Phuket Rental Yield: What Survives the Season, the Fee Stack and the Exit

Phuket printed the highest gross yields of the three Thai cities I scanned, and gave back the most of them on the way to net. Here is the arithmetic, catchment by catchment, with every sample size on the table.

// Short answer

What is the rental yield on a condo in Phuket?

Across a 2026 scan of 506 Phuket condo listings, the median advertised gross yield was roughly 6.7 percent and the median net yield was roughly 4.3 percent once vacancy, management, the building's maintenance fee and property tax were applied. That is a shrinkage of about 36 percent, the widest of the three Thai cities in the study. Both figures come from public asking listings, not from closed transactions.

Phuket is the highest-gross leg of my Thai dataset and the leakiest. Bangkok's median gross sat near 5.0 percent and its net near 3.2 percent. Chiang Mai ran roughly 5.9 percent gross to 4.3 percent net. Phuket starts higher than both and finishes level with Chiang Mai, because the island's cost stack and its vacancy profile are heavier than either mainland market.

// Read this before you use either number

Every net figure on this page is gross of seasonality. It is computed from advertised rents against advertised prices, and it says nothing about how many months of the year that rent actually arrives. Bangkok’s figure rests on a year-round corporate tenant base; Phuket’s does not. Take the rent you can evidence, decide how many months it is realistically achieved, and model the remainder at what it actually produces. A Phuket yield that assumes twelve paid months is not a conservative estimate, it is a different island.

That should reorganise how you read every Phuket yield claim you have seen. Gross is rent divided by price, before the building charges you anything, before an empty month, before anyone manages the unit. It is the friendliest figure in the transaction and the only one most listings print, and it is an asking figure on both legs, because there is no public registry of closed Thai condo prices.

What is the difference between gross and net rental yield in Phuket?

Gross yield is annual rent divided by the asking price. Net yield is what is left after a vacancy allowance, a management cost, the building's annual common-area maintenance fee and tax are subtracted. On Phuket the distance between the two ran about a third of the headline across 506 listings. Gross is the brochure. Net is the bank statement.

I publish the formula so anyone can reproduce the study. Gross annual rent is reduced by a 15 percent vacancy allowance, then by a 12 percent management cost, then the building's annual maintenance fee and property tax are struck. None of those assumptions are aggressive on an island whose demand base moves with the season.

The management line is the one buyers argue with. It assumes somebody other than you handles the tenant. If you plan to do that work yourself, you have not removed the cost. You have volunteered for it and stopped invoicing.

The four deductions between the brochure and the bank

Vacancy allowance. The months the unit sits empty between tenants or between seasons.
Management cost. Tenant placement, rent collection, maintenance coordination, guest turnover.
Common-area maintenance fee. Charged per square metre per month by the juristic person, payable whether or not a tenant is in the unit.
Tax. Rental income tax and the annual land and building tax.

Which areas of Phuket have the highest rental yields?

In the commissioned Phuket scan the highest area-level gross yields sat in the beach-anchored catchments: Karon and Kata at about 8.53 percent, Patong at about 8.52 percent and Rawai and Nai Harn at about 8.14 percent. The lowest sat inland and at the boutique end, with Kathu about 5.88 percent and Surin and Kamala about 5.12 percent. These are gross figures before any deduction.

Read that ranking next to the ranking of where I would actually buy and you will notice they are close to inverted. Bang Tao and Laguna lead my best-areas ranking on transaction depth and sit seventh of eight on gross yield. Karon and Kata top the gross table and rank sixth of eight on the buy list.

That is not a contradiction. It is what a gross yield table is for. Gross rewards cheap entry against high rent. It says nothing about how long the rent lasts, what the building costs to run, or whether a buyer exists when you want out. Use it as a map of where the rent is dense, not as a buy list.

Phuket catchments by area-level gross yield, commissioned 2026 scan

Karon and Kata, about 8.53 percent. Family tourism, gentler seasons than Patong.
Patong, about 8.52 percent. The island's deepest year-round tenant engine.
Rawai and Nai Harn, about 8.14 percent. Long-stay south, cheapest beach entry.
Thalang and the airport corridor, about 8.00 percent. Where new supply lands.
Bang Tao and Laguna, about 7.62 percent. Branded epicentre, deepest market.
Phuket Town, about 5.92 percent. Cheapest entry, mostly domestic buyer pool.
Kathu and central, about 5.88 percent. Inland value tier, no beach premium.
Surin and Kamala, about 5.12 percent. Boutique premium, supply capped by terrain.

Why do the beach catchments show higher gross yields than inland Phuket?

