30+30 Year Lease Renewal in Thailand

You are shown a set of documents. Thirty years, then another thirty. Sixty years, with the second term written into the lease so that it cannot be taken away. That last part is where the trouble starts.

Thai law does allow a lease to be renewed. It does not allow you to buy sixty years today. The difference sounds technical. It is the difference between something written on the title deed and something you would have to sue a person to get.

A foreigner is allowed to own land in Thailand only under a treaty and within the limits of the Land Code. That is why the lease carries so much weight, and why its length is worth being exact about.

Is the villa you are being sold really thirty years, or is it thirty plus thirty?

Thirty years. The second thirty is a promise, and a promise is all it is.

The Code sets the ceiling in one sentence: a lease of land or buildings cannot run longer than thirty years, and a contract written for longer is cut down to thirty [Civil and Commercial Code, section 540]. The same section then allows the period to be renewed, for up to thirty years counted from the renewal. Read the order of events. The period is renewed after it has run. The law lets the two of you extend a lease that has ended. It does not let you buy a second term in advance.

Registration is the other half of it. A lease of more than three years is enforceable for three years only unless it is written and registered at the Land Office [section 538]. A thirty-year lease that was signed and never registered is a three-year lease.

Can a thirty-year lease include an automatic renewal for another thirty years?

You can write the words in. The Land Office will not register them, and they bind nobody except the person who signed.

A renewal clause is a contract between the two people who sign it. It cannot stretch the registered term, because the Code fixes the ceiling at thirty years. Land offices register the term the law allows and decline to enter a future renewal on the deed. That is office practice rather than a rule in the Code, but the Code gives them the footing: an official is not obliged to record a juristic act that appears void [Land Code B.E. 2497, section 73].

One Thai law does allow leases longer than thirty years, and it was written for factories and shopping centres. The Hire of Immovable Property for Commerce and Industry Act B.E. 2542 covers leases of more than thirty and up to fifty years, for commerce or industry only, registered or void. The regulation under it limits the qualifying uses to commerce with an investment of at least twenty million baht, industry eligible for Board of Investment promotion, and other commerce or industry the Minister declares beneficial to the economy. A house on a hillside is none of those.

What the law says about term and renewal
Right	Maximum fixed term	Renewal in the law	Sale and inheritance
Lease CCC ss.537–571	Thirty years. A longer term is cut to thirty [s.540].	Yes, once the term has ended, for up to thirty years from the renewal [s.540].	No sale or sublet unless the contract allows it [s.544]. The Code is silent on heirs.
Superficies CCC ss.1410–1416	A fixed term is capped at thirty years [s.1412 with s.1403].	Yes, for up to thirty years from the renewal [s.1403, applied by s.1412].	Can be sold and inherited unless the deed creating it says otherwise [s.1411].
Sap-Ing-Sith Act B.E. 2562	Thirty years, and it covers the whole plot or none of it [s.4].	The Act has no renewal clause.	Can be sold, mortgaged and inherited. Every deal is registered [s.12].

Under a Sap-Ing-Sith, any building the holder alters, extends or puts up goes to the landowner when the right ends, unless the parties agree otherwise.

What is the difference between a right in the land and a promise from a person?

A right in the land is written on the title deed and binds whoever owns the land. A promise binds only the person who made it.

Two sentences of the Code carry the whole distinction. Rights in property can be created only by the Code or by another Act [section 1298]. And a right in land is not complete until the deal is written down and registered at the Land Office [section 1299]. A registered lease clears both hurdles. A side letter promising a second term clears neither. It is not a right the Code recognises, and it was never registered against the title.

Registered lease: A contract letting you use the property for a set period against rent, registered at the Land Office where the term is over three years. It binds whoever owns the land.
Right in the land: A right the Code or another Act creates, complete only once registered. A superficies and a Sap-Ing-Sith are examples. A renewal promise is not.
Renewal under section 540: The extension of a lease after its term has ended, for up to thirty years from the renewal. The Code permits it. It does not require anyone to grant it.

If the Thai owner sells the land, is the renewal promise binding on the new owner?

The lease is. The renewal promise is not.

