Cambodia vs Thailand vs Vietnam: Where Can a Foreigner Actually Own Property?

Most first-time buyers in Southeast Asia don’t start with “which building” or even “which city” — they start with which country, and usually with the same shortlist: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia. The marketing in each market answers the question by ignoring the other two. This comparison sets the three side by side on the things that actually decide outcomes: what you can legally own, for how long, in what currency, and how realistically you get your money back out. Citations are marked [S-NNN]; the source list is at the end. For the Cambodia depth behind each claim, the links go to our own research — start with the honest case for and against Cambodia if you want the overview first.

The one-line version

• Thailand is the mature, liquid default: real freehold condo title under a 49% per-building quota, the deepest resale market of the three — paid for with baht exposure and the region’s most picked-over pricing.
• Vietnam is the growth story with a clock on it: you own a unit in one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies for 50 years, renewable once — not perpetually — under tight per-building and per-ward caps.
• Cambodia is the frontier outlier with the strongest paper terms: perpetual strata freehold under the loosest quota (70%), priced and rented in US dollars — inside the thinnest, least transparent market of the three, where the exit is the part nobody underwrites for you.

What you can actually own

This is the legal core, and the three countries genuinely differ.

Thailand. The Condominium Act is the one route to foreign freehold: a foreigner can hold registered, perpetual title to a condominium unit, with foreign ownership capped at 49% of the building’s total sellable floor area — floor area, not unit count, so large units eat the quota faster [S-115] [S-116]. Land is effectively off the table for individual foreign buyers; once a building’s quota is full, what’s offered instead is leasehold, typically 30 years, whose resale value decays with the term [S-116]. Purchase funds must be remitted from abroad in foreign currency and documented on a Foreign Exchange Transaction form — paperwork that later supports taking the money out [S-116].

Vietnam. All land belongs to the state; what a foreigner buys is the house or apartment itself, inside an approved commercial development [S-118]. The amended Housing Law sets the terms: ownership runs 50 years from the certificate, extendable once, with foreigners capped at 30% of the units in an apartment building and roughly 250 landed houses per ward-sized area [S-117]. It is real, registrable ownership — but it is a term, not a perpetuity, and the caps bind hardest exactly where foreigners want to buy.

Cambodia. A foreigner can own a strata-title condo outright and perpetually — above the ground floor, up to 70% of a building — under the 2010 foreign-ownership law; land requires structures that deserve their own caution. The plain-English version of the rules, the process, and the costs is in Can foreigners buy property in Cambodia? — and the catch is that the strength of your title depends on which title type you’re actually buying, which is a verification job, not an assumption.

Tenure: forever vs. fifty years

Put the quotas aside and the starkest single difference is time. Thai and Cambodian condo freehold are perpetual — inheritable, no expiry. Vietnamese foreign ownership is a 50-year term with one renewal [S-117]. For a ten-year hold that may never matter; for an inheritance plan, or for resale late in the term — when your buyer is purchasing the remaining years, not the unit — it matters a great deal. Vietnam’s growth thesis is real; just price the clock into it.

Currency and moving money

• Thailand prices in baht. The FET regime documents money in and supports repatriation out [S-116] — orderly, but you carry THB/your-currency risk for the life of the hold.
• Vietnam prices in dong, with the state between you and the land [S-118]; banking and repatriation work but add process to every step.
• Cambodia is the odd one out: property is priced, transacted, and rented in US dollars, and repatriation is free under the 1997 FX law. For a dollar-based investor there is simply no local-currency leg on the asset — the single cleanest structural advantage Cambodia holds over both neighbours.

