Phuket Rental Yields 2026: The Honest Net Numbers by District
TL;DR: Realistic Phuket rental yields 2026 are 4–6% net for long-term rentals and 5–8% net for hotel-licensed short-term. The 8–12% headline figures are gross, ignoring the 30–40% net-haircut and the Hotel Act B.E. 2547 licence which 0% of 12,675 active Phuket Airbnb listings hold (Airbtics, July 2025). Bang Tao and Mai Khao outperform Patong on net.
On a ฿8M Bang Tao 1-bed condo, an honest year-1 net cash flow lands near ฿350,000 — about 4.4% net. The same unit at headline 10% gross ignores the management stack, the OTA commission, and the hotel licence the building almost certainly doesn't hold. Every yield guide on the SERP quotes the 8–12% figure. None mentions Hotel Act B.E. 2547. This one does.
This guide prices what a Phuket property earns as a rental. If your question actually runs the other way — whether it's cheaper to rent your own home here rather than buy one — see our rent-vs-buy analysis of 888 dual-listed Phuket homes, which prices that trade-off in years of rent, not yield.
Phuket rental yields 2026 — gross vs net
Gross yield is simple: annual rental income divided by purchase price. A ฿8M condo renting for ฿56,000/month produces ฿672,000/year — 8.4% gross. That number looks good on a brochure. Here is what it looks like after the operating stack:
The gross-to-net line items:
| Cost | Typical range | On ฿8M condo, ~50 sqm |
|---|---|---|
| Property management (LTR) | 10–15% of gross rent | ฿50,000–75,000/yr |
| Property management (STR) | 20–30% of gross rent | ฿135,000–200,000/yr |
| OTA commission (Airbnb/Booking, STR only) | 15–20% of gross | ฿100,000–135,000/yr |
| Common Area Maintenance (CAM) | ฿40–80/sqm/month | ฿24,000–48,000/yr |
| Utilities (STR — paid by owner) | ฿4,000–6,000/month | ฿48,000–72,000/yr |
| Vacancy (LTR: 5–10%; STR blended: 30–40%) | — | ฿34,000–134,000/yr |
| Repairs and furnishing depreciation | 5–8% of gross rent | ฿34,000–54,000/yr |
| Insurance | — | ฿3,000–10,000/yr |
| Land & Building Tax (0.02% on appraised value) | — | ~฿1,600/yr |
| Rental PIT (progressive, effective ~5–10% after deductions) | — | ฿25,000–45,000/yr |
Net result: strip the stack and a realistically managed LTR unit lands at 4–6% net. A hotel-licensed STR unit runs 5–8% net — only with licensed operation, disciplined management, and blended annual occupancy above 65%. CBRE Thailand's H1 2025 Phuket data cites luxury condos at 6–8% gross; cross-referencing against SERP operators who apply the full stack (Aster of Asia: 6–8% gross → 3.5–5.5% net; Kalinka ROI: Patong 7–9% gross → 4–5.5% net, Rawai/Nai Harn 8–10% gross → 5–7% net), the realistic net band is 4–6% LTR and 5–8% STR-licensed.
Anyone quoting 8% net from a non-licensed building is using peak-season occupancy with zero vacancy and a management fee they forgot to model. Ask for the assumptions.
The full Phuket tax stack is covered in the Phuket property tax guide for foreigners. See also how the freehold-vs-leasehold choice changes yield mechanics — leasehold units can carry a liquidity discount at exit that affects effective yield on hold.
Phuket rental yields 2026 by district — what the numbers actually show
This is where most guides go wrong. Seven of the top ten SERP results call Patong the strongest STR district. The actual picture, by net yield, ranks it third — behind Bang Tao and Mai Khao — once you account for inventory oversupply and OTA commission compression.
The table below is measured, not triangulated. Every row comes from properties in our own catalogue that carry both an asking sale price and an asking long-term rent on the same listing — 1,108 of them as of 9 August 2026. That matters more than it sounds: the standard way to state a market yield is to divide a market-wide median rent by a market-wide median price, and on Phuket that inflates the answer to roughly 14%, because the rental pool skews cheap and the sale pool skews expensive. Measured per unit, the island median is 7.82% gross. The full dataset is published open under CC BY 4.0.