A registered lease travels with the land. Selling the land does not end it, and the buyer takes over the seller's rights and duties as your landlord for the rest of the registered term [Civil and Commercial Code, section 569]. That is a strong protection, and it is the reason to register.

What travels is the lease. A separate promise to grant a fresh lease in thirty years sits outside it. The new owner never made that promise, it is not a right in the land, and it is nowhere on the deed. Your claim, if you have one, is against the person who signed.

If the owner dies instead of selling, the promise goes into the estate with the rest of the owner's rights and debts, and the heirs answer for it out of what they inherit [section 1600].

The first thirty years is a right on the title. The second thirty is a promise from a person.
Civil and Commercial Code, sections 540, 569 and 1298

Why would a landowner renew at all, instead of keeping the land?

Because the contract makes refusing expensive. The law gives you damages for a broken promise, and nothing more.

Section 540 gives a tenant no right to force a renewal, so any pressure has to come from the contract. The Code supplies the remedy for a broken contract: where someone fails to perform an obligation as it was truly intended, the other side can claim compensation for the loss [section 215]. So a renewal promise is worth what a court will award for breaking it. A claim against a person, decided years from now, enforced against whatever that person owns at the time. That is not nothing. It is also not an entry on the deed.

Can a loan agreement lock in the second thirty-year term?

No. A loan is another promise between the same two people. It puts nothing on the title.

The arrangement gets asked for by name: a loan from the buyer to the landowner, repayable only if the second term is refused. It creates a debt between the two of them, and section 1298 is the reason it stays there. Rights in land come only from the Code or another Act, and a loan agreement is neither.

Thai law does have instruments that bind the land itself, and the Sap-Ing-Sith is the clearest recent one. Once one is created, the owner cannot create any other right over the property without the holder's written consent, although the owner stays free to sell or mortgage the land, and the holder has an owner's rights and duties while it lasts [Sap-Ing-Sith Act B.E. 2562, sections 9 and 11]. None of this converts a promise into a term. These are separate rights with separate rules, each registered on its own footing.

What happens on the last day of year thirty?

The lease ends by itself. If you stay and the owner does not object, you are on a rolling arrangement that either side can end with about a month's notice.

A lease is extinguished at the end of the agreed period without any notice [Civil and Commercial Code, section 564]. If the tenant stays in possession and the landlord knows and does not object, the law treats the two as having renewed for an indefinite period [section 570]. Either party can then end it at the close of a rent period, on at least one rent period of notice and no more than two months [section 566]. What you have then is a month-to-month tenancy. Which page of the file a right sits on decides what it is worth.

What this means in practice

Value the villa on thirty years, because that is what is on the title. Treat the second thirty as a claim against the seller, worth what the seller will be worth in thirty years, and price it that way. If the second term matters to you, the instruments that bind the land are the ones to look at, and each has a cost and a set of rules of its own.

The documents that decide these questions are the registered lease and its entry on the title deed, the identity of the registered owner, anything else already registered against the deed, and the separate agreements signed alongside the lease. Registered instruments are the ones with effect against people who never signed them. Section 538 is why the entry matters more than the copy in the drawer.

Every lease sits on one specific title deed with one specific registration history. If you want the registered position on a particular deed read and explained before you commit, that is a defined piece of work.

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Sources Show all 20 sourcesHide sources

Every statement in this article rests on one of the 20 provisions below, each named by Act and section so it can be checked against the legislation itself.

