Transcript of the above video: 

For those who are new to Thailand, who are first living here, or you are living here for the first time and there are a number of you; I know there has been quite an influx of foreign nationals into Thailand over the course of the past year. Some folks may already be aware of this, many probably are, but I think it's worth repeating. Yes, foreign nationals have to do 90-day reporting if they are in Thailand in Non-immigrant Visa status or otherwise, longer than 89 days, you have to report in with Thai Immigration your current address; that's just the way that that works. Now that said, there are various ways to do this. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from The Phuket News that thephuketnews.com, the article is titled: Phuket Immigration Drive-Thru to close pending 'renovations'. So Phuket Immigration had a drive-thru and quoting directly: "In a notice posted on the Phuket Immigration Facebook page, officials confirmed that from February 14 foreign nationals will no longer be able to submit 90-day reports via the Drive-Thru facility. Foreign nationals are instead advised to report online via the Phuket Immigration website or in person inside the Phuket Immigration Office or at the Patong Immigration Office or Blue Tree Immigration Office." Quoting further: "Phuket Immigration said it will announce any updates on the Drive-Thru service once further information becomes available." So I made another video contemporaneously with this one noting the fact that the drive-thru facility is closing, so let's reiterate that here. It's still possible to use that until February 14, until that time and then after that time, the two choices will be either in-person reporting or online reporting.

Then the question posed by this video is what's the difference and what is better? Well it depends on your preferences. That said, the online system is rather buggy, and I know that some of the folks that use it kind of complain that it doesn't work the greatest sometimes, they don't know how to use it. I know a lot of folks, especially in the retiree community, are not the most computer literate and so those folks prefer doing 90-day reporting in person. It used to be possible to do this by mail, at least in theory, although I never really saw it work out, as a practical matter, work very well doing the mailing, but it was in theory possible and I guess in theory I guess it sort of still is possible. Long story short, if you are doing 90-day reporting in Thailand, the real choice is between doing it online and in person and if you want to be absolutely certain that it is done, oftentimes getting it done in person is the best way to do that.

We oftentimes assist our clients with 90-day reporting should they so desire it and I have folks down at Immigration all the time processing case work through and sometimes we do 90-day reporting on behalf of clients. Again it depends on the circumstances underlying in the case but moving forward, it looks like there's less options with regard to 90-day reporting specifically, especially down in Phuket. How this operates moving forward remains to be seen and we will certainly be keeping people updated on this channel as the situation evolves.