Somebody else's form

If you let a room in Thailand to a foreigner, the law gives you 24 hours to tell immigration. The form is the TM30, ตม.30. The duty is the landlord’s. Since 2019, the receipt has been asked for at the foreigner’s immigration counter.

That is the shape of the rule. The Act puts the duty on the Thai side of the lease. The state checks it on the foreign side.

What the Act says

Section 38 of the Immigration Act B.E. 2522 (1979), in full:

• a house master, owner or possessor of a dwelling, or hotel manager who takes in a foreigner permitted to stay in the Kingdom temporarily must notify the immigration officer for that locality within 24 hours of the foreigner’s arrival;
• where there is no immigration office in the locality, the local police station;
• in Bangkok, the immigration headquarters;
• the notification is made as the head of the police prescribes.

Three things in that text decide most questions people ask:

• “House master” is not the same as owner. The Act defines it by the civil registration law, as the head of the household “as owner, tenant or in any other capacity.” The person on the house registration may be a tenant.
• It covers foreigners on temporary permission only. A permanent resident is not a foreigner “permitted to stay temporarily”, and the duty does not reach their landlord.
• “Hotel” means a hotel under the Hotel Act, with its own higher fine for the manager.

Failing to notify is an offence under section 77. As the Act is quoted by legal summaries and by immigration police in Thai press, the fine is up to ฿2,000, or ฿2,000 to ฿10,000 for a hotel manager. (Section 77 was not read at source; see the sourcing note.)

Whose duty, whose problem

The fine is the landlord’s. The leverage is over the tenant.

In March 2019, according to a Deloitte immigration alert from that September, the Immigration Bureau and the provincial immigration offices began requiring a TM30 receipt with every application to extend a stay and every 90-day report. No receipt, no acceptance. A Thai Post column the same month put it more bluntly: until the fine is paid, the foreigner cannot extend their visa.

The same alert set out what happened next. A landlord who had not filed owed a settlement fine — ฿800 at the Bangkok bureau at the time — and, because the foreigner was the one standing at the counter needing the receipt, the foreigner usually paid it. The foreigner’s own address-change form under section 37, the TM28, was not accepted in its place.

Nothing in section 38 makes the foreigner liable. The Act’s penalty is aimed at the householder. The counter rule moved the consequence to the person who has to come back to immigration every 90 days — and who, unlike the landlord, cannot simply not turn up.

The requirement has since been extended. From 14 May 2025, EY reported, the Board of Investment’s one-stop centre, previously an exception, began requiring a TM30 receipt for all new, extension and renewal visa applications by promoted companies’ foreign staff.

The complaint, and the limit of the fix

The 2019 enforcement drew public complaint. The Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce raised it repeatedly, by Thai Post’s account, arguing that it deterred the investors and residents the government was courting.

One complaint was repetition. Under the Police Department regulation of 25 May 1979, as it was applied, a landlord had to file again each time the foreigner came back — from abroad, or from a few days in another province. (Tilleke & Gibbins; the Council of State’s memorandum describes the 2020 draft as removing this.)

In January 2020 the government’s reform office asked the Council of State two questions, and its answers, in memorandum No. 260 of March 2020, are why TM30 still exists:

1. Could the police chief’s regulation say that one notification covers the whole stay? Yes. The Council read section 38 as a notification “when the foreigner is first taken in, covering the period to the end of that stay.” If the foreigner goes elsewhere temporarily and comes back, the landlord does not need to notify again — its example was a foreigner renting a house in Bangkok for a year, who spends a few days in Chiang Mai. The stay must be clearly evidenced.
2. Could the government simply exempt landlords, using section 17, the power to exempt from the Act by Cabinet approval? No. Section 17, the Council said, applies only to foreigners. It does not reach Thai nationals who have duties under the Act — and the landlord is the one with the duty.

So the executive could redefine what one filing covers. It could not remove the filing. On the Council’s reading, that would take an amendment to the Act, and this site found no amendment to section 38 since.

The new regulation was published in the Royal Gazette on 16 June 2020 and took effect on 30 June, according to Tilleke & Gibbins. It kept the 24-hour duty, ended the re-filing after each return within the stated period, and required the notification to give each foreigner’s arrival date and expected departure date.

Where that leaves each side

For a landlord:

• file within 24 hours of a foreigner on temporary permission moving in, at the local immigration office (Bangkok: headquarters), in person, through an authorised person, by registered post or online;
• state the period of stay; one filing covers it, including trips away and back within it;
• file again for a new period, a new foreigner, or a new address.

For a foreign tenant:

• the duty is not yours, but the receipt will be asked for when you extend or report;
• the Act’s “house master” includes a tenant who heads the household, so if you sublet to, or take in, another foreigner, the duty may be yours;
• your own 90-day reporting is a separate duty and the TM30 does not replace it.

For a permanent resident: section 38 does not reach your landlord.

Not legal or immigration advice. Practice varies between offices, and this site has not surveyed it.

What this adds up to

The Act of 1979 put the duty on the person who opens the door. For forty years, by the account of the lawyers who advise foreign residents, it was enforced loosely and only in some provinces. When enforcement tightened in 2019, the check that was added sat at the tenant’s counter, not the landlord’s.

That is the counter, not the statute, deciding who bears a rule. It is a variant of what articles 146 and 150 found: the burden settles on the person the state sees most often — here, the one who must come back to immigration every 90 days.

And the reform shows the limit of administrative fixes. The Council of State told the government that its exemption power stopped at foreigners. Six years later, the landlord’s duty is unchanged; only how often it applies is.

Nothing here says the state should not know where temporary residents live. The point is narrower: the law names the landlord, and the cost of the law’s enforcement arrives at the tenant.

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Common misconceptions

“TM30 is the foreigner’s form.” It is the house master’s, owner’s, possessor’s or hotel manager’s. The foreigner’s own duties — the 90-day report and address changes — are under section 37.

“The landlord has to file every time I come back from a trip.” Not since the 2020 regulation, if the return is within the period of stay stated in the notification. The Council of State’s opinion supports this reading.

“If my landlord doesn’t file, the fine is mine.” In law, the offence is the landlord’s. In practice, foreigners have reported paying it to get their own application accepted.

“Permanent residents need a TM30.” Section 38 covers foreigners permitted to stay temporarily.

“TM30 was abolished in 2020.” It was eased, not abolished. The Council of State said the government’s exemption power under section 17 does not reach Thai householders.