Because short-stay demand props the rent numerator while the beach zones stay reachable in the eligible band. Patong, Karon and Kata rent to a tourist calendar, so their asking rents run high. Inland Phuket Town and Kathu rent to residents at steadier but lower rents, which is why their gross reads two to three points lower and their occupancy reads better.

The rent evidence in my rent-validated cut lines up with that. Phuket Town posted a sampled median asking rent near 23,700 baht a month across 266 listings, middle half roughly 18,300 to 32,000. Kathu posted a median near 29,500, middle half roughly 24,700 to 38,000, across 82 listings. Those are the deep, unglamorous samples on the island and they carry the steadiest tenants.

The beach catchments are where the sample gets thin. Patong surfaced six validated listings with sampled asking rents in the high 30,000s. Rawai and Nai Harn surfaced seven, running roughly 31,000 to 40,000. Surin and Kamala surfaced five, clustered in the low 40,000s. Bang Tao and Karon and Kata surfaced one validated listing each, so I publish no median of my own for either.

The honest reading of the beach premium: the rent is genuinely higher, and the evidence base under it is genuinely thinner.

How reliable are the rent numbers behind Phuket yield claims?

They are asking rents, and the sample is thin exactly where the brochures are loudest. My 2026 scan covered 506 Phuket condo listings, and in the rent-validated cut 178 buildings carry multi-source-verified rents: deep inland at 266 listings in Phuket Town, 137 in Thalang and 82 in Kathu, and single-digit in the beach zones. Achieved rent from signed leases lands below asking. Treat every published Phuket rent as a ceiling.

It is easy to produce a spectacular Phuket yield number from a handful of beachfront listings. It is much harder to produce one from 266 listings in a town where residents pay rent every month. I flag every thin sample and I refuse to force a median where I hold one listing. Where I have nothing, I cite the published industry trackers instead, attributed, rather than inventing a figure.

The practical fix on the rent side is local. Property managers running books of real units in a catchment know what units actually sign for. Portals know what owners hope for. Cross-reference at least two managers, for the specific building rather than the postcode. Ask the same of every Phuket yield claim you read: how many units, how many buildings, asking or signed. If the answer is missing, the number is decoration.

How much does seasonality cost a Phuket rental yield?

Enough that a yield modelled on twelve full months of rent is fiction on this island. My study applies a 15 percent vacancy allowance across the whole Thai dataset. On a beach-zone unit let by the night, the honest planning assumption is closer to modelling 75 to 80 percent occupancy, and only stepping above that when you hold a full year of occupancy history for that specific unit.

Phuket has two demand calendars sitting on top of each other. The tourist calendar peaks and troughs. The resident calendar does not. Which of the two your unit rents to decides how much of the year it actually produces rent, and no listing has ever printed that number for you.

The catchments split on exactly this line. Patong is the closest thing to a year-round tenant engine, and it comes with turnover and management attached rather than seasonality of occupancy. Karon and Kata run gentler seasons. Phuket Town and Kathu run steady and unseasonal, which is precisely why their gross reads lower.

Model the trough, not the average. A unit that only pencils in high season is a seasonal business with a condo title.

The Thailand Underwriting Protocol is the 5-step sequence behind every number on this page: the quota check, the maintenance-fee load test, the vacancy stress test, the title screen and the exit check. It is the same sequence I ran on the 506-listing Phuket scan.

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Should I let a Phuket condo to tourists or on a long lease?

They are two different businesses with two different cost stacks, and the tourist version is not the higher-yield one by default. Nightly letting adds cleaning between guests, platform fees, faster furniture wear and far more management time. Long letting trades the peak rate for occupancy and a lighter operating load. Confirm in writing with the juristic person what the building permits, and take Thai legal advice on the licensing.

The tourist-let pitch is always presented as a rent number. It is really an operating model. Somebody has to handle arrivals, cleaning, restocking, damage, reviews, pricing and the empty weeks. If you pay a manager for that, the management line is heavier than the 12 percent my study applies to a long lease. If you do it yourself, you are running a small hospitality business for free and calling the missing wage a yield.

There is a legal layer here too, and it is not one to guess at. Licensing rules for short-stay accommodation and the individual building's own regulations are two separate things. Get the building's rules in writing from the juristic person and get the licensing position from a Thai lawyer before you underwrite a single night of nightly rent.

What is a rental pool and how does it change the Phuket yield?

A rental pool is an arrangement where the building or an operator lets your unit alongside the others and distributes a share of the proceeds. It moves the question from what your unit rents for to what the pool actually achieves, net of the operator's cut and its own occupancy. That makes the pool's occupancy history the most important document in the file.

