Can foreign investors buy land in Thailand? What the new rule changed

01The principle: foreign companies cannot buy land, with three main exemptions

When Chinese-invested companies come to Thailand to build a plant, the question that comes up at the site-selection stage is almost always the same: can the company simply buy the land? The answer has two layers. Thai law says no in principle to foreign land ownership, but it left a door open for BOI-promoted companies — and after September 2025 that door is closed to part of the manufacturing sector.

The Land Code, promulgated in 1954, prohibits foreign individuals and foreign legal persons from buying or holding land unless the competent authority grants permission. Three statutory exemptions matter:

• Section 27 of the Investment Promotion Act. An investor holding BOI promotion may hold land for the promoted activity; if the project ends or is transferred, the land must be sold within one year.
• Section 44 of the IEAT Act. An approved company may hold land inside an industrial estate; if the project ends, the land must be returned or transferred within three years.
• Concession arrangements under the petroleum law, which have little bearing on ordinary manufacturing.

For manufacturing clients, the BOI land privilege is in practice the only realistic route to holding land directly.

One warning to add here: putting the land behind a Thai shareholder holding it on your behalf is not a tolerated workaround. There are specific rules aimed at foreigners who hold land through a nominally Thai majority, and that line is worth understanding on its own. See the legal line on Thai nominee shareholders.

02What tightened: six manufacturing categories lost the land privilege

BOI Announcement No. ส.7/2568, signed on 22 July 2025 and effective 1 September 2025, revised the list of promoted activities. For BOI applications submitted on or after the effective date, the following six categories no longer receive the land privilege:

• Rolling, drawing, casting and forging of non-ferrous metals (5.4.9)
• Ferrous metal products and parts (5.4.11.2)
• Non-ferrous metal products and parts for industrial use (5.4.11.4)
• Other metal products (5.4.11.5)
• Industrial chemicals (6.2)
• Plastic products and parts for industrial use (6.4.1)

One point here is frequently mis-reported. The announcement draws the line by activity category, not by shareholding ratio. The widely circulated secondary reading says that foreign-majority-owned companies no longer receive the land privilege, but the Thai text carries no such qualifier — reducing the foreign shareholding does not get you around it. If the project falls in one of these six categories and cannot use the large-group exemption below, the land right is not granted. The same announcement does separately require Thai natural persons to hold more than half of the registered capital in three other categories (bags, furniture and printed matter), but that is an independent provision and not the same thing as the land restriction on these six.

Where this most often goes wrong. Auto parts makers, metal structural component makers and plastic parts makers land in these six categories in large numbers. The activity code has to be checked line by line at the BOI tier assessment stage. Finding out only after the promotion certificate arrives that you cannot buy the land can force the site, the investment projections and even the shareholding structure to be redone. See how the BOI tiers work.

03Who is not affected: the large-group exemption and data centres

The new rule leaves one exemption open. A legal entity that has already obtained at least three BOI-promoted projects in the past 15 years, with cumulative investment (excluding land cost and working capital) reaching 5 billion baht, is not caught by the restriction. That is plainly a channel for large groups with a long history in Thailand; a company coming to Thailand for the first time will not reach it.

The other question we get asked often is data centres. The land exemption does still stand, but what supports that conclusion is not that they fall outside those six categories. Our advisory team read through the condition columns of both data centre entries (8.2.1.1 high-efficiency data centres and 8.2.1.2 other data centres) item by item; four official instruments agree, and none of those conditions removes the right to own land. That is what the conclusion rests on.

So the checking step itself needs to change. Withdrawal of the land privilege is not written only in that one announcement — it is also written into the condition column of individual entries in the activity list. Entry 8.1.2 in the guide currently in force (software, digital platforms and digital content upgrading) is not among the six, yet its condition column states expressly that no permission to own land will be granted for the operation of the promoted activity. “Not on the list of six” therefore does not establish that the land privilege survives. What you actually have to do is read the condition column of every entry you are applying for, in the announcements and the guide currently in force. One of the six is a live illustration: ferrous metal products and parts (5.4.11.2) was later replaced in full by an announcement of January 2026, which moved the same land restriction into that entry’s own condition column. Watch one announcement only, and what you are reading is not the current position.

One further point matters especially for data centre projects: they commonly apply for supporting entries at the same time (software upgrading, supporting metal structures, industrial chemicals or plastic parts). If any one of those entries carries a land restriction in its condition column, the land plan for the whole entity has to be redone. So whether the land privilege is available depends on the specific promoted category. The blanket statement that BOI projects can buy land no longer holds.

04If you cannot buy: long lease, industrial estates, and splitting building from land

Companies that fall inside the restricted categories still have three ordinary alternatives.

• Locate in an IEAT industrial estate and hold land inside the estate under the estate legislation.
• Take a long lease on the land. A common arrangement is a 30-year term with an agreed renewal, but the renewal right is a contractual right and does not necessarily bind a later purchaser of the land. Longer arrangements vary with the governing law and the intended use, so go by the official rules currently in force.
• Separate ownership of the building from ownership of the land. A foreign company can own the factory building it puts up itself, with the land handled by long lease.

If you are buying an existing factory and its land, the due diligence must check the level of title — a full Chanot title deed is the strongest — and whether the title carries an "under investigation" annotation. An annotated plot is not legally barred from transfer, but buyers generally will not take it on, so while the investigation runs it cannot change hands in practice.

Buying, entering an estate or leasing long: there is no general answer. It depends on the promoted activity code, the size of the investment and the site plan. For an individual case, have our advisers check it item by item against your BOI approval, your activity code and the land contract before you decide. What the company and shareholding engagement covers.