Market depth, transparency, and the exit

Here the ranking inverts. Thailand has the region’s most mature resale market: decades of foreign ownership, professional agency and legal infrastructure, and real price discovery. Vietnam is deep on local demand, but a foreign seller is reselling a term-limited unit inside a 30% quota — your natural buyer pool is narrower than the market around you [S-117]. Cambodia is the thinnest of the three: no MLS, opaque pricing, a mid-market that has corrected 15–20% from its supply peak, and resale demand for foreign-quota condos that we’d describe as an exit you must plan for explicitly, not assume. Cambodia’s paper terms are the best in the region precisely because the market asking you to accept its risks is the least proven.

Yields and entry price

Cambodia advertises the highest gross yields of the three — 6.5–8% on city condos against the slimmer norms of Bangkok’s and Ho Chi Minh City’s far more competed markets — and Cambodian entry prices are a fraction of either capital’s. Both halves of that sentence need the standard discount: gross is not net anywhere, vacancy is the yield-killer in a thin market, and any Cambodian project quoting “guaranteed” returns is usually handing you your own purchase premium back on a schedule. Underwrite all three markets on defensible net yield, and most of the headline gap narrows.

The risk ledger, honestly

• Thailand risks are mostly market risks: paying a mature-market price, quota scarcity in the prime buildings, baht exposure. The legal rails are the most tested in the region.
• Vietnam risks are mostly structural: the term, the caps, state land, and administrative process — wrapped around the strongest macro growth of the three.
• Cambodia risks are mostly verification risks: title that must be checked at the cadastral office, developer quality that varies wildly, a thin exit, and a market with little independent data. The rules are generous; the market enforcing them is young.

The verdict

• Choose Thailand if you want the lowest-friction, most reversible decision in the region and will pay a mature market’s prices for it — the sensible default for a first overseas purchase.
• Choose Vietnam if your thesis is macro growth, your horizon fits comfortably inside the 50-year term, and you accept narrower resale optionality as the price of the growth.
• Choose Cambodia if the dollar pricing, perpetual freehold, and quota headroom specifically serve your plan — USD income, a long hold, a regional base (the CM2H residency route can ride along) — and you are willing to do frontier-grade due diligence and hold through an unproven exit. Cambodia rewards the prepared minority and punishes the brochure buyer.

Before you commit

• Decide on the structure first, country second — perpetual freehold, 50-year term, and quota position change what the same dollar buys in each.
• In every market, verify the quota position of the specific building before paying anything: 49% by floor area in Thailand [S-116], 30% by units in Vietnam [S-117], 70% above ground floor in Cambodia.
• Model the exit at purchase time — including, in Vietnam, the years left on the term, and in Cambodia, a sale that may take far longer than the listing suggests.
• Underwrite net, not gross — and treat any guaranteed number as a cost, not a return.

The takeaway

These three markets aren’t really competing on the same offer. Thailand sells maturity, Vietnam sells growth on a 50-year lease of sorts, and Cambodia sells the best ownership terms in the region attached to its least proven market. There is no universally right answer — only a right match between the deal each country offers and the plan you actually have. Whichever way you lean, the work is the same: verify the title, the quota, and the exit before the money moves. None of this is investment or legal advice; ownership rules change and carry country-specific nuance, so verify the current detail with a qualified local professional in the relevant market before you act.

Sources

• [S-115] Formichella & Sritawat — Freehold and Leasehold Condominium Ownership for Foreign Nationals — the Condominium Act B.E. 2522 (1979) as the legal basis for foreign freehold condo title in Thailand.
• [S-116] Terms.Law — Thailand Condo Foreign Quota: The 49% Rule Explained — 49% measured by total sellable floor area (Act s.19); foreign-currency remittance + FET documentation; 30-year leasehold as the quota-full alternative.
• [S-117] Vietnam Briefing — Housing Law Draft Decree: Guidelines on Foreign Property Ownership — 50-year ownership extendable once; 30% per-building cap; ~250 landed houses per ward-sized area.
• [S-118] Taxes for Expats — Can Foreigners Buy Property in Vietnam? — land remains with the Vietnamese state; foreigners own the dwelling within approved commercial projects.