Two data sets — Origin Property’s own Phuket buyer disclosure, published in August 2026, and REIC’s Q1 2026 national transfer data, reported in June — describe the same shift in Phuket’s foreign buyer base from two different angles, and neither was built to be compared with the other. Putting them side by side is Houseviser’s own analysis, not a claim either publisher made.
Observation note
The two data sets measure different things at different scales. One is a single developer’s own disclosed buyer breakdown for its Phuket projects. The other is the Real Estate Information Center’s (REIC) nationwide count of foreign condominium transfers for the first quarter of 2026. Neither is a Phuket-specific government statistic, and no source in this article publishes a Phuket-only transfer count by nationality.
What the two data sets show
Origin Property disclosed its own Phuket foreign-buyer mix alongside its August 10, 2026 announcement of a further ฿11.65 billion in Phuket investment through 2028 — a plan Houseviser reported at the time:
- Russia47%
- Poland16%
- China6%
- Other31%
That is one company’s customer base, not the island’s. Set against it, REIC’s first-quarter 2026 figures for foreign condominium transfers nationwide, reported by Nation Thailand in June, move the same direction on the two largest markets:
China remains the larger market by volume nationwide and is contracting sharply. Russia is roughly half its size by unit count and growing on both units and value, with value rising faster than volume — Russian buyers are transacting at higher average prices than a year earlier. Origin’s own mix, where Russian buyers are its largest group by a wide margin and Chinese buyers are its smallest named group, sits inside that same national direction of travel, even though a single developer’s customer list is not evidence of an island-wide count.
Poland does not appear in REIC’s published nationality breakdown at all — REIC’s release does not name it as a tracked market — so Origin’s 15.9% Polish share cannot be checked against a national figure. It stands as one developer’s disclosure only.
The same weeks, a tighter registration regime
Over the same period, Thailand’s Department of Business Development (DBD) widened the registration evidence required of companies with foreign investment or a foreign signatory. Order 2/2569 took effect August 1, 2026, replacing two earlier measures, DBD’s release explains — Houseviser covered the original filing requirements and, in a later release, DBD’s own account of why it extended the same checks to post-incorporation ownership changes, not just new filings. DBD reported 119,116 active Thai juristic persons nationwide with foreign shareholding between 0.01% and 49.99%, and named Phuket among the provinces where it will keep reviewing nominee-risk activity.
Separately, the “Phuket Model” land-title sweep — which Houseviser has tracked from an eight-site inspection to more than forty additional locations — continues. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment’s Phuket office documents the eight-site operation’s August 3 launch and traces it to a July 20 ministerial order; the wider, island-wide expansion followed a separate July 30 instruction from the Prime Minister, reported at the time and covered in Houseviser’s linked coverage above.
None of this evidence connects a specific buyer, nationality, or transaction to a nominee finding. DBD’s checks apply to the registration process itself, regardless of who is filing or where they are from, and none of the sources above reports that any Origin buyer, or any buyer from a specific country, has been flagged.
What it means for a Phuket buyer
Houseviser analysis. A foreigner cannot hold Phuket land outright. A condominium purchase within the 49% foreign quota sidesteps a company structure entirely, but a villa, a house, or land itself is usually held through a Thai company, a registered leasehold, or both. Not every such company is reached by DBD’s August 1 evidence requirements — Order 2/2569 applies to specified situations: a foreign partner or shareholder investing while the combined foreign stake stays below 50%, a company with no foreign shareholder but a foreign director who can sign alone or jointly, and matching post-incorporation amendments. Where one of those triggers applies, a Thai partner’s declared capital contribution now needs a matching bank record. That rule does not vary by nationality — a buyer from an established source market and a buyer from a newer one file under the same requirement if their structure matches one of those triggers. What has changed is the buyer mix arriving at that filing stage at all: Origin’s own disclosure and REIC’s national figures both suggest more of Phuket’s incremental foreign demand is now arriving from markets, Russia and Poland among them, that were a smaller share of it in prior years. Any buyer setting up a Thai company for the first time — regardless of nationality — has reason to confirm with independent Thai counsel whether their structure falls under Order 2/2569 before, not after, registering it. Our guide to Thai-company property ownership and nominee risk sets out what that filing now requires.
Set the buyer-mix shift next to Phuket’s actual rental performance, and a second caution follows. C9 Hotelworks’ Phuket Hotel & Tourism Market Update 2026, covered here in August, found island-wide hotel occupancy fell 6% in 2025 even as average daily rate rose 5% — a trade that varied sharply by beach, with Kamala’s occupancy down 24% against Bang Tao’s 2%. A buyer newly arriving in the market, from any country, is the buyer most likely to be quoted a rental-yield figure without knowing what submarket and what occupancy assumption sits behind it. Our guide to how Phuket rental yields are actually calculated sets out what a defensible number has to net out.
The branded-residence segment courting this same buyer base is decelerating relative to its region: C9’s Asia Branded Residences Market Review 2026, reported by Nation Thailand in June, put Thailand’s branded supply growth at 13.3% year-on-year against 30.3% for Asia overall — Thailand leads the region by launched-unit count and in the luxury tier, but Vietnam has overtaken it as Asia’s largest branded-residence market by aggregate value, per C9 coverage elsewhere — and Phuket leads Asia’s resort segment by unit count. Slower new supply is not, by itself, bad for an existing owner — it is less future competition — but it is a fact worth knowing before paying a premium for a brand on the strength of “the segment is booming,” since the boom in 2026 is running faster elsewhere in Asia than in Thailand.
What remains unknown
- Whether Origin’s disclosed buyer mix is representative of Phuket’s foreign buyer base as a whole, or specific to its own projects and marketing reach. No Phuket-only, nationality-broken government transfer count has been published to check it against.
- Whether REIC’s Q1 2026 national trend continued into Q2 2026, which REIC has not yet published.
- Poland’s actual share of Phuket’s foreign buyer base outside Origin’s own disclosure; no independent figure has been published.
- Whether any DBD registration review under Order 2/2569 has been opened against a specific Phuket company; none of the sources above reports one.
- How many of the 119,116 nationally flagged juristic persons are Phuket-registered, and what share, if any, DBD has referred for further investigation.
This article is not investment advice.