Bangkok international schools: neighbourhoods and homes

In Bangkok, the school run shapes the week. Bangkok Patana publishes sample bus journeys of 21 to 35 minutes from Chidlom, Sathorn or Thonglor to its campus in Bang Na. In Nichada Thani, to the north, other children make the same trip by bike, because their school stands in the middle of the village. In this city, the school sets the rhythm of the week, and the neighbourhood is often chosen around it. We have placed the capital’s accredited schools, and the residences around them, in our map guide to international schools; this article draws the practical question from it: where to live, for which school.

Why, in Bangkok, does the school choose the neighbourhood?

Because the city is vast and a child’s day starts early. A family moving to Bangkok settles the school first, then looks for the apartment that spares them the traffic. The trend is broad: according to Kasikorn Research Center, quoted by The Nation on 17 October 2026, Thailand has 280 international schools in 2026, against 234 in 2022, and 86,056 pupils, against 66,352; Bangkok accounts for more than 45% of them.

The word ‘international’ is not enough to identify a school. Of the 110 establishments that our database, drawn from OpenStreetMap, files under that word in the capital, 103 owe it to their name alone. So we used another criterion: the directory of the International Schools Association of Thailand (ISAT) lists 122 member schools in Bangkok, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan and Pathum Thani, and 47 of them declare a whole-school accreditation, from the American ACS WASC to the British COBIS, and from the Council of International Schools to French approval by the AEFE. Some do not carry the word in their name: Bangkok Prep, The Early Learning Centre and La Petite École are among them.

Their geography is surprising. The 47 schools do not huddle around the towers of Sukhumvit: 19 of them, or 40%, stretch away to the south-east, between Bang Na and Phra Khanong (7), Prawet, Suan Luang and Saphan Sung (6), then Bang Phli, on the Samut Prakan side (6). Central Sukhumvit has 7, the Rama 9 – Ramkhamhaeng axis 7, the river and Thonburi 6, Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani 5, the north-east 3. Each cluster has its own character, and its own curricula: British, American, IB, French.

Central Sukhumvit: the school by the metro

This is the Bangkok of families who want to do everything on foot. NIST International School occupies a 25-rai campus on Sukhumvit Soi 15, a few minutes, according to the school, from Asok station on the Skytrain and Sukhumvit station on the underground. Opened on 13 August 1992 with 502 pupils, it was the country’s first fully IB school and today welcomes pupils of more than 75 nationalities. Further along the avenue, Wells International School, American in inspiration and also preparing students for the IB Diploma, has its main campus in Bang Chak, at 2209 Sukhumvit Road.

The residential supply is the densest in the city. Within 1.5 km of the six accredited schools in central Sukhumvit that we have geolocated, we track 550 developments, at a median asking price of THB 134,974 per square metre, according to our survey of 19 October 2026. Soi Thong Lo alone gathers 8 international schools in our neighbourhood guide. Life here is lived in apartments, with Benjasiri Park on Sundays, and the neighbouring prestige districts, from Langsuan to Thonglor, are described in our article on Bangkok’s prime neighbourhoods.

Bang Na and the south-east: room for campuses

At the far end of Sukhumvit, the city opens out. Bangkok Patana School, founded in 1957, spreads across its site in Bang Na, at 643 Lasalle Road, Sukhumvit 105. More than 2,200 pupils aged 2 to 18, from some 65 countries, follow the British curriculum up to IGCSE, then the IB. The school publishes its bus times: 21 minutes from Chidlom or Sukhumvit 24, 24 minutes from Sukhumvit 67, 27 minutes from the Emporium, 32 from Sathorn or Asok, 35 from Thonglor. Its buses, it explains, run against the flow of traffic and use the tollways. Bearing and Bangna BTS stations are the nearest, and a shuttle links Bangna to the campus from Year 8.

Around Bang Na and Phra Khanong, six accredited schools, including Bangkok Patana, St. Andrews International School and International Community School, are surrounded by 235 developments, at THB 83,384 per square metre, 38% less than in central Sukhumvit. Villas make up 20% of developments in Bang Na district, according to our neighbourhood guide. Further east, Wellington College, opened in 2018 on Krungthep Kreetha Road, is surrounded by 18 developments in which 101 of 102 units have three bedrooms or more: here you buy a house, not a studio.

The river and Rama 9: two lesser-known clusters

The river. Shrewsbury International School, founded in 2003, set up its Riverside campus on the bank of the Chao Phraya, at 1922 Charoen Krung Road, in Bang Kho Laem. The school gives BTS Saphan Taksin as its access point, about 1.5 km on foot along Charoen Krung, as well as a boat from Sathorn pier. Nearly 2,000 pupils aged 3 to 18 are enrolled. Around the four accredited schools of the river and Thonburi, we track 152 developments, at THB 110,841 per square metre.