Civil and Commercial Code, section 537. Definition of hire of property: use or benefit of a property for a limited period against rent.
Civil and Commercial Code, section 538. Written evidence signed by the party liable. A hire of more than three years is enforceable only for three years unless made in writing and registered by the competent official.
Civil and Commercial Code, section 540. Thirty-year ceiling, with a longer period reduced to thirty. The period may be renewed but must not exceed thirty years from the time of renewal.
Civil and Commercial Code, section 544. Unless the contract of hire provides otherwise, the hirer cannot sublet or transfer his rights to a third person.
Civil and Commercial Code, section 564. A contract of hire is extinguished at the end of the agreed period without notice.
Civil and Commercial Code, section 566. Where no period is agreed or presumed, either party may terminate at the end of a rent period, on at least one rent period of notice and no more than two months.
Civil and Commercial Code, section 569. Transfer of ownership does not extinguish the hire. The transferee takes the transferor's rights and duties towards the hirer.
Civil and Commercial Code, section 570. A hirer who stays in possession without objection is deemed to have renewed the contract for an indefinite period.
Civil and Commercial Code, section 215. Where the debtor does not perform in accordance with the true intent and purpose of the obligation, the creditor may claim compensation for the damage arising.
Civil and Commercial Code, section 1298. Real rights may be created only by virtue of the Code or other laws.
Civil and Commercial Code, section 1299. No acquisition by juristic act of immovable property, or of a real right appertaining thereto, is complete unless made in writing and registered by the competent official.
Civil and Commercial Code, section 1403 paragraph 3. Thirty-year ceiling on a right granted for a period, with renewal for not more than thirty years from the time of renewal.
Civil and Commercial Code, sections 1410, 1411 and 1412. Superficies: creation, transferability and inheritance, duration, and the application of section 1403 paragraph 3.
Civil and Commercial Code, sections 1599 and 1600. An estate devolves on the heirs and includes the deceased's rights, duties and liabilities except those purely personal to him.
Land Code B.E. 2497, section 71. Land officers are the competent officials for registration of rights and juristic acts under the Civil and Commercial Code.
Land Code B.E. 2497, section 73. Where the juristic act appears void the official is not obliged to record it. Where it appears voidable he records it when the party who may be damaged insists.
Land Code B.E. 2497, section 74. Power to interrogate the parties and summon persons concerned to give testimony or send documents.
Land Code B.E. 2497, section 86. Aliens may acquire land by virtue of the provisions of a treaty giving the right to own immovable property, subject to the Code.
Sap-Ing-Sith Act B.E. 2562, sections 4, 9, 11 and 12. Thirty-year maximum and indivisibility. Restriction on the owner creating other real rights. The holder's position and the fate of buildings on termination. Transfer, mortgage, inheritance and registration.
Hire of Immovable Property for Commerce and Industry Act B.E. 2542, sections 3, 4 and 5, and the Ministerial Regulation B.E. 2543 issued under that Act. Definition of a hire of more than thirty and up to fifty years. Writing and registration on pain of nullity. The lessor must be the owner. Qualifying commercial and industrial activities.

Section numbers are given so you can check every statement in this article against the legislation itself. Where a provision exists only in Thai, the section number and the name of the Act are stated so the Thai text can be located. Statements about what land offices do in practice are labelled as practice and carry no section, because practice is not statute and varies between offices.

Common questions

Does a 30-year lease in Thailand renew automatically for another 30 years?

No. The Code allows a renewal once the first term has ended, for up to thirty years from the date of renewal. It allows one, it does not require one, and it does not allow sixty years to be granted at the start. A lease written for longer than thirty years is cut down to thirty.

Is a Thai lease valid if it was signed but never registered at the Land Office?

For three years only. A lease of more than three years has to be written and registered at the Land Office, and one that was not is enforceable for three years and no longer.

If the Thai landowner sells the land, does the buyer have to honour my lease?

Yes, for the registered term. Selling the land does not end a lease, and the buyer takes over as your landlord with the same rights and duties. A separate promise to renew is a different matter. It binds only the person who signed it, and the buyer of the land never did.

What happens if I stay in the property after the 30 years end?

The lease ends by itself on its last day. If you stay and the landlord knows and does not object, the law treats the two of you as renewed for an indefinite period, and either side can then end it at the close of a rent period on at least one rent period of notice, at most two months.

Can any lease in Thailand run longer than 30 years?

Only a lease for commerce or industry, under a separate Act that allows thirty to fifty years. The regulation under it limits that to commerce with an investment of at least twenty million baht, industry eligible for Board of Investment promotion, and other activities the Minister declares. A home is not among them.

This article is general information about Thai law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legislation as reviewed on 2 September 2026. Thai law and administrative practice change, and practice varies between offices and provinces. For advice on a particular situation, get in touch. See our editorial standards and disclaimer.

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