Quick answer: Gross yield = (annual rental income ÷ purchase price) × 100. Net yield subtracts management (18-25% of gross on an independent programme, 30-35% inside a resort estate), CAM, insurance, maintenance reserve, and vacancy. The gap between gross and net is the part of this you can size in advance from quotes, and it is roughly a third to two fifths of gross. Total ROI would add capital growth, which is not measurable here at all. Never trust brochure occupancy alone.
Hub: Part of the Phuket Property Investment Master Guide 2026. For yield benchmarks by area, use the KEEP pillar Phuket rental yield guide, this page is the calculation workbook, not a duplicate yield encyclopedia.
MORE Group builds ROI models from operating statements where available, not renderings. Management fee detail: what is Phuket property management fee. Purchase cost stack: Phuket property taxes and fees complete guide.
How Do You Calculate Gross Yield?
Formula: Gross Yield (%) = (Annual Rental Income ÷ Purchase Price) × 100
Worked example: 1-bedroom Kamala, 48 sqm
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Purchase price | $185,000 |
| Average nightly rate | Assumed: $110 high / $75 low. Not observed, and not published for Phuket |
| Occupied nights/year | Assumed: 260, about 71% occupancy. Also not observed |
| Annual gross rental income | $24,050 |
| Gross yield | Assumed, not observed, 13.0%, because both inputs above are |
Both inputs above are assumptions and neither is available from any published Phuket source; they are here so the arithmetic has something to chew on. 71% would assume a licensed building with professional management rather than owner DIY with an irregular calendar. Replace both with figures from a manager’s statements on a comparable unit, and stress-test 60% and 75% in parallel columns while you are at it.
How Do You Calculate Net Yield?
| Expense category | Amount | % of gross |
|---|---|---|
| Management fee (18% of gross) | $4,329 | 18% |
| CAM (70 THB/sqm/mo × 48 × 12) | $696 | 2.9% |
| Building insurance | $300 | 1.2% |
| Maintenance reserve (1% of value) | $1,850 | 7.7% |
| Vacancy (in 71% occupancy) | Included | n/a |
| Total operating costs | $7,175 | 29.8% |
| Net annual income | $16,875 | n/a |
| Net yield | Assumed, not observed, 9.1%, inheriting the two inputs above | n/a |
That output is only as good as the occupancy and rate you fed it, and both are assumptions until you have the statements. Run it again at ten points lower occupancy and see what happens to the answer. Lower-tier buildings or self-management with gaps often land lower.
How Do You Combine Income and Appreciation for Total ROI?
| Return component | Annual | 5-year cumulative (illustrative) |
|---|---|---|
| Net rental income | $16,875, assumed not observed | $84,375 on the same assumption |
| Capital appreciation | $0 in the base case. Thailand publishes no transaction index for Phuket, so there is no rate to put here | $0 |
| Combined | $16,875 on the assumed income above | $84,375 on $185K |
The 8% indicative appreciation this table used to carry, and the combined return it produced, have been withdrawn: no published series supports a Phuket growth rate. Build the model at zero. If you want to see what growth would do, add your own rate as a clearly-labelled scenario and watch how much of the “return” it is responsible for; on most Phuket underwriting it is most of it. Off-plan may show paper gains during construction, verify developer delivery history before counting it.
What Purchase Costs Belong in Year-One ROI?
| Cost | Indicative amount |
|---|---|
| Transfer fee (2% of assessed value) | ~$1,850 |
| Specific Business Tax (if applicable, 3.3%) | ~$3,100 |
| Legal fees | $800-$1,500 |
| Furniture / fit-out (if bare) | $5,000-$15,000 |
| Total one-time | ~$11,000-$22,000 |
Effective cost base on a $185K unit with $18K costs = $203K, year-one net yield drops slightly. From year two onward, yield-on-cost improves if income stabilises.
Full fee context: Phuket property taxes and fees.
How Does Cash-on-Cash Return Work for Off-Plan?
Example $185K condo:
| Payment stage | Cash out |
|---|---|
| Reservation | $5,000 |
| SPA deposit (30%) | $55,500 |
| Construction milestones (40%) | $74,000 |
| Transfer (30%) | $55,500 |
During construction, appreciation (if any) accrues on full value while cash deployed ramps, amplifying cash-on-cash in the build phase on paper. Delay risk can erase this; see Phuket developer escrow guide. Deposit timing: how much deposit for Phuket property.
The costs a projection usually leaves out
The arithmetic on this page is straightforward. What makes projections wrong is not the formula but the lines missing from the denominator, and the same five are missing almost every time.
