prepare a demand letter in Thai and English. The consultation costs [price], agreed with you before we start. If you have not moved in yet, send us the lease before you sign it: we will flag any deposit terms that are likely to cause a dispute later.
More on how our lawyers work is on the lawyer in Phuket page. For an example of how we use a demand letter to recover money, see the typical case of a developer who delayed handover and the deposit that came back. It concerns a condo purchase, not a rental, but the way we work a demand letter is the same.
