Thailand's Marriage Equality Act and property: what changed for same-sex couples buying on Phangan

Does marrying a Thai same-sex spouse change how a foreigner can hold property in Thailand? Not the underlying land-ownership rules — those are unchanged and apply the same way to every foreigner, married or not. What changed is everything built on top of marriage itself: marital-property classification, spousal consent requirements, and inheritance rights now apply to a same-sex couple exactly as they do to an opposite-sex one, over a year after the Marriage Equality Act took effect.

What the Act actually did

The Marriage Equality Act took effect on 23 January 2025, making Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. It amended more than 60 sections of the Civil and Commercial Code, replacing gendered terms like 'husband' and 'wife' with gender-neutral 'spouses.' Same-sex couples can register a marriage at any of Thailand's roughly 880 district offices or at a Thai embassy abroad — including two foreign nationals marrying in Thailand even if neither's home country recognises same-sex marriage.

What it means for property specifically

• The marital-property regime applies identically. Thailand's distinction between sin somros (marital property, split 50/50) and sin suan tua (separate personal property) now applies to a same-sex marriage exactly as it does to an opposite-sex one — relevant to anyone structuring a purchase the way described in Protecting a foreign spouse's interest when property is bought during a Thai marriage.
• Section 1476 spousal consent now covers same-sex spouses. Selling, mortgaging, granting a long lease over 3 years, or registering a usufruct or servitude over marital property requires both spouses' consent — a same-sex spouse's consent now carries the same legal weight as an opposite-sex spouse's.
• Statutory inheritance rights apply equally. A surviving same-sex spouse now inherits the same statutory share as an opposite-sex spouse under Sections 1629 and 1635 of the Civil and Commercial Code, and is treated the same way for inheritance tax purposes — a spouse's inheritance is exempt regardless of value.
• Prenuptial agreements are available on the same terms, under Sections 1465–1466, for couples who want to define separate versus marital property before registering.

What didn't change

• Land-ownership restrictions for foreigners are untouched. A foreign spouse — same-sex or opposite-sex — still cannot be named on a Thai land title. Marriage of any kind doesn't exempt anyone from the Land Code's foreign-ownership ban.
• The usufruct-and-superficies protection strategy works the same way. Where a Thai national buys land and the foreign spouse needs a registered stake, the standard structure — a lifetime usufruct plus a superficies over the building, set up at the Land Office at the time of purchase — is now equally available and equally documented for same-sex couples. See Superficies vs usufruct vs lease for how the rights differ.
• The 40-million-baht investment route and 49/51 company structures aren't specifically addressed. No law-firm guidance yet distinguishes same-sex from opposite-sex spouses for the ฿40 million investment land-ownership route or for a Thai spouse's shareholding in a 49/51 company structure — treat this as undocumented rather than confirmed identical, and raise it directly with your lawyer.
• A same-sex marriage performed abroad isn't automatically usable in Thailand. It generally needs to be registered with Thai authorities — directly in Thailand or through a Thai embassy — before it supports a property or inheritance claim here; don't assume a foreign marriage certificate alone is sufficient.

The practical takeaway: over a year on, the legal toolkit for protecting a spouse's interest in Thai property — marital-property declarations, registered usufruct and superficies, statutory and testamentary inheritance — now runs the same way for a same-sex couple as it always has for an opposite-sex one. It's still worth a lawyer's review of the specific structure, particularly on the investment-route and company-structure questions that haven't yet been tested in same-sex-specific guidance, but the core protective mechanism is no longer a gap.