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© EOX · Copernicus Sentinel-2 2016 · CC BY 4.0

Map guides · Episode 4

Phuket or Koh Samui: two islands that keep different time

They are often treated as two versions of the same island. They do not face the same sea, do not get their rain in the same months and do not sell the same thing. Each step stops on a figure from our survey of 23 September 2026, with its sample size.

Survey of 23 September 2026 · asking prices, median per development

Each dot is a development we track; its colour is its median asking price per square metre.

30,000 ฿/m²180,000 ฿/m² and above

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1 of 10 · Two islands, two seas

Endlessly compared, they do not even face the same sea

Phuket lies on the Andaman Sea, Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand; 257.1 km apart as the crow flies, with the peninsula in between. Phuket is 2.4 times larger, yet we track 4.3 times as many developments there: 1,208 against 284.

Limit · Developments in our database, geolocated at the survey date — not the whole building stock. Phuket's area is the province's, small islands included, according to Wikipedia.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026 · Wikipedia — Phuket province, accessed 23 September 2026 · Wikipedia — Ko Samui, accessed 23 September 2026

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2 of 10 · Getting there

Phuket's airport is state-run; Samui's belongs to an airline

Phuket International is one of six airports run by AOT, Thailand's state airport company; it handled 8.8 million passengers in 2025, according to AOT figures reported by C9 Hotelworks. Samui's airport is private, built and owned by Bangkok Airways; the island can also be reached by car ferry from Don Sak. As the crow flies from Suvarnabhumi: 686.6 km to Phuket, 464.7 km to Samui.

Limit · Frequencies and fares not checked. Distances are our own, measured to the median point of the developments; the Don Sak crossing time is not given here.

AOT — Investor Relations, FAQ, accessed 23 September 2026 · C9 Hotelworks, Phuket Hotel & Tourism Market Update, mars 2026, accessed 23 September 2026 · Bangkok Airways — Airport Business, accessed 23 September 2026 · Wikipedia — Ko Samui, accessed 23 September 2026

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3 of 10 · The calendar

The two islands get their rain in different months

Phuket receives 75.8% of its annual rainfall between May and October, 308.7 mm of it in August; Samui gets only 102.2 mm that month. Samui concentrates 50.3% of its rain between October and December, 444.6 mm in November alone, when Phuket receives 178.2 mm.

Limit · 1991–2020 normals from the World Meteorological Organization and the Thai Meteorological Department, read from Wikipedia's climate tables: a thirty-year average says nothing about any given year.

Wikipedia — Phuket, accessed 23 September 2026 · Wikipedia — Ko Samui, accessed 23 September 2026

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4 of 10 · The beaches

Around its developments, Phuket has twice as many named beaches as Samui

Within 3 km of a development, our beach layer names 50 beaches on Phuket — Bang Tao, Surin, Kamala, Patong, Karon, Kata, Nai Harn — and 23 on Samui, from Chaweng to Lamai, from Bophut to Mae Nam. On Phuket's west coast the bays follow one another, facing the sunset; on Samui they ring the island, as far as Lipa Noi and Taling Ngam in the west.

Limit · Names from OpenStreetMap: an unnamed beach is not counted. We merged three duplicates on Samui and removed three Phuket entries that were not beaches on the island.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026

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5 of 10 · Samui · around the island

Samui is an island of villas, where no condominium rises above 4 floors

The camera circles the island: low roofs scattered along the shore and up the slopes. 87.3% of Samui's developments are villas, against 62.3% on Phuket; we track only 19 condominium developments here. Phuket is no city of towers either: just 2 of the 343 condominiums whose height we know reach 20 floors.

Limit · Floor counts as declared on each development's listing, known for 17 of Samui's 19 condominiums. We do not attribute this height to a planning rule: we have not verified one.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026

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6 of 10 · The price

The price per m² is close; it is the villa that shrinks on Samui

At the median per development, villa space is priced at 72,089 ฿ (€1,879) per m² on Phuket and 64,189 ฿ (€1,673) on Samui: a gap of -11%. Yet the median villa for sale measures 330.3 m² on Phuket and 232.8 m² on Samui; its asking price is 25.9 million baht (€675,000) on Phuket, against 12.9 million baht (€336,000) on Samui.

