TM.30 and 90-Day Reporting in Thailand — The Expat Compliance Guide (2026)

TM.30 in one paragraph

Section 38 of the Immigration Act requires the person who owns or possesses the residence where a foreigner stays to notify Immigration within 24 hours of the arrival. In practice this means hotels do it automatically at check-in, but a condo landlord, villa owner, or Airbnb host must file — not the foreigner. When the house-master fails, the foreigner is the one blocked at their next 90-day report or extension.

When do you personally need to worry about TM.30

Any of these situations means you should confirm a fresh TM.30 is on file for your current address:

• You just moved to a new condo, villa, or long-stay rental
• You returned to Thailand after any international trip
• You are applying for a visa extension in the next 60 days
• You are opening a bank account or driving licence and Immigration is asked to confirm your address
• You changed rooms inside the same building or complex

TM.47 — the 90-day report

Every foreigner on a Non-Immigrant visa or extension who stays more than 90 consecutive days in Thailand must report their address to Immigration. The count restarts on every international departure — a weekend in Singapore resets the clock.

You can file TM.47 in three ways: in person at Phuket Immigration (Chalong), by registered post 15 days before the deadline, or online via the Immigration e-service portal 15 days before to 7 days after the due date.

The Phuket-specific pitfalls we see weekly

Same rules, different reality in Phuket. Watch out for:

• Airbnb / short-let landlords who never register as a house-master and cannot file TM.30 at all
• Villa owners renting through a management company that files under the wrong address
• Long-stay visitors who leave Thailand every 60–80 days and mistakenly believe TM.47 no longer applies (correct — but only if the trip is real)
• Foreigners on DTV who ignore TM.30 entirely, then get blocked at their first re-entry attempt
• Old paper receipts that don't match the digital record — Chalong officers side with the digital record

How to fix a missed deadline

The cheapest fix is to file voluntarily at Chalong before an officer notices — the fine is at the lower end of the range and no further action is taken. If you are stopped at a 90-day or extension appointment, expect the maximum fine plus a written warning on the file. We can attend Chalong on your behalf under a notarized POA when you are outside Phuket.

Who is legally on the hook — and who actually pays

Section 38 of the Immigration Act B.E. 2522 places the TM.30 duty on the house-master, possessor, or manager of the dwelling. The foreigner is not the filer and cannot be fined for the landlord's omission. In day-to-day practice, however, the consequence lands on the foreigner: Immigration will not process a 90-day report, an extension of stay, a re-entry permit, or a residence certificate until a current TM.30 record exists for the address on file.

That asymmetry is why we advise every long-stay tenant to treat TM.30 as their own problem regardless of the statute. Ask for the landlord's house-registration book (tabien baan) and ID copy at the moment you sign the lease, and get written authority to file on their behalf. Chasing an absentee villa owner from a service counter on the morning of your extension appointment is the single most avoidable delay in Thai immigration compliance.

If you rent through a management company, ask in writing which legal entity is registered as house-master in the Immigration e-service system. Management companies frequently file under the developer's corporate address rather than the individual unit, which produces a TM.30 record that does not match the address on your extension application.

Evidence to keep — a paper trail that survives an officer change

Immigration officers rotate, systems get migrated, and the digital record is not always retrievable at the counter. Build a compliance folder from day one and bring it to every appointment.

• The TM.30 acknowledgement slip or the e-service PDF receipt for your current address, plus every prior address
• Every TM.47 receipt for the past two years, in date order — officers frequently ask to see the sequence, not just the latest one
• A copy of the lease and the landlord's house-registration book and ID
• Passport bio page, current visa or extension stamp, and the latest entry stamp
• Your TDAC confirmation for the current entry, which shows the address you declared on arrival

What TM.30 and TM.47 do not do

Neither filing extends your permission to stay. A valid TM.47 receipt is not a visa, does not pause an overstay clock, and does not substitute for an extension of stay or a re-entry permit. Foreigners are occasionally caught out by exactly this: they file the 90-day report on time, assume they are compliant, and discover at departure that their permitted stay expired weeks earlier.

Equally, TM.30 is not proof of residence for third parties. Banks, the Land Transport Department, and the Land Department require a residence certificate issued by Immigration or your embassy — a separate application that Immigration will only entertain when the TM.30 record is current. Treat TM.30 as the prerequisite, not the certificate.

Official sources and where the rules actually live

Every figure and deadline above traces back to a published source rather than agent folklore. The Immigration Act B.E. 2522 sections 37 and 38 set the underlying duties; the Immigration Bureau publishes current forms, e-service access, and office jurisdictions at immigration.go.th; the Thailand Digital Arrival Card portal is tdac.immigration.go.th. Fine amounts are set within statutory ranges and the amount actually imposed is at the discretion of the officer handling the file — published ranges are not a promise of the figure you will be quoted.

Local practice also varies by office. Phuket Immigration at Chalong applies the documentary requirements above; other provincial offices differ in whether they accept tenant-filed TM.30 and in how strictly they read the seven-day grace window on TM.47. Where a rule is applied locally rather than nationally, we have said so above. Confirm with the office that holds your file before relying on any of it for a dated appointment.