Short version: Two co-founders live in Phuket year-round (Fredrik in Rawai since 2019, Morten in Bang Tao since 2020). Every guide draws on our own experience — visa renewals, hospital bills, school enrolments, bank accounts, house rentals — and is cross-checked against the official Phuket-local source. Prices are in Thai baht and dated. Affiliate relationships never influence what we recommend.
Why this methodology exists
Most Phuket relocation content online is written by people who don't live here. It's either translated from Bangkok advice (wrong hospitals, wrong schools, wrong neighbourhoods), copied from 2019 Reddit threads (outdated visa rules), or generated by AI hallucinating Thai baht prices. The result is expats arriving with the wrong insurance, opening the wrong bank account, or picking a villa in the wrong area because "Phuket is Phuket" — which it isn't.
Phuket Expat Guide is our attempt to fix that with a transparent, source-backed, dated methodology. This page explains how.
The five pillars
1. First-hand experience, not paraphrased research
Every guide starts with something at least one of us has personally done on the island. Fredrik has renewed his retirement visa seven times at Phuket Immigration on Phuket Road. Morten has enrolled two children at an international school in the Cherng Talay catchment. We've opened Thai bank accounts at Bangkok Bank, KBank, and SCB; rented villas in Rawai, Chalong, and Bang Tao; been treated at Bangkok Hospital Phuket, Siriroj International, and Vachira; registered scooters; cancelled TM30s; paid property transfer fees at the Phuket Land Office; filed Thai tax returns. When an article covers ground neither of us has walked, we say so and name the resident who did.
2. Every price dated and sourced
Prices in Phuket move fast. Rents jumped 25–40% post-2022. Hospital rates are revised annually. Visa fees changed with the LTR and DTV launches. Every price on this site is:
- Quoted in Thai baht (THB), not a USD/EUR conversion that will be wrong in six months
- Tagged with a "Last updated: [month year]" header on the article
- Linked to the specific source (hospital price list, immigration fee schedule, bank tariff, school prospectus, rental listing from a named agent)
If we can't source a price to a specific vendor or official document, we use a range and explain why.
3. Named Phuket-local sources — not "Thailand generally"
The single biggest failure mode in expat content is treating Thailand as one market. Chiang Mai hospital prices don't apply in Phuket. Bangkok school admissions don't apply to BISP or UWC. Immigration wait times at Chaeng Wattana are nothing like Phuket Immigration on Phuket Road. We anchor every claim to a named Phuket-local source:
Visas
Phuket Immigration Office
Phuket Road, Phuket Town — verified in person
Healthcare
Bangkok Hospital Phuket
Hongyok Utis Rd — price lists, admissions
Healthcare
Siriroj International
Kathu — expat-friendly second opinion
Healthcare
Vachira Phuket Hospital
Yaowarat Rd — public rates for comparison
Banking
KBank Chalong
Foreigner-friendly branch for new accounts
Banking
Bangkok Bank, Central Festival
FCD accounts for retirement-visa deposits
Schools
BISP — British International School Phuket
Koh Kaew — tuition, admissions timeline
Schools
UWC Thailand
Thalang — IB curriculum
Schools
HeadStart International
Chalong & Rawai campuses
Property
Phuket Land Office
Chalong sub-office — transfer fees, chanote verification
Tax
Phuket Revenue Department
Phuket Town — tax-ID registration, PND returns
Area data
Resident network
~40 long-term expats we check rent, safety, and day-to-day changes with
4. Update cadence — nothing stays stale
Every article has an owner (Fredrik or Morten) and a review interval:
- Visa & immigration pages: reviewed every 90 days, and within 14 days of any gazetted rule change (DTV amendments, LTR thresholds, 90-day reporting, TM30 enforcement)
- Healthcare & insurance pages: reviewed every 6 months, and when a partner insurer changes policy terms
- Cost of living & rent pages: reviewed quarterly
- Banking pages: reviewed every 6 months, and when a bank changes its foreigner-account procedure
- School pages: reviewed annually before the August admissions cycle
- Area guides: reviewed every 6 months with on-the-ground photo refreshes
The last-updated date you see at the top of each article is the real date — not the publish date dressed up to look fresh.
5. Editorial independence from affiliate partners
Insurance referrals, Wise, visa agents, realtors, movers, and school referrals pay our hosting bill. We're open about this — see our affiliate disclosure. But the wall between editorial and commercial is bright:
- We never accept payment for favourable coverage, ranking, or placement.
- We regularly rank non-affiliate options above affiliate options when they're genuinely better for the reader.
- Several insurers, visa agents, and schools we've tested are not recommended on this site despite having affiliate arrangements available — because they didn't meet our standards.
- Every page that mentions a partner carries the affiliate disclosure above the fold. No hidden links.
How to spot a weak Phuket article (anywhere on the internet)
Use these red flags when evaluating any Phuket relocation content, including ours:
- No author name — who wrote this, and do they live here?
- Prices in USD only — suggests the writer isn't paying in baht
- "Thailand" instead of "Phuket" — generic content repurposed from a Bangkok site
- No last-updated date, or a date that never changes
- Hospitals/schools/banks not named — vague references to "international hospitals" or "a major Thai bank" usually mean the writer hasn't been there
- Visa rules quoted without a source — should link to Royal Thai Immigration or the Royal Gazette
- Identical phrasing across dozens of sites — AI-generated or syndicated boilerplate
Who writes the guides
Every guide is authored by one of two named co-founders with a photo, short bio, and LinkedIn profile. Author name is in the page's JSON-LD Person schema, so AI search tools and Google's Search Generative Experience attribute the work correctly.
Corrections policy
If you spot a wrong price, outdated rule, or broken recommendation, we want to know. We update the affected article within 5 working days and add a “Corrected: [date]” line at the bottom. No silent rewrites. Contact us via the contact form or directly to either co-founder's LinkedIn.
What we don't do
- We don't translate or syndicate content from generic Thailand sites.
- We don't use AI to generate articles. We use it for grammar, spell-checking, and translation assistance only — never to invent prices, sources, or experiences.
- We don't publish sponsored articles disguised as editorial.
- We don't recommend a Phuket service, hospital, bank, or agent neither of us would personally use.
- We don't let affiliate commission size influence recommendation order. (The highest-commission insurer on the site is not our top recommendation.)
Methodology last reviewed: April 2026. This page is reviewed every 6 months or whenever our research process materially changes. For a version-by-version change log, contact us.