Rama 9 and Pracha Uthit. This is the cluster that French families know best, without always being able to place it on a map. The Lycée Français International de Bangkok, founded in 1957 as a small embassy school on the Sathorn site, moved in 2003 to its current campus, at 498 Soi Ramkhamhaeng 39, in Wang Thonglang. The AEFE profile lists it among the schools that hold an agreement with the agency, with its 15 approved year groups, from the first year of nursery to the final year of the baccalauréat; the lycée also offers a British international section and, since September 2022, the baccalauréat français international. On the same Pracha Uthit axis, KIS International School, accredited by the Council of International Schools, teaches the full range of IB programmes in the gated Kesinee Ville estate, in Huai Khwang. Shrewsbury’s City Campus, opened in August 2018 for ages 3 to 11, is a little further south, on Rama 9.

Around the five accredited schools on this axis, our survey counts 243 developments, at THB 90,848 per square metre, and 17.5% of units have three bedrooms or more, the highest share among the central clusters.

Nichada Thani: a village built around a school

To the north, in Pak Kret, in Nonthaburi province, International School Bangkok moved in January 1992 to the centre of Nichada Thani, having opened in 1951 on the grounds of the American embassy. The school describes a gated estate, guarded day and night, with its apartments, villas, lake and cycle paths, where children walk or cycle to class. It is another way of living in Bangkok: the city is far away, the school next door. Our database has no tracked development within 1.5 km of ISB or of the four other accredited schools in Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani: homes there are found within the estate itself, which our surveys do not cover.

How do the school neighbourhoods compare?

Asking prices around accredited schools, within a 1.5 km radius, at 19 October 2026:

These medians are listed prices, not transaction prices, and they describe what is for sale around the schools, not the schools themselves. Above all, they show the shape of the market: in central Sukhumvit, many apartments and few large ones; in the north-east, houses, at an asking price 2.7 times lower than in central Sukhumvit.

What separates a good choice from an average one?

The place before the address. The leading schools fill up early. Bangkok Patana states that many year groups are full for 2026/27, and that applications for 2027/28 have been open since 1 September 2026; without a place, the application joins a waiting pool, and only the offer letter from the head of school confirms admission. NIST works the same way with its waiting list and says it aims to place siblings together. Signing a lease or a purchase before you have the letter means betting on the neighbourhood without knowing the school.

The admissions season. At NIST, families already in Bangkok submit their application for the following year before mid-December, with assessment beginning in January; families arriving from abroad can apply all year round. The Lycée Français takes new pupils at the start of the school year in early September and during the year. Annual tuition fees published for 2026/2027 range from THB 297,750 (£6,700) in nursery and primary to THB 434,800 (£9,800) in terminale, the final year, for pupils who are French or Thai nationals, or nationals of an EU member state, plus THB 150,000 (£3,400) for first enrolment. At Bangkok Patana, 2026/27 is listed from THB 515,000 (£11,600) in Nursery to THB 1,014,000 (£22,800) in Year 12, plus an entry fee of THB 250,000 (£5,600) for a first child. These amounts are not an all-inclusive budget: the Lycée Français fee schedule notably includes compulsory school lunches up to troisième, the last year of collège, and application fees; Patana’s adds an annual contribution of THB 30,000 (£670) and separate one-off fees. School transport is checked separately with each school.

The journey at 7am, not 2pm. A neighbourhood is judged at the hour you leave. The times Patana publishes are those of buses using the expressways against the flow; a car leaving Thonglor in the other direction does not make the same journey. Drive the route at the real hour, on a weekday, before you decide.

The metro, when the school is on the line. NIST is a few minutes from Asok and Sukhumvit stations, Shrewsbury Riverside 1.5 km from BTS Saphan Taksin, and Bangkok Patana is served by a shuttle from BTS Bangna. For a teenager coming home alone, the station matters as much as the school; in our article on prices and stations in Bangkok, we showed what distance to the rail network does to the price of an address.

The number of bedrooms. This is the most underestimated constraint. Around the 31 schools we have geolocated, units with three bedrooms or more make up only 10.9% of the 17,295 units whose size is known, and 3.3% around Bang Na and Phra Khanong. In Ratchada and Rama IX, 72% of units for sale have a single bedroom. A family of four is therefore searching in a small part of the market, and that is where the price gaps lie. How much schools, healthcare and services weigh in the choice of a whole city, we set out in our article on services and residential choice.

When we model the case of Emma and Tom: two children, two schools

How our database places each development in its neighbourhood

Our records place each development in its sub-district, with its straight-line distance to the nearest accredited school, its breakdown by number of bedrooms and, where published, its asking price. To see the schools and the residences around them on a single map, start by placing them on the map.

What you can do now

Start from the school, not the apartment. Write to the admissions offices of your two or three possible schools to find out about places for the year you are aiming for, then put them on the map and draw a 1.5 km circle around each. Count the buildings that offer the number of bedrooms you need, and make the morning journey at the real hour. The right neighbourhood is often the one that brings both siblings’ schools together.