Thailand drafts bill to scrap TM30 filings for foreigners

Draft bill would scrap TM30 filings for foreigners in Thailand

Thailand has drafted amendments to the Immigration Act B.E. 2522 and Hotel Act B.E. 2547 that would repeal the address-notification duties foreigners currently owe immigration and consolidate hotel guest reporting into a single electronic pipeline. The bills are still drafts and take effect only after publication in the Royal Gazette, with the Hotel Act changes kicking in 30 days after that date.

What the draft actually changes

Right now, landlords and hotel managers must file a TM30 notification within 24 hours of a foreigner checking in, using paper forms, the immigration.go.th portal or a mobile app. Late filings draw fines that typically run into the hundreds or low thousands of baht per guest. Some visa tracks, including BOI long-stay permits routed through the Single Window, still demand a TM30 receipt at application and renewal.

The draft rewrites that setup:

• Section 5 amends Section 37 of the Immigration Act to repeal foreigners' duty to notify immigration of their residence, changes of address or intra-Thailand travel exceeding 24 hours.
• Section 6 repeals Section 38, ending the parallel hotel-to-immigration reporting channel.
• The Hotel Act rewrite requires hotels to keep electronic guest registers and transmit data every 24 hours to the Registrar, who then auto-forwards foreigner records to the Immigration Bureau through a single-window system built by the Department of Provincial Administration.

Penalties for reporting lapses shift from criminal offenses to administrative fines. The 90-day report for long-term residents survives, though the Immigration Bureau can modernize how it's filed.

Who has to act and when

Nobody needs to act yet. The bills haven't passed and transitional clauses let hotels keep using the paper Ro.Ro. 4 register until the digital platform is live. Immigration Act procedures for residence reporting and permanent residence applications remain in force for up to one year after enactment.

Expats, retirees and remote workers on BOI or long-stay visas should assume TM30 compliance still matters during that transition, particularly for renewals filed through the BOI Single Window, where officers continue to ask for a residence notification receipt. Anyone planning a move between provinces or a visa extension in the next 12 months should keep filing under the current rules and hold onto receipts until the successor digital record replaces them. The mechanics of long-stay life in Thailand's immigration system don't change until the Gazette says so.

Hotels, guesthouses and serviced apartments face the bigger operational lift: shifting registers to the DOPA platform once it launches, then dropping duplicate immigration filings.