The FET when an off-plan condo is paid in instalments: every transfer is its own remittance.

Does an off-plan condo bought in instalments still need a FET?

Yes. The benchmark is the amount, not the number of transfers. Section 19 ter asks for evidence of foreign currency brought into the Kingdom in an amount not less than the price of the unit. It sets no limit on how many remittances.

Start with the general guide. Everything about the document itself, how the receiving bank issues it, the wire wording and the USD 50,000 line is set out in the Thailand FET certificate guide, and this page assumes you have read it. What follows is only what changes when the price is paid in stages.

Read the wording carefully, because it is the whole basis for an instalment purchase working at all. The Act never says FET. It asks for evidence. The FET form, and the credit advice letter below the bank's threshold, are what a Bank of Thailand authorised bank issues to record an inward foreign-currency transfer, so they are the evidence.

What the instalment structure adds is arithmetic and bookkeeping. The total evidenced has to clear the price of that specific unit. Spread over eight payments across two years, that means eight documents that add up, in the buyer's name, with the purpose stated, all still in your hands on transfer day.

The statutory chain behind it: Section 19 of the Condominium Act, explained.

Is each off-plan instalment its own foreign exchange transaction?

Yes. The receiving Thai bank records each inward transfer separately, so each instalment is documented on its own. One payment does not roll into the next. A twelve-payment schedule produces twelve records, and you collect each one as it happens.

This is the point that catches people out, and it is a bookkeeping point rather than a legal one. A single-payment purchase produces one document and one collection trip to the bank. An instalment purchase produces the same trip every time a payment lands, for as long as the build runs.

Treat each instalment as a complete mini transaction with four questions attached:

• Did it arrive from abroad, in foreign currency, and not as baht sent from outside Thailand?
• Did the bank issue a FET form, or a credit advice letter because the amount sat below the threshold?
• Is the document in hand, in hard copy, with the bank's stamps?
• Does it name the same remitter, the same recipient and the same unit as the one before it?

Answer those four on the day, every time, and the file assembles itself. Leave them and you are reconstructing a two-year paper trail from bank statements at the point when you can least afford the delay.

What does a buyer collect and keep after each instalment?

The bank's hard-copy record of that transfer, collected at the time rather than years later. Digital copies are not what the Land Department reads. On an instalment purchase the oldest document in the file is the one most likely to be missing.

The FET form and the credit advice letter are issued on paper, with the bank's stamps. A single-payment buyer collects one document a fortnight before transfer. An off-plan buyer is holding a document from a payment made before the building had walls. Storage is therefore part of the process, not an afterthought.

What to hold per instalment:

You will want the remittance evidence again on the way out, when sale proceeds are repatriated, so none of this stops being useful at transfer. The rest of the closing-day file sits in the Thailand condo due diligence checklist.

How do you keep the remitter, the purpose and the recipient consistent across a long build?

By writing the three fields down once and reusing them without edits. The remitter name should match the passport name going on the title. The purpose should name the unit and the project. The recipient should be the account named in your contract.

Section 19 quater conditions registration on the Section 19 ter evidence being satisfied. So the question at the counter is not whether the money arrived. It is whether the money that arrived is documented as the buyer's money, for this unit. A run of instalments gives that link more chances to break than a single wire does.

The places it drifts on a long build, all of them checkable in advance:

• You change your own overseas bank. The new bank may format your name differently, or drop a middle name. Check the first wire from any new account before the amount is large.
• Somebody else pays one stage. A spouse's account, a family member's account or a company account breaks the link between the foreign funds and the registered buyer. If ownership is to be joint, agree the remittance structure with your bank and your counsel before the first payment, not at the fourth.
• The project is marketed under a new name. The purpose wording should still identify the same unit in the same registered project. Ask which name the contract uses and keep using that one.
• The receiving account changes. Any change to the account named in your contract is a document question first. Get the change confirmed in writing, from the party named in the contract, before the next wire.
• The currency changes. The requirement is foreign currency arriving from abroad. Baht sent from outside Thailand does not produce the same record.

Write the exact remitter string, the exact purpose sentence and the exact recipient details into one note the day the contract is signed. Every later instalment is then a copy and paste, which is the point.

The evidence is read at transfer. What about an instalment paid three years earlier?

Ask early, in writing, through Thai property counsel. The document records a transfer that happened and does not lapse, but the Land Office reads the file on registration day. An off-plan purchase makes that gap years wide, so settle it before the schedule runs.

On a resale, the gap between the wire and the registration is measured in weeks. On an off-plan purchase it is measured in years, by design. That is the difference this page exists for. Treat it as a scheduled task rather than a hope:

1. Before the payment schedule is locked, have counsel ask the Land Office that will register the unit how a set of instalment remittances spread over the build period should be presented, and what it wants to see alongside them.
2. Get the answer in writing and keep it with the file.
3. Ask again when a transfer date exists, because staff, practice and the file all move over a multi-year build.

One more thing moves over that period: the price. Section 19 ter measures the evidence against the price of the unit to be purchased. If the final price rises after a variation, an extras package or a final area measurement, the remitted total has to still clear it. Check the running total against the final contract figure before the last instalment, while there is still a payment left to adjust.

And the remittance evidence is only one of the gates on transfer day. The foreign quota letter and the debt-free certificate are separate documents answering separate questions, each with its own freshness window. Clearing one says nothing about the others.

Can the building's foreign quota change between the first instalment and completion?

Yes. Section 19 bis caps foreign holdings at forty-nine percent of the area of all the units, and Section 19 quater has the official verify that ratio at registration, counting the transferee. The denominator is fixed at the building's registration. The numerator moves with every transfer.

This rides alongside the money question and is tested on the same day. A resale buyer checks the ratio, then registers a few weeks later. An off-plan buyer is registering at the end of a build, when a large number of units in the same building are registering too.

What an instalment buyer can actually do about it:

• Know which document decides it. The foreign quota letter comes from the condominium's juristic person, the management entity a registered condominium has. On a building still under construction, ask counsel when the condominium is expected to be registered and from what date a letter can be issued at all. Until then there is no letter to read.
• Read the contract for what it actually promises. A foreign-quota allocation written into a sale agreement is a contractual term between you and the seller. Section 19 quater is a check the official performs against the register on the day. They are different things, and it is worth knowing which one you are relying on.
• Ask in square metres. The ceiling is area, not a count of doors, so what matters is whether the headroom left fits your unit's registered area.
• Schedule the closing-window letter. The letter the Land Office reads is the fresh one, dated inside the window before the appointment. Put it on the calendar the moment a transfer date exists.

The arithmetic, the freshness windows and what the letter has to state, line by line: the foreign quota letter, explained. The statutory side: Section 19, 19 bis, 19 ter and 19 quater.

Header photo: Unknown, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. All credits: image credits.