Living between France and Thailand

The year splits in two, and the journey has become shorter. From 1 December 2026, Thai Airways goes from seven to fourteen weekly flights between Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle and Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, for the high season from 25 October 2026 to 27 March 2027. Since November 2025, Air France has linked Paris to Phuket nonstop, in a Boeing 777-300ER, up to three times a week in the winter season — fifteen hours and thirty-five minutes door to door. Those who already live between the two countries speak neither of expatriation nor of return: they speak of November, of March, and of the month when the suitcases are packed again.

How is a year shared between two countries divided up?

It is divided first by the sky. Airlines think not in months but in seasons, and the 2026-2027 winter season runs from 25 October to 27 March: it is within this window that Thai Airways doubles its Paris service, taking Paris–Bangkok from seven to fourteen weekly flights from 1 December 2026. The same season saw the arrival, from 27 November 2025, of Air France's direct link between Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle and Phuket: departures on Monday, Thursday and Saturday, returns on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, in a 777-300ER. Munich receives ten Thai Airways flights a week that winter, Zurich eleven, Amsterdam seven. Europe and South-East Asia have never been so close in number of seats — and this closeness is seasonal, which already says something about the rhythm people adopt.

On the ground, the year has its own divisions. The North has its agricultural burning season from February to April, peaking in March: it is what drives Chiang Mai's annual PM2.5 average, 18.2 µg/m³ for 2025 according to IQAir. The 2026 episodes were widely reported in the press, but we were unable to cross-check them against a primary government document: we publish no figures for them. The southern islands live the opposite: peak visitor numbers coincide with the European winter, and the monsoon empties the west-coast beaches in the heart of summer. In Koh Samui, Europe accounted for 56% of arrivals in 2024, led by Germany, the United Kingdom and France, according to C9 Hotelworks.

From these two overlapping calendars emerges a pattern found among most people who keep two addresses: arrive in the autumn, leave in the spring. It is not a rule, it is a convergence — and it has a precise consequence.

The 180 days, a dial you set

Thailand treats as a tax resident any person present on its soil for 180 days or more in a calendar year, cumulative rather than consecutive days — section 41 of the Thai Revenue Code, as stated on the Revenue Department's website. The threshold is neither a cap on stays nor a penalty: it is a tipping line, and whether you cross it depends on how you distribute your months.

What crossing it entails has changed recently. Since 1 January 2024, Revenue Department instruction Por. 161/2566 makes foreign-source income received by a Thai tax resident taxable in the year it is remitted to Thailand, whatever the year in which it was earned; instruction Por. 162/2566 protects savings accumulated before that date, provided they can be documented. On the French side, the France–Thailand tax treaty of 27 December 1974 eliminates double taxation on property income by exemption subject to the effective-rate rule, not by tax credit.

These mechanisms have their own article: we detail them, with figures and treaty articles, in our analysis of the French taxation of a Thai property. Let us retain just one thing here, which is enough to organise a year: the number of days is a variable you steer when booking your tickets, not a figure you discover in December. The choice of stay arrangement follows the same logic — thresholds and durations are covered in our article on residence and property.

Healthcare: what exists for a French national in Thailand

This is the most useful section, and the most specifically French. Two framing facts, from the "Healthcare costs" page of the French Embassy in Thailand, updated on 21 April 2026.

The first: the French State does not cover the healthcare costs of French nationals hospitalised or treated abroad. This information appears on page 32 of the passport. The second is structural for any planning: there is no social security agreement between France and Thailand. The page states that such agreements exist with certain countries; Thailand is not one of them. This is not a warning; it is an input: cover is built, it is not carried over.

What exists to build it, on the French side, is the Caisse des Français de l'Étranger (CFE), the health and social insurance fund for French nationals abroad. Its subsidised category requires cumulative conditions: French nationality, residence outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland, registration on the register of French nationals living abroad, and annual income below €24,030 for 2026, or about THB 922,100. The flat-rate contribution has been €228 per quarter since April 2025, or €912 over the year (about THB 35,000), for sickness-maternity, work-accident and pension cover. Above the income ceiling, this category is not open, and the rates of the other categories have not been collected here.

The rest of the market consists of international private insurers, which act as first-line or top-up cover, and — often forgotten — of cover already held: the embassy recommends checking what bank cards, mutual health insurance and home insurance contracts cover, as they sometimes include repatriation and hospitalisation for stays of less than 90 days. We compare no contracts and recommend no products: this is a matter for a broker, and the interplay between CFE reimbursement and international hospital billing should be clarified with the Caisse itself.

On the hospital side, the map is changing. Bangkok Hospital Phuket and Bangkok Hospital Chiang Mai are JCI-accredited — and healthcare provision is taking shape faster than the housing that connects to it, as we detailed in our analysis of longevity and wellness. And Bumrungrad, Thailand's leading private hospital group, is building its first campus outside Bangkok in Phuket: THB 4.3 billion (≈ €112 million), 16.5 rai less than ten minutes from the international airport, 120 beds in the first phase and 212 eventually. The piles were driven in February 2025; opening is announced for 2027.