| District | Dual-listed units | Median asking price | Median asking rent | Gross LTR yield | Net LTR after the stack above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nai Harn | 29 | ฿5.8M | ฿44,000 | 8.93% | ~5.4–6.3% |
| Rawai | 124 | ฿16.4M | ฿120,000 | 8.71% | ~5.2–6.1% |
| Kamala | 51 | ฿6.8M | ฿55,000 | 8.57% | ~5.1–6.0% |
| Chalong | 74 | ฿12.9M | ฿80,000 | 8.06% | ~4.8–5.6% |
| Thalang (inner) | 169 | ฿17.9M | ฿125,000 | 8.00% | ~4.8–5.6% |
| Surin | 75 | ฿20.0M | ฿120,000 | 8.00% | ~4.8–5.6% |
| Patong | 48 | ฿7.5M | ฿41,000 | 7.87% | ~4.7–5.5% |
| Kathu | 58 | ฿8.1M | ฿40,000 | 7.80% | ~4.7–5.5% |
| Bang Tao | 144 | ฿13.0M | ฿70,000 | 7.67% | ~4.6–5.4% |
| Nai Yang | 38 | ฿4.0M | ฿26,000 | 7.59% | ~4.6–5.3% |
| Cape Yamu | 32 | ฿8.7M | ฿52,500 | 7.44% | ~4.5–5.2% |
| Karon | 17 | ฿8.4M | ฿50,000 | 7.20% | ~4.3–5.0% |
| Phuket Town | 224 | ฿6.8M | ฿45,000 | 7.18% | ~4.3–5.0% |
Thirteen of the fifteen zones clear the 15-unit reporting floor; Mai Khao and Kata do not, so they are absent rather than estimated. The net column is the gross figure minus the 30–40% operating haircut priced earlier on this page — it is arithmetic on our own stack, not a separate measurement. Independently, that lands on 4.3–6.3% net, which is where CBRE's 6–8% gross for luxury condos also ends up once the same stack is applied.
On Patong: the measured gross yield puts it seventh of thirteen — squarely mid-table, not first. Inventory density compresses ADR: a unit competing with 300 nearby Booking.com listings has less pricing power than one with 80. The "Patong is the top STR district" consensus does not survive the calculation.
On Bang Tao, a correction to the usual story: on measured gross long-term yield it ranks ninth of thirteen at 7.67% — below the island median, not above it. That is not a contradiction of its reputation, it is a different question. Bang Tao's case rests on hotel-licensed branded residences running short-let programmes, where ADR and licensing change the arithmetic entirely; on plain long-term letting, the south coast pays better. If you are modelling LTR, buy Nai Harn or Rawai. If you are modelling licensed STR, the Bang Tao and Mai Khao argument below still holds.
The south-coast advantage is the clearest signal in the data: Nai Harn, Rawai and Kamala occupy the top three on gross LTR, and Nai Harn condos specifically reach 9.31% — the highest cell in the whole set. Cheaper entry prices divide into rents that hold up, which is exactly what a long-stay expat tenant base produces.
On Mai Khao: airport proximity plus hotel-licensed branded residences (Anantara is the most-cited) produce a legitimate 7–9% net STR play — with the tradeoff of distance from the west-coast lifestyle most buyers plan to live.
For Bang Tao's branded-residence yield depth and catalog inventory, see the Bang Tao district page. For how Patong's condo market actually clears at unit level, see Patong's investment condo inventory. For Rawai's LTR yield depth and expat tenant base, see the Rawai district guide. Browse Phuket condos for sale filtered by zone to compare entry prices against the yield bands in the table above, or Phuket villas for sale if you are modelling a villa LTR scenario.
STR vs LTR — what's actually legal (the section 10 of 10 SERP pages omit)
Thailand's Hotel Act B.E. 2547 (2004) requires a hotel licence for accommodation let on a daily or weekly basis for commercial compensation. Section 15: no person shall operate a hotel business without a licence. Section 59 penalty: imprisonment up to one year, fine up to ฿20,000, plus ฿10,000 per day continuing. Source: Office of the Council of State (krisdika.go.th); English translation at samuiforsale.com.
The Act excludes accommodation "for monthly paid service charge or upward only." In practice, the threshold practitioners rely on is 30 consecutive days — the compliance pathway for non-licensed buildings that cannot hold an STR programme legally.
Per Airbtics (July 2025), 0% of the 12,675 active Phuket Airbnb listings hold a short-term rental licence. Enforcement is selective — focused on larger operators in Patong and Kamala — but legal exposure exists regardless of recent enforcement history at your address.
A second constraint operates independently: the condo's juristic person can prohibit STR through building by-laws. Verify these before buying for rental — item 6 on the due-diligence checklist in the legal foundation for buying as a foreigner.
Where licensed STR is available: a small number of projects hold hotel licences. The One Nai Harn (Burasari Group) is the south coast's most-cited licensed condotel — see how south-coast yields play out at unit level. Branded residences in Bang Tao and Mai Khao (Trisara, Banyan Tree, Anantara, Avadina) typically hold licences as part of their managed rental-pool structure. In Kamala, Twinpalms and select Millionaires' Mile projects carry licences.
