Retirees in Thailand usually earn nothing there. The tax question is what happens to the pension, savings and investment income they bring in from abroad.
The Revenue Department answers it in a short guide for foreigners, and since 2024 the answer has changed. This page sets out what the guide says, read on 23 September 2026. It is not tax advice. It does not tell you what you will owe, and your position depends on your home country’s rules and on any tax treaty between it and Thailand. Proposals to change these rules have been reported, so check the Revenue Department’s site for anything newer than its guide.
The two tests
The guide rests on section 41 of Thailand’s Revenue Code. Income from sources inside Thailand is taxable wherever it is paid. Income from sources outside Thailand is taxable only if both conditions are met:
- It was earned in a tax year from 1 January 2024 onward, by a foreigner who stayed in Thailand for 180 days or more in that tax year. Thailand’s tax year is the calendar year.
- It has been brought into Thailand, in whole or in part, even if that happens in a later tax year.
The 180 days are counted in the year the income was earned. The tax falls when the money is brought in.
What is outside the rule
Two cases are not subject to Thai tax:
- Income earned before 1 January 2024, brought in later. Savings built from income earned before 2024 fall here.
- Income earned by a foreigner who was not a Thai tax resident, meaning fewer than 180 days in Thailand in the year it was earned, even if it is brought in later.
The year the income was earned decides the question, whatever the date of the transfer. The guide adds that documents and evidence may be required to prove the source of income. If you bring in money you say was earned before 2024, or in a year you were not resident, be able to show it.
Where the visa rules meet it
Thailand’s retirement routes ask you to bring money in. The annual extension wants 800,000 baht in a Thai bank, held on a timetable, as set out in the one-year extension in Chiang Mai. The pension route wants 65,000 baht a month.
So the visa rules and the tax rules touch the same money. A deposit funded from savings earned before 2024 sits outside the tax rule by the Revenue Department’s own account. A pension earned and brought in during a year you spent 180 days in Thailand is the case the rule is written for. Neither the immigration pages nor the tax guide connects the two, so keep a record of what each transfer was.
The Long-Term Resident visa is the exception. The Board of Investment lists tax exemption for overseas income among its privileges, and Thailand’s retirement visas compared covers the LTR alongside the other routes. What the exemption covers is in the BOI’s own terms, not in this guide.
Filing, and partial transfers
A foreigner with taxable income files the ordinary personal income tax return, form P.N.D. 90 or P.N.D. 91. Taxable income for the year is the Thai-sourced income earned in that year plus the foreign-sourced income brought into Thailand in that year.
If only part of a foreign income is brought in, the guide says the taxable amount is apportioned accordingly: only the share brought in counts.
Tax already paid abroad
Tax paid in another country on the same income can be credited against the Thai tax, if a Double Tax Agreement between that country and Thailand allows it. The credit cannot be more than the Thai tax due on that income.
The guide asks for evidence in English or Thai and recommends a tax payment certificate issued by the foreign tax authority as proof of tax paid. If your pension is taxed at source at home, ask for that certificate each year rather than assembling it later.
Before you transfer
- The 180-day count is made in the year the income is earned, so your first months in Thailand can matter to money you bring in years later.
- A retirement visa’s currency test and the tax test on a remittance can apply to the same transfer. The first asks whether your pension clears a baht threshold at today’s rate. The second asks when the money was earned.
- For anything beyond the Revenue Department’s guide, including how your country’s tax treaty with Thailand treats a particular pension, take advice from someone qualified to give it.