Total TM30 fiasco
As someone who has lived in Thailand for 20 years, I had never even heard of the TM30 until the latter half of 2016 when I heard that Immigration were tightening up the rules. So I did some research.
Up to that point, the TM30 was only really required for hotels. The actual degree of enforcement may have depended on which Immigration office had jurisdiction.
All this was done opaquely, so no one had any idea of this.
Small guest houses were, to my knowledge, not made to comply. Farangs who lived in Thailand in long-term accommodation in, say, a rented house or condo, were not burdened with having to submit a TM30.
However, as things now stand, every time someone re-enters Thailand from abroad and stays at their long-term residence, they have to submit a TM30. Now, while it is true that the landlord is responsible for this, the reality is that most landlords will not do it.
In the city where I live, the experience of myself and my friends is that if you go down to Immigration to do your 90-day report and they see no TM30 for the last time you entered Thailand, they will fine you. They don’t care that the landlord is responsible and has been notified; you are just an easy target to pick. So the choice is do the TM30 yourself or get fined.
I want to explain why the TM30 requirement is such a fiasco.
If anyone really cared about the TM30, then every time I visited a hotel by the beach and then returned home, I would have to submit another TM30. This is because the whole point of the TM30 is to track where people are staying. But Immigration do not require this. They only enforce the TM30 that corresponds to the entry stamp in your passport. It’s completely ridiculous.
I don’t know if there is a big database somewhere which contains and correlates all the TM30 information — which is what you really need if you want to monitor people’s whereabouts. I’m pretty sure that no one at my local Immigration office uses such a system. And anyway, I can pack my bags and go stay at a friend’s place.
Go monitor that!
HOWARD STARK