School, when there are children

Two Thai schools are accredited by the AEFE, the French agency for education abroad, and their status is not the same. The Lycée français international de Bangkok is under agreement (conventionné) — bound to the AEFE by an agreement, with seconded staff — and accredited from nursery to the final year of secondary school for 1,057 pupils. BCIS Phuket, in Chalong, is a partner school: also accredited from nursery to the final year of secondary school, for 212 pupils, but with neither an agreement nor seconded staff. For a family, the difference concerns supervision and continuity of the curriculum; it deserves to be considered before choosing a city. These two entries come from the AEFE's official directory.

For families aiming for English-language schooling, Phuket concentrates the offer: British International School Phuket, whose 2026-2027 fees published on its own website range from THB 489,000 (≈ €12,700) in kindergarten to THB 982,700 (≈ €25,600) in secondary, with full boarding between THB 473,550 and THB 509,300 a year; UWC Thailand, in Thalang, a non-profit school that states it provides more than 6 million dollars in financial aid each year. And an announced opening: North London Collegiate School Phuket, in Cherng Talay, whose agreement with VLC Group was signed in May 2026 for an opening announced for the third quarter of 2028, with day and boarding places and a capacity of about 1,000 pupils rising to 1,500. The agreement is signed; no construction is documented to date.

Day-to-day paperwork: who declares what

Three obligations, often confused, and none of them complicated once assigned to the right person.

TM30 is a notification of residence, and it is the owner, landlord or possessor of the accommodation who files it — not the foreigner staying there. It is due within 24 hours of a foreigner moving in, and again after each of their returns from abroad, even to the same address. A French owner occupying their own condominium therefore declares their own arrival and each of their returns; if they let to a foreigner, they declare each time the tenant moves in.

The 90-day report (form TM47) is a separate obligation, which falls on the foreigner themselves and does not limit the length of the authorised stay: an O-A visa holder can stay twelve continuous months per entry while filing a report every 90 days. The filing window runs from 15 days before the due date to 7 days after, and any departure from the country resets the counter to zero — which, for a life shared between two countries, often means never having to file it.

Finally, the paper TM6 arrival card has been replaced by the Thailand Digital Arrival Card, mandatory since 1 May 2025, to be completed online before each arrival.

What a year at two addresses really costs

Here, honesty is worth more than an average. We do not publish an item-by-item cost-of-living comparison between France and Thailand, because no source with a published methodology provides one. The World Bank indicator dedicated to consumption (`PA.NUS.PPPC.RF`) has been withdrawn from its catalogue, and crowd-sourced aggregators have neither a sample nor controls.

What we do know is more useful than a national average, because it is local. According to the Trade Policy and Strategy Office of the Thai Ministry of Commerce, the consumer price index for April 2026 rose by +3.91% in the South — so in Phuket and Samui — against +2.89% nationally, +2.97% in the Centre (Pattaya, Hua Hin), +2.83% in the North (Chiang Mai) and +2.56% in Bangkok and its surroundings. These are price changes, not levels: they say where prices are rising fastest, not where life is most expensive. No cost-of-living level index by Thai city exists in an official source.

Cost can also be read in the property entry ticket. On condominium transfers to foreign buyers recorded in 2025, the calculated average ticket comes out at THB 5.12 million in Phuket (≈ €133,300) against THB 2.84 million in Chiang Mai (≈ €74,000), THB 2.78 million in Pattaya and THB 2.60 million in Koh Samui — these last three forming the bottom of the grid of our six destinations. The full reading of these series can be found in our analysis of the Thai property market.

The published amounts that structure a shared year, as of 24 September 2026:

What makes a second address work?

Five criteria separate a good project from an average one, and none of them concerns the price per m².

The real distance to an airport with direct flights. Not the advertised distance: the measured distance, in minutes, and to which airport. Direct links from Paris are seasonal — Air France's Phuket service is a winter route, and Thai Airways' doubling covers the high season from 25 October to 27 March. An eight-month presence a year cannot be built on a four-month route. In Koh Samui, the airport belongs to Bangkok Airways and operates under a regulatory cap of 73 flights a day.

Hospital facilities, in minutes of travel. A JCI-accredited hospital twenty minutes away is not the same asset as a JCI-accredited hospital an hour away in high season.

Schooling, if it is at stake. Two AEFE-accredited schools in the whole country, in Bangkok and in Phuket, and none identified in Chiang Mai: this rules out cities before the housing question even arises.

Managing the property while you are away. Six months of vacancy a year, in a tropical climate, require someone who opens up, airs the place and checks it — and, if the property is let, who files the TM30 within 24 hours.

Actual running costs relative to the season of presence. Condominium charges run for twelve months; presence does not. It is the simplest calculation and the one most often left out.

Across the 7,865 projects we track in six provinces, 80 districts and 308 sub-districts, we measure real distances to transport, beaches and amenities. This makes it possible to replace "close to the airport" with a number of minutes, and to compare two addresses at equal granularity rather than two cities.

The typical rhythm of a shared year, what is decided and when:

When we model a year at two addresses

What you can do now

Start by setting out your calendar, not your budget. Write down the months you would really spend in Thailand, add them up, and see where the total falls relative to 180. This single number determines the stay arrangement to examine, the conversation to have with a tax adviser, and the type of address that makes sense — a six-month address and a three-month address are not the same property.

Explore neighbourhoods and sub-districts by real distance to the airport, the hospital and schools in the Reflexion explorer, or ask an adviser for a quantified comparison between two addresses based on your actual calendar of presence.