The '50-year lease' on Koh Phangan: what the Commerce and Industry Act actually requires — and why it doesn't cover your villa

Can I get a 50-year lease instead of the usual 30-year cap when buying a villa on Koh Phangan? For an ordinary residential purchase, no. A real 50-year lease mechanism exists in Thai law, but it belongs to a separate 1999 statute aimed at commercial and industrial investment, not home buying, and it comes with zoning and investment-size gates that a typical villa purchase does not meet. Understanding the real mechanism — and why it doesn't apply — matters because '50-year lease' is a phrase that circulates in Phangan marketing conversations, sometimes loosely, alongside genuine long-term structures like superficies and usufruct.

The general rule stays put: Section 540 caps leases at 30 years

Civil and Commercial Code Section 540 sets an absolute ceiling on a lease of immovable property: 30 years, renewable only by a fresh agreement at expiry, never pre-agreed and stacked in advance. The March 2025 Supreme Court ruling that struck down '30+30+30' structures (Case No. 4655/2566) confirmed there is no contractual workaround to this cap for an ordinary lease — see Renewing a 30-year lease for how that ruling plays out at renewal time.

The real 50-year mechanism: the Hire of Immovable Property for Commerce and Industry Act B.E. 2542 (1999)

This separate Act does allow a registered lease of more than 30 years — up to 50 years initially, with one further renewal of up to 50 years — but only when specific conditions are met:

• Qualifying zoning (Section 6). The land must sit in an area designated for commercial or industrial use under Town and Country Planning law, or within a formally established industrial estate.
• Qualifying investment (Section 7). The business must meet one of three thresholds: an investment of at least ฿20 million, eligibility for a Board of Investment promotion certificate, or a declaration by the Interior Minister that the business serves the country's economic and social interests.
• Foreigner eligibility (Section 8). A foreign lessee may only use this route for a business type it is legally permitted to operate under the Foreign Business Act — see A Thai company for property for the parallel foreign-ownership screen on the corporate side.
• Extra requirements above 100 rai. A foreign lessee taking more than 100 rai faces an additional investment threshold of at least ฿100 million (excluding the cost of the lease itself), and that capital must be shown to have entered Thailand via a documented foreign-exchange transfer — the same paper trail this site covers in Bringing money into Thailand: the FET form.
• Registration. The lease contract must be made in writing and registered with the competent Land Department official — an unregistered version of this arrangement carries no more protection than an ordinary unregistered lease.

Why this doesn't cover an ordinary Phangan villa

Koh Phangan's land-use layers — the 2015 town-planning comprehensive plan and the 2025 environmental eco-zone notification (see Koh Phangan building zones) — classify most of the island for residential, agricultural, tourism or conservation use, not the commercial/industrial designation Section 6 requires. Even where a plot does sit in a qualifying zone, the ฿20 million investment threshold, BOI-promotion route, or ministerial declaration in Section 7 describes a registered business operation — a hotel, resort or industrial facility with real invested capital — not a private individual buying one villa to live in or rent out casually. A genuinely BOI-promoted hospitality operation could in principle use this Act; a standard villa purchase cannot.

If a seller or agent offers you a '50-year lease'

Ask directly whether the lease is being registered under this specific 1999 Act, in a zone that actually qualifies under Section 6, and against which Section 7 investment criterion. If the answer is vague, or the underlying transaction is an ordinary residential purchase, the '50 years' in the marketing conversation is not a legally registrable term — it risks the same fate as the pre-agreed renewal periods in a 30+30+30 structure, which the 2025 Supreme Court ruling already voided beyond year 30. Have your own lawyer verify the registration basis directly at the Land Office before relying on any such promise.