One person renting a 1-bedroom condo in Nimman needs about THB 34,200 a month (EUR 900, USD 1,020) on today’s prices: THB 16,000 rent plus THB 18,200 for everything else. Move out of Nimman and the same sum drops to about THB 31,200 (EUR 820). The sums are below so you can swap in your own rent.
The sum, line by line
| Line | THB a month | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Rent, 1-bedroom condo, Nimman | 16,000 | Median of 80 asking prices on PropertyScout, read 29 Sept 2026 (middle half: 12,000 to 20,000) |
| Everything else, one person | 18,202.50 | Numbeo’s own estimate “excluding rent”, 29 Sept 2026 |
| Total | 34,202.50 | 16,000 + 18,202.50 |
| In EUR | about 899 | 34,202.50 / 38.056 (ECB, 29 Sept 2026) |
| In USD | about 1,021 | 899 x 1.1355 (ECB) |
Numbeo does not publish which items sit inside its “excluding rent” figure for a single person in a form we can audit, so treat it as a crowd-sourced basket, not a receipt. It rests on 744 entries from 57 contributors over the past 12 months. Numbeo is user-submitted; it is a reference, not an official statistic.
Rent is the line you control
| Rent sample | THB a month | EUR | Total with THB 18,202.50 | Total in EUR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Numbeo, 1-bed outside centre | 9,783 | 257 | 27,986 | 735 |
| PropertyScout, whole city, 1-bed (median of 580 of 817 listings) | 13,000 | 342 | 31,203 | 820 |
| PropertyScout, Nimman, 1-bed (median of 80) | 16,000 | 420 | 34,203 | 899 |
| Numbeo, 1-bed city centre | 15,982 | 420 | 34,184 | 898 |
Two independent rent sources land within THB 20 of each other for a central or Nimman flat (15,982 and 16,000). That agreement is the reason we use THB 16,000 as the base. Asking prices on listing sites are for long leases, usually a year; a month-to-month stay in a serviced apartment or a short-let will cost more than the median. The PropertyScout pages only show 580 of the 817 city listings, so the whole-city median is a partial read.
Everyday prices behind the estimate
Numbeo, 29 Sept 2026: inexpensive restaurant meal THB 70 (range 50 to 150); cappuccino THB 58; domestic draught beer THB 80; local transport one-way THB 30, monthly pass THB 1,800; utilities for an 85 m2 flat THB 2,095; broadband THB 674; mobile plan THB 414; gym THB 1,311; 1 kg chicken fillets THB 95, 12 eggs THB 74. Utilities for a small condo are usually lower than the 85 m2 figure. As a check on the food share: three restaurant meals a day at the THB 70 price would be 3 x 70 x 30 = THB 6,300 a month before drinks, well inside the THB 18,202.50 that Numbeo’s basket allows.
The distinctive check: how long the visa funds last
The Destination Thailand Visa asks for financial evidence of at least THB 500,000 (Royal Thai Embassy Singapore, which also asks for a three-month balance; other embassies state their own equivalents, see the DTV guide). Divide it by the monthly total above:
- 500,000 / 34,203 = 14.6 months at Nimman rent
- 500,000 / 31,203 = 16.0 months at the whole-city median rent
- 500,000 / 27,986 = 17.9 months at Numbeo’s outside-centre rent
The funds test is a bar you show, not a budget you must spend, and it says nothing about earnings. It does show that the bar is roughly a year and a half of living costs. Other pages on the tracker set their bars as monthly income; see lowest-income nomad visas and the Asia comparison to place Thailand.
What the sum leaves out
Flights, the visa fee (set per embassy), health insurance (see the insurance matrix), coworking, a scooter, dentist and gear, and the burning-season air filter and trips out of town (burning season guide). The hidden costs post lists the categories. On the city page, Chiang Mai for nomads covers neighbourhoods and coworking spaces are listed separately.
Method
Researched from Numbeo’s Chiang Mai page, two PropertyScout listing samples parsed on 29 Sept 2026 (one-bedroom filter; asking prices, not signed rents), and European Central Bank reference rates of the same day. Conversions and totals are our arithmetic, shown above. No figure is a measured personal spend. Re-checked every 30 days; Numbeo moves as contributors add entries.