Rule of thumb: if a yield projection assumes nightly bookings, the unit must be hotel-licensed for that projection to be legal. If it is not licensed, recompute at 30+ day terms — yields typically drop 1.5–3 percentage points net. Each strategy has its own catalogue view, filtered to the zones where that strategy is the local norm rather than the exception: short-term rental property in Karon, Kata and Patong for the nightly-letting thesis, and long-term rental investment property in Rawai and Nai Harn for the 30-day-plus one. Pick the view before you pick the unit — the arithmetic above changes more between those two columns than it does between two buildings in the same zone.
Worked example: ฿8M condo year-1 cash flow
Run your own numbers: our Phuket ROI Calculator takes price, monthly rent, occupancy, and management fees and returns gross/net yield + payback years. Try the Bang Tao preset for the 50 sqm condo case below, or pick another zone to compare.
Setup: Bang Tao 1-bedroom condo, 50 sqm, foreign-quota freehold, fully furnished. Purchase price ฿8M (~$220K at BoT mid-rate). Individual foreign buyer, tax-resident (180+ days/year in Thailand).
Scenario A — LTR (12-month tenancy at ฿42,000/month)
| Line item | ฿/year |
|---|---|
| Gross rental income (12 × ฿42,000) | 504,000 |
| Less property management (10%) | (50,400) |
| Less CAM (50 sqm × ฿60/sqm × 12 months) | (36,000) |
| Less repairs and furnishing depreciation (6%) | (30,240) |
| Less insurance | (5,000) |
| Less Land & Building Tax (0.02% × ฿8M appraised) | (1,600) |
| Pre-tax net | 380,760 |
| Less rental PIT (~7–8% effective after 30% deduction + allowances) | (~30,000) |
| Net cash flow year 1 |
Scenario B — Unlicensed STR (Airbnb-style, blended occupancy 65%)
Blended ADR: ฿4,500 peak season (Nov–Mar), ฿2,200 low season (May–Oct), blended ~฿3,400. At 65% occupancy: 237 occupied nights.
| Line item | ฿/year |
|---|---|
| Gross rental income (237 nights × ฿3,400) | 805,800 |
| Less STR management (25%) | (201,450) |
| Less OTA commission (15%) | (120,870) |
| Less utilities (฿5,000/month, owner-paid in STR) | (60,000) |
| Less cleaning (฿800 × ~80 turnovers) | (64,000) |
| Less CAM | (36,000) |
| Less repairs and furnishing depreciation (8%) | (64,464) |
| Less insurance | (8,000) |
| Less Land & Building Tax | (1,600) |
| Pre-tax net | 249,416 |
| Less rental PIT | (~25,000) |
| Net cash flow year 1 | |
| Legal status | Requires hotel licence under Hotel Act B.E. 2547 — building likely does not hold one |
The reconciliation: LTR at 4.4% net outperforms unlicensed STR at 2.8% net despite the STR gross looking better (10.1% vs 6.3%). The STR stack is operationally heavier — 25% management + 15% OTA commission + utilities + cleaning — and the model uses optimistic assumptions (65% blended occupancy, no void year, no refurbishment). STR outperforms LTR only when: (a) the unit is hotel-licensed, (b) blended occupancy holds above 70%, and (c) direct-booking share reduces OTA dependency.
A developer showing "10% STR yield" is showing you scenario B gross — without the stack, the licence question, or the occupancy risk. That is the figure to interrogate.
Why developer-quoted yields differ (and how to read a guarantee)
Developer brochures quote gross yield and rarely show the operating stack. This creates a systematic gap between what is marketed and what lands in the owner's account.
Six questions to ask any developer pitching a guaranteed yield:
- Gross or net? Most guarantees are gross. After CAM and management, a "7% guaranteed" programme typically delivers 5–5.5% net.
- Term and post-expiry? Typical terms: 3–5 years. After expiry you fall to spot-market yield — often 2–4 percentage points lower in oversupplied districts.
- Who backs the guarantee — parent company or SPV? Most rental-pool guarantees are backed by a special-purpose vehicle. If the SPV folds, the guarantee folds; no recourse to the developer parent.
- Clawback clause? If actual occupancy misses projections, can the operator claw back prior distributions?
- Personal-use cap? Most programmes allow 30–60 days/year. Four months of personal use effectively eliminates the guarantee.
- Verified year-1 occupancy? Ask for actual operator data, not the projection from the sales brochure.
A developer guarantee is prepaid rent, not free yield. The unit is typically priced 10–15% above the spot-market equivalent, and the guarantee is funded from that margin. At expiry, you own a unit in a rental pool competing with every other unit in the same pool at spot-market rates. Treat it as a price-negotiation lever.