Limit · Asking prices, not sale prices. The per-m² figure is a median per development; size and price are medians per unit for sale. 29 outlier units excluded on Phuket, 9 on Samui. No condominium median for Samui: 18 developments, below our threshold of 20.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026

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7 of 10 · Off-plan

On Samui, roughly one development in two is sold before it is built

53.3% of Samui's developments are sold off-plan, against 25.1% on Phuket; among completed developments, the median completion year is 2019 on Samui and 2016 on Phuket. Counted in units, the two markets converge: 63.3% of units for sale on Phuket are off-plan, 68.1% on Samui. On Phuket, condominiums make the difference: 70.3% of their units for sale are off-plan.

Limit · Off-plan status as declared on the listing, with no verified delivery date. The completion year is known for 107 of 115 completed developments on Samui, 833 of 855 on Phuket.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026

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8 of 10 · On the water

Near the beach, villa prices per m² double on Phuket; on Samui the premium is half as large

The camera skims the shoreline. Within 300 m of a beach, villa space is priced at 138,934 ฿ (€3,621) per m² on Phuket, against 69,779 ฿ (€1,818) beyond 1,000 m: 99%. On Samui, 84,700 ฿ (€2,207) against 58,599 ฿ (€1,527), or 45%. Samui's villas also sit closer to the water more often: 59.8% of its villa developments are more than 1,000 m from a beach, against 81.8% on Phuket.

Limit · Medians per development; n = 37 and 594 on Phuket, 25 and 137 on Samui. Straight-line distance to the nearest beach; view, slope and orientation are not measured.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026

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9 of 10 · Living there

Each island has a network hospital; on Phuket, care is closer at hand

The Bangkok Hospital network has a hospital on each island, and the Phuket one is accredited by Joint Commission International. From a development, the nearest hospital is 2.5 km away at the median on Phuket, 3.3 km on Samui; 84.9% of Phuket's developments have one within 5 km, against 73.9% on Samui. For international schooling, British International School, Phuket prepares for the IB Diploma; on Samui, PBISS follows the Cambridge curriculum.

Limit · Hospital layer from OpenStreetMap, with no distinction between services. Schools are named, not counted: our school layer is incomplete.

Bangkok Hospital — Network Hospitals Directory, accessed 23 September 2026 · Fact pack wellness §4.1, accessed 23 September 2026 · British International School, Phuket, accessed 23 September 2026 · PBISS International School of Samui, accessed 23 September 2026

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10 of 10 · Who each one suits

Two islands, two ways of living there

Those looking for an apartment by the water find 67 condominium developments within 300 m of a beach on Phuket; Samui has 2. Those looking for a villa find on Samui a price per m² 11% lower, a smaller villa, and roughly one development in two still to be delivered. Those spending the European summer in the tropics find it drier on Samui, 352.8 mm from June to August against 798.3 mm on Phuket; the European winter is drier on Phuket, 155.9 mm from December to February against 454.2 mm on Samui.

Limit · Market and climate facts, not advice: none of these lines says what a property will earn or be worth.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026 · Wikipedia — Phuket, accessed 23 September 2026 · Wikipedia — Ko Samui, accessed 23 September 2026

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Your project, in three questions

City or coast, apartment or villa, to live there or to spend part of the year: three gestures are enough for your advisor to start from your project, not from a catalogue.

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Method and sources

Prices are asking prices, surveyed on 23 September 2026 in our database. For each development we take the median price per square metre of its unsold units; for an area, the median of those medians, shown only from 20 developments upward. A unit is set aside as an outlier below 10,000 ฿/m², above 1,000,000 ฿/m², above 500,000 ฿/m² on less than 30 m² or with no known floor area, above 500 M ฿, or with less than 10 m² per bedroom. The off-plan share counts developments whose status is known. Distances are measured as the crow flies. Euros are converted at €1 = 38.374 ฿ (13 September 2026).

These are listing prices, not sale prices. No figure on this page is a promise of return.

Sources specific to this guide:

This page is market information, not legal, tax or financial advice. The rules quoted are dated; check that they still apply with a professional before any decision.