Transcript of the above video:

The topic of TM30 has been on the lips of many expats lately especially in the sort of Eastern Corridor region of Thailand; those expats that deal with their Immigration via the Thai Immigration office for example in Jomtien, or Pattaya generally. It appears there have been a number of protocol changes with respect to TM30. I am going to go ahead and leave that for now because we have made other videos contemporaneously with this one going into TM30 deeply but I had a thought just off the top of my head, it was kind of, I had a sense of déjà vu when I have been reading a lot of the recent Thai Immigration news and the TM28 just popped into my head. 

So, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Western retirees in Thailand feeling rather insecure. Quoting directly: "There is also increasing emphasis on proving a Thai address, not only by the 90-day reporting, but by updates to the TM30 registration form after leaving the country for even a day or two." Again, I am going to get into the TM30 details in other videos made contemporaneously with this one so again let's leave TM30 to TM30. But I thought of this when I saw "oh they are now making a big deal out of it at least in that Immigration Office even if you have just gotten back for a day or two, or you left the country for a day and you came back in, now they are saying "oh, you need a new TM30," which by the way when we had this kerfuffle some years ago, that's precisely one of the things they said they would not like to see return which was why they affectively phased out what was called the TM28, which was a form that was required any time you changed addresses in Thailand or theoretically even left Thailand. Now they effectively phased that out by creating the TM27 and then stipulating that only those entering Thailand illegally needed to use that document. But now I am kind of seeing the same methodologies being sort of resuscitated here if you will in terms of the TM30 itself. Now it may not be you need TM30s anytime you for example go someplace else in Thailand, maybe stay the night at a Guest House in some other location, but now it looks like they are getting more stringent about application of the regulations pertaining to TM30 if you leave and come back in, and the reason for this as we will get into in other videos, is you need the TM30 or a valid TM30, an up-to-date TM30 to deal with other things for example Visa Extension, even banking may come up, driving licenses etc. 

So again, TM30 came out of nowhere and became a problem at one point. It came out of nowhere in the sense that they hadn't been enforcing it for years so effectively it wasn't done; when I first got to Thailand 15 years ago, they weren't dealing with a TM30, I never had to deal with that. That came along roughly about 2016, '17, '18 somewhere in there. In fact, I think it was 2018 we saw it in earnest. It was under the administration of "Big Joke" over at Thai Immigration we saw it done in earnest and then they kind of phased it out and they said, "look we still need the form TM30 for your main address but we are not going to get all crazy with the TM28." Now it looks like we are re-entering some rather shall we say Byzantine times regarding the TM30 and we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as that situation evolves.