When Thailand taxes your foreign income
Thailand taxes you as a resident if you are in the country for 180 days or more in a calendar year. A resident is taxed on Thai income in full, and on foreign income, which includes all your Indian income, only when that money is brought into Thailand. Foreign income you leave abroad is not taxed until you remit it.
Until 2024 there was a way around this. If you earned foreign income in one year and brought it in only in a later year, it escaped Thai tax. From 1 January 2024, under Revenue Department Instruction Por. 161/2566, that gap is closed: remitted foreign income is taxable whatever year you earned it. A companion instruction, Por. 162/2566, protects income earned before 1 January 2024, so only income earned from 2024 onwards is caught by the new rule.
Your tax-free NRE interest is not tax-free in Thailand
Interest on an NRE account is exempt in India under Section 10(4)(ii), so there is no Indian tax and no TDS on it. But to Thailand it is simply foreign income, and when you remit it into Thailand it becomes Thai-assessable, taxed at the ordinary rates, which run from 5% to 35%.
The India-Thailand treaty gives Thailand a credit for Indian tax you paid on the same income. That helps for NRO interest, where India has already deducted tax at 30%. It does not help for NRE interest, because India took nothing, so there is no Indian tax to set against the Thai charge. NRE interest remitted to Thailand is taxed there in full.
How to plan the timing
Because the Thai charge only arises on remittance, the timing is a lever. Money you keep in India, in your NRE or NRO account, is not taxed in Thailand until you bring it in. If you do not need the funds in Thailand, leaving them in India defers the Thai tax, sometimes for a long time.
There is also a proposal, still only a draft in 2026 and not yet law, to exempt foreign income if you remit it in the same year you earn it or the year after. It may or may not be enacted, so plan on the current rule and treat the easing as a possibility, not a certainty. A CA who works both sides can help you decide what to bring in, and when.
A worked example
Priya has lived in Bangkok for several years and is a Thai tax resident. Her Indian NRE account earns eight lakh rupees of interest in 2025, tax-free in India.
If she transfers that interest to her Thai account in 2025 or later, it is post-2024 income, so it is Thai-assessable and taxed at Thai rates of up to 35%, with no Indian tax to credit because India exempted it. If instead she leaves the interest in her Indian account and only draws on savings she built up before 2024, nothing is caught, because pre-2024 income is carved out and money kept in India is not remitted. The tax depends on what she brings in, and when.