Remote Work from Thailand: Where to Live and What to Buy

Thailand has long been on the shortlist for people who work from a laptop: warm weather, good food, easy travel around the region and a large international community. The questions that decide whether it actually works are less glamorous. Will the connection hold during a video call? Where does the desk go? What is being built next door? This article is about choosing where to live, and what to buy, when your home is also your office.

We leave out connection speeds, prices and rents: they vary from building to building and change over time. A manager confirms what is known about a specific project and tells you plainly when something is not known.

Internet: check the building, not the brochure

A developer's brochure will promise high-speed internet. What you need to know is narrower:

• Which providers have brought fibre into the building, and whether it reaches each unit or stops at the ground floor.
• Whether you can choose your own provider and plan, or the building has one contract for everyone.
• How long installation takes after you move in. For an off-plan project, ask when providers will be connected compared with the handover date.
• What happens in a power cut: whether the building has a backup generator, and what it keeps running.

On a viewing, run a speed test on your phone over the unit's connection if it has one, and ask a resident or the building office how it behaves in the evening, when everyone is online. Whatever the building offers, keep a fallback: a mobile data plan you can share from your phone is the simplest one.

A room that works as an office

Working from the sofa is fine for a month. For a year, most people want a desk in a room with a door, especially if a partner also works from home or calls happen at odd hours. That is why many remote workers look at a second bedroom rather than a bigger studio. Our selection of two-bedroom condos in Pattaya shows which projects in our database have that layout.

When you study a floor plan, check:

• That the room you plan to work in has a window and its own air conditioner. A study without a window is a storeroom.
• Where the sockets are, and whether there is space for a proper desk and chair.
• Which way the room faces: afternoon sun on a screen makes for a long day.
• Whether it shares a wall with the lift, the corridor or a neighbour's living room.

A second bedroom also means more floor area, and the common fee is charged by area. Put it in the budget rather than discovering it on the first invoice.

Construction noise: the question nobody asks

In Thailand's growing resort and city areas, new buildings go up beside existing ones, and work on a site can start early in the morning. For someone who sleeps late after calls with another continent, or holds meetings in the Thai morning, that can make a home unworkable for a long stretch.

• Look at the plots around the building, on a map and in person. An empty lot or an old low building on a good street is a likely future site.
• In a newly completed building, other owners will be fitting out their units for months, with drilling to match. If you buy off-plan, ask about the building's rules on renovation hours, or plan to move in once that phase has calmed down.
• Upper floors on the side away from the main road are usually quieter, but check what is planned on that side too.

City or beach: Bangkok, Pattaya or Phuket

Your working hours decide this as much as your taste. Thailand does not change its clocks, so the gap to Europe or North America shifts during the year when they do. If your meetings fall in the Thai evening or at night, you want a quiet bedroom and somewhere to eat late; if they fall in the morning, you want your afternoons free for the sea.

Bangkok: a real city all year

Coworking spaces, cafés, gyms and the BTS and MRT close at hand, with no off-season. Watthana, along Sukhumvit Road, is where many foreigners who actually live in the city choose to be. There is no beach, but the coast is a drive or a short domestic flight away, and the capital's airports make the rest of the region easy to reach.

Pattaya: the sea with a city behind it

A beach city that runs all year, within driving distance of Bangkok, with hospitals, malls and transport that do not depend on the season. For working from home, calmer areas such as Jomtien and Pratumnak usually suit better than the busy centre. The areas and current projects are on our Pattaya condos page.

Phuket: island life, with more driving

Nature, open-sea beaches and its own international airport, but you will drive more, and some beach areas feel much quieter outside the high season. Phuket Town is where life carries on all year, with services close at hand. Our Phuket property page compares the island's areas.

Rent for a season, then buy

Even if you are sure about Thailand, you may not yet be sure about the street. A season of renting in the area you like lets you test what matters for your work: the internet at peak hours, the noise on a weekday morning, the walk to a café, how you cope with the heat and the rain. Rent something close to what you would buy, ideally in a similar building.

Buying makes sense once you know where you want to be and plan to come back year after year. A completed building lets you test the connection and listen to the street before you sign. Off-plan gives you a payment plan and a brand-new unit, but the internet and the neighbourhood around it are still promises at that point. If you intend to rent the unit out while you travel, check the building's rules on letting before you buy, not after.

Visas and tax: check before you move

Owning a condo does not by itself give you a visa or a right to work in Thailand. Working remotely for an employer or clients abroad is an area where the rules have shifted in recent years, and the long-stay routes aimed at remote workers have conditions that are updated from time to time. Our guide to visas for property owners outlines the routes and the questions to ask an immigration lawyer; check the conditions on the date you apply.

Tax is the other half. A long stay can change where you are tax resident, and with it how income earned abroad is treated, both in Thailand and in your home country. Talk to an accountant who knows both systems before you move, not after your first year. Once the visa and tax picture is clear, a manager at ROMA ThaiProperty can put together a shortlist built around how you work.