Rental pools are common in the resort-facing stock on this island, and they change what you are underwriting. You are no longer pricing one unit against one tenant. You are pricing a share of an operating business whose occupancy, rate card and cost base are set by somebody else.

So ask for evidence rather than projection. Ask for the pool's occupancy history rather than its target, what the operator's share is, and what happens if the operator changes. The same discipline applies to any building sold on rent performance in the Thalang corridor, which carries the island's heaviest new-supply pipeline. A corridor that builds this much must also fill this much.

Why does the maintenance fee decide so much of the Phuket net?

Because it is fixed, recurring, unrelated to whether a tenant is in the unit, and almost never printed on a listing. Common-area maintenance in Thailand is typically charged at roughly 40 to 70 baht per square metre per month, so it scales with unit size rather than with rent. On a large, amenity-heavy unit it can consume a double-digit share of gross rent by itself.

I can show exactly how much damage this line does, because I own two units in Thailand with very different maintenance loads. On the Rajapruek unit the annual common-area fee takes 15.6 percent of gross rent before anything else is deducted. On the Galae Thong unit the same line takes 5.3 percent. Nearly three times the drag, same city, same owner.

So pull the schedule before you model anything. Twelve months of maintenance invoices and the most recent sinking-fund call, in writing, from the juristic person office. If that paperwork does not appear, you do not have a yield estimate. You have a guess with a decimal point on it.

How do I calculate the net rental yield on a specific Phuket condo?

Take the annual rent, apply a vacancy allowance appropriate to the catchment and the letting model, subtract a management cost, subtract the building's actual annual maintenance fee and any sinking-fund obligation, subtract tax, then divide by total capital deployed rather than by the sticker figure. Capital deployed means purchase plus legal fees plus whatever share of transfer costs you carry. The free rental yield calculator runs that stack for you.

The denominator matters more than most buyers expect. Legal fees, transfer costs and furnishing spend are all capital you deployed and never see again. Put them in the denominator and the number drops before you have touched the rent side.

Then stress it. Apply a rent drop and an extra empty month and see whether the unit still clears your hurdle. If it only works when nothing goes wrong, it never worked. In a market with a seasonal demand base, something going wrong is not a tail scenario. It is the calendar.

Does the foreign quota affect the yield on a Phuket condo?

Not the rent, but it decides whether the asset is cleanly ownable in your own name and who can buy it from you later. A condominium unit inside the building's 49 percent foreign quota is the direct freehold path for a foreign buyer in Thailand. The quota is per building and slots move, so confirm the building's remaining quota in writing before any deposit.

A yield is only real if you can sell. On Phuket that matters more than on the mainland, because the island's foreign demand base changed shape fast after 2022 and concentrated in the beach zones. A demand base that arrived quickly deserves one underwriting question nobody selling you a unit will ask on your behalf. What happens to your exit if it thins.

Quota discipline is tightest at the top of the market, where slots on the strongest launches are taken quickly. Confirm the position for your specific unit in writing, and read how Thai foreign freehold actually works before anyone offers to explain a workaround structure. If a structure is required to make the ownership work, the yield is no longer the main risk in the file. The title is.

What actually goes wrong: the yield was real, the exit was not

Here is the failure mode, using my own money rather than a hypothetical. I own a unit at Rajapruek Greenery Hill in Hang Dong. I bought it in 2018, before I had a method, because I liked the view. A listing would have printed it at roughly 6.74 percent gross.

Then the ledger arrives. The common-area fee goes. Property tax goes. A maintenance reserve I model conservatively goes. What survives is 5.00 percent net on capital deployed. Same unit, same tenant, same year, roughly a quarter of the headline gone. And one more line applies to a buyer who is not me: I let that unit direct, so no letting agent sits in those deductions. Anyone buying it from me would hire that out. Price letting at 8 percent of gross and 5.00 percent becomes 4.46 percent. Self-managing is not free. It is unpaid work showing up as yield.

Now transplant that arithmetic onto a Phuket beach-zone unit. The maintenance load on amenity-heavy resort stock is heavier. The vacancy assumption on a seasonal tenant base is worse. The management line on a nightly let is bigger. And the exit is slower: industry trackers flag the Patong and the Karon and Kata secondary markets as oversupplied heading into 2026, with resale time-on-market in Patong running 8 to 14 months.

That is the Phuket trap in one sentence. The catchments with the highest gross yields carry the heaviest operating models and the slowest exits, and the gross number tells you about none of it.

