Transfer money to Thailand: bank wires, FET and tax

The legal, straightforward way to move money to Thailand is a bank wire into a Thai bank account: Thailand puts no cap on what comes in, and every foreign-currency transaction gets its own bank record. If you are buying a condo on the foreign-currency route under section 19 of the Condominium Act, the Land Office will want that bank record before it registers the unit in your name. Tax is a separate question from the transfer: foreign income you earned from 1 January 2024 onward, in a year when you were a Thai tax resident (180 days or more), is as a general rule brought into the income-tax calculation when you remit it, whatever year that is, though exemptions and an applicable tax treaty can change the result. Savings, and income earned before then, stay untaxed if the paperwork backs up the dates.

In short

• Thailand puts no cap on money coming in, by wire or in cash. Check separately for limits in the country you send from and for the terms of the specific Thai account the money lands in.
• Buying a freehold condo on the foreign-currency route needs a bank document — an FET form or a bank letter — showing the money arrived from abroad and was converted into baht in Thailand.
• Every foreign-currency transaction gets its own bank record. Keep it: both the Land Office and the Revenue Department may ask for it later.
• Tax turns on residency and timing, not on the transfer: foreign income you earned from 1 January 2024 onward, in a year when you were a Thai tax resident (180+ days), is as a general rule part of the tax calculation when you remit it; exemptions and a tax treaty can change the outcome.
• The UK, US and Australia each have a double tax treaty with Thailand, so a credit for tax already paid at home may be available for the same income.
• Carrying cash in is unlimited, but once baht, foreign notes and cheques together pass THB 450,000 or USD 15,000, you must declare them at the border.

Legal ways to send money to Thailand

The main route is a SWIFT wire from your bank at home into a Thai bank. You can send it to your own account, or, when you are buying, straight to the developer's or seller's account — either way, the transfer leaves a bank record that later proves where the money came from.

Method	Who it suits	What you get	Works for a condo registration?
Wire into your own baht account	Buyers with a long-term visa and an existing account	A bank record of the currency conversion	Yes, if it arrived in foreign currency, was converted in Thailand, and names the unit
Wire into your own foreign-currency account	Those who want to hold funds in dollars or pounds and convert in stages	A statement plus a conversion record for each exchange	Yes, if each conversion is tied to the purchase with the right purpose line
Wire straight to the developer or seller	Buyers without a Thai account	An FET form or bank letter from the recipient's bank	Yes, if you are named as sender and the unit number is in the purpose line
Cash brought in person	Spending money for the first weeks	A customs declaration above the threshold	Usually not: there is no bank record of an incoming foreign transfer

A foreigner who does not count as a resident for exchange-control purposes can hold a foreign-currency account at a Thai bank with no limit on deposits or withdrawals; a cash deposit of foreign banknotes is capped at what you brought in or bought from a bank, or USD 15,000 a day, and a non-resident baht account caps at THB 200 million held by the same person at the end of any day — the limit is set per person, not per account, so a second account does not raise it. We found no rule that forces you to convert your own inbound transfer immediately — ask your bank what applies to your account type. A separate duty under Bank of Thailand rules applies to someone who receives USD 1 million or more abroad from goods, services, investment or loans: the money must be brought into Thailand and sold for baht or deposited into a Thai bank account, both within 360 days of receipt. Whether that duty reaches a foreigner living in Thailand on a long-term visa is not clear from the rules we read, so check it with your bank before you plan around it.

This guide covers bank transfers: we do not treat P2P platforms, crypto exchanges or cash couriers as a route into Thailand. If you are buying a condo, agree the form of bank confirmation with the receiving bank in advance, so it meets what the Land Office will ask for.

The FET form and paying for a condo

A foreigner can own a condo unit outright (freehold) if the foreign-owned floor area in the building does not exceed 49% of the total saleable floor area and the purchase qualifies under section 19 of the Condominium Act — commonly because the money came from abroad in foreign currency. On that route, the Land Office will not register the unit without a bank document proving the money arrived from overseas and was converted to baht inside Thailand.

That document is an FET (Foreign Exchange Transaction Form, the old ธ.ต.3) or a credit advice together with a bank transfer letter. It must show you as the sender or recipient, and the purpose line should read something like "for purchasing condominium unit No. …, project …", with the unit number spelled out. Ask the receiving bank for this on every transfer, in advance: there is no confirmed single threshold for when a bank issues an FET rather than a simple letter, so do not rely on a fixed number such as USD 50,000.

Before you wire money for a condo

1. Check that the building still has quota left for foreign owners — see the 49% quota and how to check it before you pay.
2. Sign the contract and confirm the recipient's account details and the payment schedule.
3. Send each transfer in foreign currency from your own account abroad.
4. Put the unit number and project name in the payment reference.
5. Collect an FET form or bank letter for every transfer, as it arrives.
6. Keep all the documents until registration at the Land Office, and afterwards.

Here is an illustrative example. A condo priced at THB 6,000,000 (roughly GBP 136,000 or USD 182,000, at rough rates of 44 baht to the pound and 33 to the dollar — rates move, so check your own conversion before each transfer) is paid in three instalments under the contract. The buyer wires three payments from a foreign account, and the developer's bank issues a separate document for each one. By registration day, the buyer holds three bank documents that together cover the purchase price.

Before the first payment, our team checks the quota, the account details and the wording of the purpose line. If you are still choosing a unit, our guide to buying a freehold condo in Phuket and condo purchase taxes and fees cover the rest of the costs at registration.

What a Thai bank asks about the source of funds

Banks must know their customer, so a large transfer can bring questions about where the money came from. The Bank of Thailand and the country's financial-sector associations announced tighter customer and transaction checks in September 2026, without naming a start date.