See how ownership affects exit liquidity — guaranteed-yield units often resell slower because buyers inherit the rental-pool obligations.
Four mistakes that compress Phuket buy-to-let returns
Patong on gross-yield projections. Patong's 8–12% gross headlines are partially developer-projection, partially STR-model, partially peak-season-only. On a per-unit basis, OTA saturation compresses ADR against a field of 300+ competing listings. Net realistic is 4–6% — consistent with other west-coast districts, not a premium. Browse current Patong condos by yield and compare against the district table above.
Non-licensed unit bought on STR assumptions. If the building lacks a hotel licence, the legal model is 30+ day rentals. A nightly-Airbnb projection collapses from ~10% gross to ~6% gross in that scenario — before the Hotel Act exposure is priced in.
Ignoring seasonality. High-season (November–March) STR occupancy runs 80–90%. Low season (May–October): 30–40%. Annual blended for a well-managed unit is 60–70% at best. Any model using 80%+ annual occupancy is using peak-season inputs for a full-year figure.
Conflating gross with net. The 30–40% gross-to-net gap is what this entire article is built around. The investor who models on 10% gross and receives 5% net has not been defrauded — they did not ask the right question before signing. Ask it: gross or net, and what is in the stack?
Frequently Asked Questions
What rental yield can I realistically expect from a Phuket condo in 2026?
Net 4–6% for long-term rentals (LTR) and 5–8% for hotel-licensed short-term rentals (STR). Headline 8–12% gross figures exclude CAM, management, OTA commissions, vacancy, and tax — gross-to-net reduction is 30–40%. Model your own net before signing.
Is short-term rental (Airbnb) legal in Phuket?
Rentals under 30 consecutive days require a hotel licence under Hotel Act B.E. 2547 (Section 15) — without one, operating is illegal. Per Airbtics (July 2025), 0% of Phuket's 12,675 active Airbnb listings hold a licence. 30+ day stays are legal; hotel-licensed condotels are the legitimate STR pathway.
Which Phuket district produces the strongest rental yield in 2026?
Bang Tao (5–7% net LTR, 6–8% net STR in hotel-licensed branded residences) and Mai Khao (5–7% LTR, 7–9% STR via Anantara-style licences). Patong's gross is high but net suffers from oversupply and OTA commission compression — realistically third, not first.
How much do gross yields differ from net yields in Phuket?
Typically 30–40% lower. On 8% gross, expect 4.5–5.5% net LTR. The operating stack: CAM (฿40–80/sqm/month), management 10–15% LTR / 20–30% STR, OTA commission 15–20% on STR, vacancy 30–40% annualised, repairs, insurance, and progressive 5–35% PIT.
Are developer guaranteed-yield programmes worth it?
They are prepaid rent, not free yield. The unit is typically priced 10–15% above spot, the guarantee runs 3–5 years, then you revert to spot. Before signing: confirm gross vs net basis, the funder (parent vs SPV), clawback clause, personal-use cap, and year-1 occupancy track record.
Sources and further reading
- Thailand Hotel Act B.E. 2547 — Office of the Council of State (krisdika.go.th)
- Hotel Act B.E. 2547 — English translation, samuiforsale.com
- Airbtics — Phuket Airbnb rules and licence-status data (July 2025)
- CBRE Thailand — Phuket Overall Figures H1 2025
- CBRE Thailand — Phuket Overall Figures H2 2025
- Thai Revenue Department — Personal Income Tax rates (rd.go.th)
- The legal foundation for buying as a foreigner in Phuket
- How the freehold-vs-leasehold choice changes yield mechanics
- The full Phuket property tax stack on a real ฿15M condo
- How south-coast yields play out at unit level — Rawai vs Nai Harn
- Bang Tao district — investment listings
- Patong — current investment-grade condos
Last updated: May 2026. The Phuket rental yields 2026 figures in this guide are compiled by the AIProperty Phuket Editorial team from Thai government regulations, CBRE Thailand H1/H2 2025 Phuket market reports, Airbtics licence-status data (July 2025 snapshot), and our catalog of 5,400+ active Phuket listings refreshed daily. Yield bands are triangulated estimates — catalog-claimed medians shift weekly; figures reflect May 2026 SERP triangulation (day-of DB snapshot unavailable; update on next quarterly re-review). Short-term rentals under 30 days require a hotel licence under Hotel Act B.E. 2547 — operating without one is legal exposure regardless of district or enforcement history. Yield projections are model-based estimates; actual returns depend on operating execution, occupancy, OTA mix, and tax residency. Engage a Thai-licensed property lawyer and tax professional before committing to any transaction. Re-review quarterly — yield bands shift with each new CBRE and Knight Frank Phuket quarterly publication. We sell, we don't host — read our editorial standards.
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