Non-hotel license for villa rental???

Hi I'm joanna from England and my husband and I own a villa here in Koh Samui. The villa is on a private gated estate . We rent our villa out through an agent and have done so occasionally for the last year. It's 3bed with a pool.  We have been told that we need a “non-hotel” license to now legally do this at the cost of 200,000 THB. This is a large sum and I've googled it and simple cannot find any info about this. The office in our gated community have told us this and the property will be inspected too! Anyone heard of this? Thank you in advance

There was a lot of articles last year about airbnb  making it clear it is definitely illegal to rent out for less than 30 days now.


Koh Samui isn't the biggest place on earth for them to check up on you

I'd check the figures and you might be better looking for  long term tenant on a 1 year lease if your place has a lot of times when it's empty.

For a foreigner owning a house and leasing land, or leasing the house and land, you would need to change the Purpose of Use of the house from Residential to Rental Property. You need permission from the developer of the project.  This document is OR6 and issued by the OrBorTor---the first step is to apply for Change of Use - OR5. If all requirements are met and inspections etc--then you rent out on a monthly basis.
If you wish to rent on a daily basis-- and the house has less than 5 bedrooms--a Thai person can apply for a Non Hotel license and rent on a daily basis. This means you would have to lease or sublease your property to a Thai national who already has a job and this is their second income.
We have processed several of these at Krabi Consultants for different properties, villas, guesthouses etc.