Furnishing replacement. Short-let use wears out mattresses, soft furnishings and appliances on a cycle measured in years. A unit that looks tired in its own photographs cannot be priced back into competitiveness, so this is a recurring cost rather than an occasional event. Set an annual reserve.
Platform commissions. Frequently outside the management fee rather than inside it, and the difference between the two arrangements is several percentage points of gross. Establish which applies before accepting any net figure.
Vacancy, honestly modelled. Not a token allowance but the low season as it actually behaves in your corridor, and the gap between tenancies if you let long.
Special levies from the sinking fund. Lifts, pumps, roofs and facades have known replacement cycles, and a fund that cannot cover them collects the shortfall from owners. Unpredictable in timing, entirely predictable in principle.
Professional advice in two jurisdictions. Thai tax on the income and your home country’s treatment of the same income, both requiring someone competent. An annual cost that yield models essentially never include.
Add all five and a projection that showed a comfortable net frequently shows a modest one. That is the number to compare against alternatives.
What ROI Ranges Are Realistic by Property Type in 2026?
None are realistic, in the sense that none can be stated. The table that stood here gave four property types a gross yield, a net yield, an appreciation rate and a combined ROI band, sixteen figures, and the last two columns of each row were the first two added together. Nothing in Thailand measures any of them. It has been withdrawn rather than narrowed.
What our price records do separate those four types by is the ticket and the tenant, and both are checkable:
| Property type | Median on our list | Median size | What decides the income question |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bang Tao condominium | 7,017,150 THB | 46 sqm | Nine finished schemes here, so an owner’s statements can exist |
| Kamala condominium | 7,723,650 THB | 47 sqm | One finished scheme, Citygate; the rest is off-plan |
| Rawai condominium | 6,818,000 THB | 51 sqm | Clears the 35 sqm line comfortably, so a monthly tenant is available |
| Villa, island-wide | 29,800,000 THB | 370 sqm | A whole-house let and a cost stack that runs whether it lets or not |
Read the last column before the first. On a finished building the income question has a documentary answer, twelve months of an owner’s statements. On an off-plan one it does not yet, and no band printed on any page substitutes for it.
Red flag: any model using peak-season occupancy at maximum rate across twelve months. Split high and low season explicitly, and keep May, June, September and October visible in the arithmetic.
Which Buyer Scenarios Change the Spreadsheet?
| Scenario | Modelling note |
|---|---|
| Owner uses unit 60 nights/year | Subtract nights from rental calendar |
| All-cash buyer | Ignore mortgage, focus net yield |
| FX-funded foreign buyer | Add THB conversion sensitivity |
| Long-term lease only | Lower gross, lower opex intensity |
For investors comparing short-stay vs monthly, tenant acquisition affects occupancy, how to find good tenant Phuket condo.
What Checklist Should You Run Before Trusting a ROI PDF?
A projection is a marketing document until someone shows you the operating data behind it. Work through these before you accept the headline number.
- Ask which twelve months the occupancy figure covers. A number drawn from November to April is a high-season figure wearing an annual label.
- Ask whether the average daily rate is gross booking value or what the owner received. Platform commission of 15-18% sits between the two.
- Ask for the management agreement, not the summary. The split, the minimum stay policy and the owner-use allowance are all in the contract and rarely in the brochure.
- Ask for the common area fee schedule and the last three years of increases. A building that has raised fees twice in three years will raise them again.
- Ask what the sinking fund holds and what it is scheduled to spend. A lift replacement or a pool refit lands on owners as a special levy outside the ordinary budget.
- Ask whether the figures come from this building or from a comparable. Comparables are legitimate, but you should know when you are looking at one.
- Ask what the projection assumes about furnishing replacement. Rental stock in this climate needs refreshing on a roughly five-year cycle, and a model with no line for it is understating costs.
- Ask how the projection treats tax. A pre-tax net yield presented to a foreign buyer with no mention of the 15% withheld at source is not a number you can spend.
Insider tip: Developers sometimes quote guaranteed return programs. Read the clawback clauses, check what happens if the guarantee period ends before handover of the common areas, and compare the guaranteed figure to what unmanaged resale units in the same building actually distribute. See what is a guaranteed return Phuket condo.
How does seasonal variation affect ROI?