The Phuket yield checklist: what to pull before you model anything

Twelve months of common-area maintenance invoices for the specific unit, in writing from the juristic person.
The most recent sinking-fund call and any pending capital works on the building.
The building's remaining 49 percent foreign quota position, in writing, before any deposit.
Achieved rent evidence from at least two property managers in that catchment, not portal asking rents.
If a rental pool is involved: its occupancy history, the operator's share, and what is deducted first.
The building's own rules on short-stay letting, plus Thai legal advice on the licensing that applies.
A vacancy assumption set to the catchment and the letting model, not to twelve full months.
Total capital deployed, including legal fees, transfer costs you carry and furnishing spend, as the denominator.
A stress test: a rent drop plus an extra empty month, still clearing your hurdle.
The resale evidence: how long comparable units have sat, and who can legally buy you out.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average rental yield in Phuket?

Across a 2026 scan of 506 Phuket condo listings the median advertised gross yield was roughly 6.7 percent, and the median net yield after vacancy, management, the maintenance fee and tax was roughly 4.3 percent. Both are asking-listing figures.

Is Phuket a higher-yield market than Bangkok?

On gross, yes. In the same study Bangkok's median gross sat near 5.0 percent against Phuket's 6.7 percent. On net the gap narrows, roughly 3.2 percent against roughly 4.3 percent, because Phuket loses about 36 percent of its gross to the fee stack.

Which part of Phuket has the highest rental yield?

In the commissioned 2026 scan the highest area-level gross yields sat in Karon and Kata at about 8.53 percent and Patong at about 8.52 percent, then Rawai and Nai Harn at about 8.14 percent. Those are gross figures, and the validated rent samples in those beach catchments are single-digit.

Which part of Phuket has the lowest rental yield?

Surin and Kamala, at about 5.12 percent area-level gross, then Kathu at about 5.88 percent and Phuket Town at about 5.92 percent. Surin and Kamala is the boutique tier where supply is capped by terrain and zoning, so buyers there pay for scarcity rather than current rent.

Why is my Phuket net yield so much lower than the advertised yield?

Because the advertised figure is gross and ignores the cost of holding the asset. Vacancy, management, the maintenance fee and tax are real and recurring, and the maintenance fee is fixed whether or not a tenant is in the unit. Across 3,353 Thai listings the median net came out roughly a third below the median gross.

How much is the maintenance fee on a Phuket condo?

It is charged per square metre per month by the juristic person, and roughly 40 to 70 baht per square metre per month is typical in Thailand, so it scales with unit size rather than with rent. Amenity-heavy resort stock sits at the expensive end.

What vacancy rate should I assume for a Phuket condo?

My published study applies a 15 percent vacancy allowance across the whole Thai dataset. For a beach-zone unit let by the night, model 75 to 80 percent occupancy and step above that only with a full year of occupancy history for that unit.

Is short-term letting better for yield than long-term letting in Phuket?

Not automatically. Nightly letting can raise the rent number and always raises the cost stack: cleaning between guests, platform fees, faster furniture wear and far more management time. Confirm the building's own rules in writing and take Thai legal advice on the licensing that applies.

How reliable are published Phuket rental yield figures?

Only as reliable as the sample behind them, which is usually undisclosed. My rent-validated coverage is 266 listings in Phuket Town, 137 in Thalang and 82 in Kathu, and single digits in the beach zones. A figure quoted without its sample size is a claim, not data.

Are Phuket rents quoted as asking or achieved?

Asking, taken from public listings, cross-checked across sources where more than one exists and capped to a per-area sanity band. Achieved rent from signed leases lands below asking. Local property managers running real books in a catchment are the practical source for achieved figures.

Should I use the asking price or total capital deployed in a yield calculation?

Total capital deployed: purchase plus legal fees plus whatever share of transfer costs you carry plus furnishing spend. A yield computed against the sticker figure assumes the sticker figure was the real cost of ownership, and it never is.

Can a rental pool promise occupancy in a Phuket building?

No arrangement can promise occupancy, and a projected pool figure in a launch brochure is a marketing forecast, not an operating record. Ask for the pool's occupancy history, the operator's share, and what happens if the operator changes.

Does the 49 percent foreign quota affect rental yield?

It does not change the rent, but it decides whether the asset is cleanly ownable in your own name and who can legally buy it from you later. The quota is per building and slots move, so confirm the remaining position in writing before any deposit.

Where do these Phuket yield figures come from?

From a 2026 scan of 506 Phuket condo listings with a source URL retained per listing, and a rent-validated cut in which 178 buildings carry multi-source-verified rents. Area-level gross yields come from the commissioned Phuket report; median net figures from the published net yield gap study.