The three pieces of Thai immigration admin that quietly trip up newcomers — and the first one starts with your address. This is the plain-English version: what the TM30 is and who’s actually supposed to file it, how the 90-day report works and the window to do it, why a re-entry permit keeps your visa alive when you travel, and how your landlord and building decide whether any of this is a hassle. Unbiased, never paid placement.
The TM30 registers your address with Immigration and is legally the property owner’s job — but it becomes your problem if it isn’t done. The 90-day report is your own recurring “I’m still here” filing every 90 consecutive days. A re-entry permit keeps a single-entry visa or extension alive when you leave the country — skip it and your stay is cancelled at the airport. Keep every receipt, ask whether your landlord or condo files the TM30, and treat the rest as calendar items.
Thailand asks foreigners who live here to keep the authorities informed of where they are staying. That single idea sits underneath all three things in this guide, and it’s why residence-reporting is a housing topic as much as a visa one. Get the address registration right at the start — ideally handled by your building — and the rest is routine. Get it wrong, and an out-of-date address notification will block your 90-day report, your visa extension and your re-entry permit at the counter. Most newcomers don’t learn this until something is refused; the point of this guide is to learn it before you sign a lease. None of this is legal advice — rules and enforcement change and differ by province, so confirm the current procedure with Thai Immigration.
The TM30 is the “notification of residence” that tells Immigration a foreigner is staying at a given address. Under the Immigration Act the duty to file it falls on the house owner, possessor or manager of the property — your landlord, the condo’s juristic office, or a hotel — who is meant to notify Immigration, generally within 24 hours of your arrival.
The catch: many individual landlords don’t know about it or leave it to the tenant. If yours won’t file it, you may be able to do it yourself using copies of the owner’s ID and house-registration/title plus their authorisation. That dependence on a cooperative landlord is exactly why it’s worth asking before you commit — see section 06.
If you stay in Thailand for 90 days or more without leaving on a long-stay visa, you must report your current address to Immigration — and then repeat it every 90 days. This is the TM47, commonly called the “90-day report.” It is not a visa renewal and does nothing to extend your stay; it’s purely an address check-in.
It sits on top of a valid TM30 — if your address notification is missing or stale, the 90-day report can be refused until that’s fixed. Put the due date in your calendar the day you receive it. Confirm the current window and channels with your office, as these shift.
This is the costly one. If you hold a single-entry non-immigrant visa or an extension of stay — work, retirement, marriage, study — and you leave Thailand without a re-entry permit, your permission to stay is cancelled the moment you depart, even if months remained on it. You’d have to begin the visa process again from scratch.
The rule of thumb: before every trip out of Thailand, confirm whether your visa needs a re-entry permit. It’s a small fee and a few minutes against the alternative of losing your whole stay.
You may have read about the TM6, the paper arrival/departure card foreigners historically filled in on landing. Thailand has been moving this online — the paper card was suspended for air arrivals and a digital arrival card system introduced — so what you complete on arrival now may be a web form rather than a slip of paper. This is separate from the TM30 and the 90-day report, and the details have changed more than once recently. Don’t rely on second-hand accounts: check the current arrival requirement on the official Thai Immigration / e-arrival channels shortly before you fly, and complete it as instructed.
The single thing that decides whether residence-reporting is a non-event or a recurring chore is who files your TM30 — and that’s a feature of your home, not your visa:
It’s the same lesson as the rest of renting here: the right home and a cooperative landlord remove admin you’d otherwise carry. Weigh it alongside the deposit, the lease and the building’s rules in our guide to renting in Thailand and tenant rights guide.
Almost every snag in this area comes down to not having the right receipt at the counter. A light system fixes it:
Sequence it sensibly. The TM30 should happen when you move in; the 90-day report only becomes relevant once you’ve been here three unbroken months; the re-entry permit matters the first time you plan to travel. Our first 30 days in Bangkok checklist places the TM30 and visa reporting in week one alongside your SIM, bank account and neighbourhood search, and our visa-housing guides map each visa route to the kind of home that suits it. For the financial side, see our tax for expats guide.
Buildings with a professional management office file your TM30 and hand you the receipt — one less thing to chase. Browse residences and neighbourhoods built for long-stay foreigners.
General information only — not legal or immigration advice. Thailand’s residence-reporting rules, filing windows, channels and penalties change and vary by Immigration office; confirm current requirements with Thai Immigration or a qualified local adviser before relying on any of the above. BAANLYY never takes paid placement.
Primary and official sources are cited above. Government rules, fees and procedures in Thailand change over time and vary by office; always confirm current requirements with the relevant authority before relying on them. BAANLYY never takes paid placement in editorial content.