The occupancy bands and rate multipliers this table used to carry have been withdrawn: no Thai body records either for privately owned units, so all six were assembled. The shape of the Phuket year is not in dispute and needs no figures:
| Season | Months | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| High | Nov-Apr | The dry half on the west coast, with the peak inside it at Christmas and New Year |
| Shoulder | May, Oct | Where a projection quietly borrows from the peak. Ask for these two months separately |
| Low | Jun-Sep | The four months that decide whether the year works, and where a monthly let often beats a deeper nightly discount |
Model a full 12-month cycle. A projection built on peak-season occupancy at peak rates overstates the year by however much of it is not peak, which on this island is more than half of it. To see the size of the swing for a specific building, open its own forward calendar for a week in January against a week in June. That comparison is public and takes ten minutes.
How do you build a five-year total-return projection?
The five-year table that stood here compounded a 7% appreciation rate against a net rental income, and reported the total as a $147,000 (79%) return. Both columns have been withdrawn. The appreciation rate had no series behind it, Thailand publishes no transaction index for Phuket, and the income column was the same assumed occupancy and nightly rate from the top of this page, restated for five years running. Compounding two assumptions for five periods does not make either more solid; it makes the error bigger.
Build the projection this way instead:
- Set appreciation to zero. Not because prices cannot rise, but because you have no basis for any other number. If the purchase only works with growth in it, you are buying a price movement nobody measures.
- Put the income in as a range you got from statements, not as a point, and run the low end as your base case.
- Subtract the exit friction, which is knowable now. Agent commission of 3-5%, withholding tax, the transfer fee at 2% of appraised value, and specific business tax at 3.3% if you sell inside five years. Your lawyer will quote all four for your case. Model the exit in how to exit Phuket property.
What comes out is a floor rather than a forecast, and a floor is the only thing this market’s data supports.
Gross, net and what actually reaches you
Three different numbers get called the yield, and conflating them is the most common error in this market.
Gross yield is annual rental revenue divided by purchase price. It is useful only for comparing like with like, and it is the number quoted in almost every sales conversation because it is the largest.
Net yield is what remains after operating costs: management, platform commissions, common area maintenance, utilities during guest stays, insurance, maintenance and the furnishing reserve. This is the honest measure of the property as a business, and depending on the model it can be a long way below the gross.
Cash yield, or what reaches your account, is net after Thai tax on the rental income and after currency conversion to wherever you actually live. For an owner in Thailand fewer than 180 days a year, tax is withheld at source at 15% and is generally final; for anyone here 180 days or more, progressive personal income tax applies instead. Then your home country generally taxes the same income again, subject to treaty relief claimed with evidence.
When someone quotes a yield, ask which of the three they mean. When comparing two properties, or this market against another, use the third. It is the only one that describes money you can spend.
How does leverage change ROI (if you finance)?
Cash-on-cash return = Net annual income ÷ Cash equity deployed
Cash-on-cash divides the net income by the equity you actually deployed rather than by the price, so it is always the larger of the two numbers when there is debt in the structure, and the worked figures this paragraph used to give have been withdrawn, since both rested on the assumed income at the top of this page. The mechanism is what matters: leverage magnifies the outcome in both directions, and it does so against an income you cannot verify in advance. Financing is in any case uncommon among foreign buyers here, and Thai lending to non-residents is limited.
For appreciation context by area, see does Phuket property appreciate and capital appreciation by area.
How should you compare ROI across three shortlisted projects?
Include exit costs in your five-year model even if you plan to hold longer. Agent commission of 3-5%, withholding tax and a transfer fee of roughly 2% all come off the sale, so several per cent of the gross price never reaches you. The worked return figures this passage used to attach to that friction have been withdrawn, both being built on an annual return nobody publishes; the friction itself is real and belongs in your model as a number you get from your lawyer. There is no area appreciation data to cross-reference, here or anywhere, which is the reason the growth line in your model should start at zero and be labelled if you move it.
Build the denominator first, because it is the half you can know
Most ROI mistakes on this island are not in the income line, they are in the cost line, and the cost line is entirely knowable before you commit. Build it in this order.
1. The purchase price, against the market. MORE Group’s records price 12,054 apartments: the island median is 6,750,000 THB at 150,000 per square metre, and by area it runs from 3,310,000 in inland Kathu to 11,070,000 in Patong. Before anything else, find out whether the unit you are being offered sits above or below its own area’s rate per square metre, and why.
2. Transfer and acquisition costs. Land Department transfer fee, stamp duty or specific business tax depending on how long the seller has held, withholding tax, and your own lawyer. These are schedule-driven and quotable to the baht in advance.
3. Furnishing and setup. A turnkey condominium fit-out runs to a real number you can get three quotes for, and it recurs: furniture is a replacement cycle, not a one-off.