Since 29 December 2025, under a Bank of Thailand tightening, a Thai individual or company that sells foreign currency for baht, or deposits it into a foreign-currency account, must give the bank supporting documents once a single transaction reaches USD 200,000. Banks may skip this check for business customers they already know well, but proceeds from selling real estate to a foreigner are named as one of the categories that needs documents without exception. The rule is written for the Thai recipient, for example a seller paid by a foreign buyer. Whether it also covers a foreign buyer's own inbound transfer has not been clarified officially.

Banks separately report large transactions to Thailand's Anti-Money Laundering Office. That report is routine: it is not a tax and not a refusal to process your transfer.

Our lawyers suggest gathering proof of where the money came from before the bank asks, not after. Useful documents, though the exact list depends on your bank and your transfer:

• statements from the sending account covering the period the money was saved or earned;
• a sale contract, if the money comes from selling property, a business or shares;
• a payslip, pension statement or savings records, if the money is accumulated income.

When is a remittance taxed in Thailand

There is no separate tax on the bank transfer itself. But remitting the corresponding foreign income into Thailand can bring it into the income-tax calculation — it depends on the kind of income, the year you earned it, your Thai tax residency (180 days or more in Thailand in the calendar year) and what you are bringing in. The Revenue Department's instructions Por. 161/2566 and 162/2566 set out this rule; we have not read the Revenue Department's own Q&A on them, so confirm how they apply to your own transfer with the Revenue Department or with us before you rely on it. See Thailand's 180-day rule for how the count works.

What you remit	Taxed?
Savings built up before 1 January 2024	No, if you can document the date and source
Income earned in a year when you were not a Thai tax resident	No, if residency for that year is documented
Income earned from 2024 onward, in a year you were resident	Yes, when you remit it, whatever year that is
Income you remit in a year when you spent fewer than 180 days in Thailand	Not confirmed in the official materials we read; ask the Revenue Department before you transfer

Rates are progressive, up to 35%, and the first THB 150,000 is untaxed. A draft would have exempted income remitted in the same year it was earned or the year after; it has not become law. A separate draft to tax worldwide income regardless of remittance has not been enacted either. The Long-Term Resident (LTR) visa gives real relief: foreign income is exempt for the Wealthy Global Citizen, Wealthy Pensioner and Work-from-Thailand categories (details on the BOI's LTR page). The DTV, Thailand Privilege, retirement and marriage visas carry no such exemption.

Thai banks also report account data under the Common Reporting Standard, so your account may be visible to tax authorities in your home country too — that is an exchange of information, not a tax by itself. We help clients separate capital from income using bank statements, work out what a transfer will cost in tax, and put together the supporting documents. The full rules are in tax on remitted foreign income, and a worked example is in the typical situation 180 days and a savings remittance: what was taxed and what was not.

Sending from the UK, US and Australia

The Thai rules above do not change by where you send from, but your home country's tax treatment of the transfer does. Thailand has double tax treaties with the UK, the US and Australia, among 59 jurisdictions. The US treaty has been in force since December 1997 and carries a savings clause, so a US citizen stays taxable at home on worldwide income and claims a credit for Thai tax paid on the same income. We have not confirmed the entry-into-force dates or the articles on rental and property income for the UK and Australian treaties, so read the treaty text for your own case, or ask us to look at it with your adviser.

We cover only the Thai side of the transfer here, so check how your own bank and tax office treat a large transfer out of the UK, the US or Australia before you send one. If you are moving a pension or the proceeds of a property sale, keep the statements and the sale contract: they are the same kind of proof a Thai bank or the Revenue Department may ask for later.

Bringing cash into Thailand: when to declare it

Carrying cash into Thailand has no upper limit, but once baht, foreign banknotes and negotiable instruments such as traveller's cheques together exceed THB 450,000 or USD 15,000, you must declare them to Customs on arrival and on departure. The Royal Thai Embassy in London quotes a different figure, USD 20,000, on an older page, so confirm the current threshold with the Thai Customs hotline, 1164, before you travel. Failing to declare, or declaring falsely, is a criminal offence.

Taking baht out of Thailand is capped at THB 50,000 per trip for travel to the UK, the US, Australia and most other countries; a much higher cap, THB 2,000,000, applies only to Vietnam, Yunnan province in China and Thailand's immediate neighbours. Foreign currency can be taken out up to the amount you bought from a bank or a licensed money changer.

Cash does not work well for a condo purchase: it leaves no bank record of a transfer from abroad, which is exactly what the Land Office asks for on the foreign-currency route. If you already hold cash in Thailand, ask your bank how it will document a deposit before you commit to a contract, and show us the plan before you pay.

What we don't know yet

• Whether the USD 200,000 supporting-document rule from 29 December 2025 covers a foreign buyer's own inbound transfer — no official clarification has been published.
• There is no single confirmed threshold for when a bank must issue an FET rather than a simple letter; ask your bank for the document on every transfer, regardless of amount.
• The entry-into-force dates and the property-income articles of the UK and Australian tax treaties with Thailand are not confirmed in the sources we could read.
• Thailand's own official pages state the cash-declaration threshold differently, so confirm it with Customs before you travel rather than relying on one page.

What next

If you are not sure which document your bank or the Land Office will want, describe your situation and we will reply within 24 hours. In a consultation (45 minutes, [price]) we work out which bank document fits your purpose, how to separate savings from income for tax, and what to prepare before you wire the money; we agree the cost before we start.

If you are buying a condo, send us the contract: a preliminary contract review is free and takes up to 48 hours. For tax questions, start with tax consultation for foreigners in Thailand. If you are still planning the move itself, our guide to moving to Phuket covers the visa and the account you will need before the money arrives.