Moving into a rented home in Thailand creates three immigration tasks that are easy to confuse: the address notification, the 90-day report, and permission to return after travel. They answer different questions. TM30 records where you are staying; TM47 records a long continuous stay; a re-entry permit preserves an existing permission to stay when you leave Thailand.
Who is responsible for the TM30 address notification?
The owner, house-master, possessor of the residence, or hotel manager is responsible for TM30, not the foreign guest. Immigration Act B.E. 2522 Section 38 and the Immigration Bureau’s TM.30 form require notification within 24 hours of the foreigner’s arrival at the residence. Ask your landlord, building manager, or hotel to confirm it has been filed and keep the receipt if they provide one.
The 2020 Royal Thai Police residence-notification regulation (in force from 30 June 2020) also says that once a stay at a given residence has been notified, the same provider does not have to re-file every time the foreigner briefly leaves and returns to that same place within the same accommodation arrangement. A new address still needs a new notification.
The receipt is useful because it may be requested when you deal with immigration later, including a residence certificate application. It can also surface in banking: some Thai bank branches ask for it as part of their address evidence. TM30 is separate from being named in a Tabien Baan house book; a tenant does not need to be on the house book for the address-notification rule to exist.
When do you report a stay of more than 90 days?
Report after more than 90 consecutive days in Thailand if your immigration status uses the standard reporting cycle. Immigration Division 1 (Bangkok) states the duty under the Immigration Act B.E. 2522 and accepts notification in person, by authorised person, by Thailand Post registered mail, or online via the TM47 system.
Timing windows from that Immigration Bureau guidance:
- In person or by authorised person: within 15 days before or 7 days after the due date.
- Registered mail: send 15 days before the due date (Immigration Division 1), allowing for the roughly 30-day return of the stamped receipt portion.
- Online (TM47): submit up to 15 days before the due date; expect officer review within about three days. A new passport usually forces an in-person filing before online use resumes.
Late filing is not free. Immigration Division 1 says a foreigner who notifies late must do so in person and pay a THB 2,000 fine; if the person is arrested for failing to notify, the fine is not less than THB 4,000, with an additional fine not exceeding THB 200 per day until compliance.
This clock is about continuous presence, not tax residency and not the duration printed on a visa label. Leaving and re-entering restarts the continuous-stay count from the latest arrival. LTR holders report annually rather than every 90 days. DTV, Thailand Privilege, and other standard temporary-stay routes engage the usual TM47 duty once a stay passes 90 continuous days — Privilege may offer concierge help with filing, but that is assistance, not a waiver. Check the conditions of the status you actually hold rather than assuming every long-stay visa works alike; the visa guide and the long-stay comparison sort the common routes.
When do you need a re-entry permit before travelling?
Get a re-entry permit before departing if you have an unexpired permission to stay and want to return on that same permission. Without it, departure can end the current permission and you return under a new entry permission instead. The Immigration Bureau’s public handbook requires an in-person TM.8 application, passport, and photo. Its published fee is THB 1,000 for a single permit and THB 3,800 for a multiple permit.
The permit does not extend the underlying stay. A multiple permit lets you make more than one trip only until the current permission-to-stay expiry. It is not needed where the visa category itself already provides valid multi-entry conditions — for example LTR is multi-entry with no separate re-entry permit — so confirm the status stamped in your passport before paying for one.
What should a new resident keep on one admin checklist?
Keep the passport, current permission-to-stay date, TM30 receipt if available, and the next 90-day due date together. Before any international trip, check whether the passport contains a valid re-entry permit and whether the existing stay will still be valid on return. That simple check prevents the most expensive mistake in this group: unintentionally giving up a permission to stay that took months to obtain.
Once these residence mechanics are stable, the next relocation topic is becoming a tax resident — a separate question from visa validity and 90-day reporting.