4. The annual stack. Common area charges per square metre per month, the sinking fund, insurance, utilities through the empty months, and Thai tax. Every one of these can be obtained in writing before you sign.
Add those four and you have the denominator, exactly. It is worth stressing how unusual that is: in this market the bottom of the fraction is precise and the top is not published at all. A buyer who has done the four steps above and then takes the income line from twelve months of a comparable unit’s owner statements has a real number. A buyer who starts from a yield percentage has an answer with no arithmetic underneath it.
Quick reference: ROI formulas
| Measure | Formula | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Gross yield | Annual rental revenue ÷ purchase price | Comparison only, never planning |
| Net yield | (Revenue - operating costs) ÷ purchase price | The property as a business |
| Cash yield | Net income after tax and FX ÷ purchase price | Money that reaches your account |
| Cash-on-cash | Net annual income ÷ cash equity deployed | Return on what you actually put in |
| Total return | Net income + appreciation, over the holding period | The full picture, before exit costs |
| Realised return | Total return - exit friction | What you keep when you sell |
Use the same formula on every property you compare. Most disagreements about which project performs better turn out to be one side quoting gross and the other quoting net.
MORE Group builds independent ROI models for every project we recommend, using verified fee schedules and occupancy data from comparable units rather than developer renderings. Request a yield worksheet before you commit to any purchase where the net yield claim has not been checked against a twelve-month operating statement from the building management company.
Owner-use weeks and ROI: do not forget calendar blocks
Most foreign buyers here want to use the property themselves, and every week you occupy is a week that earns nothing. That is a legitimate choice, but it belongs in the model rather than in the disappointment afterwards.
The cost depends entirely on when you come. Two weeks in February removes the highest-rate nights of the year; the same two weeks in July removes nights that might not have sold at all. A buyer who visits in low season pays very little for the privilege, and one who insists on Christmas and New Year gives up a disproportionate share of the annual income.
The percentage column this table used to carry has been withdrawn: it expressed each pattern as a share of an annual net that is not published, so the shares inherited the same problem. What survives is the ordering, and the ordering is what a buyer actually needs.
| Owner-use pattern | Nights taken | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| 2 weeks, low season | 14 | Least. These are the nights hardest to sell anyway |
| 2 weeks, high season | 14 | Far more than the same fourteen nights in July, because both the rate and the fill are at their peak |
| 4 weeks, mixed | 28 | Depends entirely on how the four weeks split across the seasons |
| 6 weeks, mostly high season | 42 | Most. Six weeks concentrated in the dry half removes a disproportionate share of the year |
To price your own pattern exactly, take the building’s advertised rates for the specific weeks you would want, on any platform, and multiply. That is asking rather than achieved, and it is the closest thing to a real number available.
Check the management agreement for how owner nights are booked. Programs vary: some require 30 or 60 days notice, some cap high-season nights, and some charge a cleaning or turnover fee for owner stays. A few hotel-managed buildings exclude owner-occupied nights from the pooled distribution entirely, which changes the arithmetic for every other owner in the pool as well.
When comparing across projects, ask management for the worst-performing unit’s net distribution rather than the best. Sustainable decisions are built on floor-case performance, not marketing outliers, and a building whose weakest unit still distributes acceptably is a safer holding than one with a wide spread between the penthouse and everything below it.
Want independent ROI modelling?
Built on the fee stack in your contract and the statements we ask the manager for, not on a market average. 0% buyer commission.
Frequently Asked Questions
No published benchmark exists to answer that, and the bands this page used to give are withdrawn. Nobody in Thailand collects occupancy or achieved rates for privately owned condominium units, so there is no distribution of Phuket yields to be good or bad within. Judge a number by its source instead: one computed from twelve months of the unit's own owner statements is worth more at 4% than an area average at 8%.
Management fee (15-20% of gross), CAM fee (40-100 THB/sqm/month), building insurance (~$300/year), maintenance reserve (1% of value), and realistic vacancy.
You cannot, and the indicative rate this answer used to offer has been withdrawn. Thailand publishes no transaction index for Phuket, so there is no historical series to use as a baseline. If your model needs a growth rate, put in the one you are willing to defend, mark it as an assumption, and see whether the deal survives at zero.
Total return comparisons depend on period and product. Prime Phuket property has delivered strong income-plus-growth cycles, but illiquidity and FX differ from equities.
Yes. A 5-point management fee difference can move net yield by ~0.6% on typical condos, professional management often pays back via occupancy.
Always net after fees and CAM. Gross is only a first filter, brochures usually show optimistic gross.
MORE Group Editorial
Phuket Real Estate Experts
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