Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing TM30. This is a topic that has been on the lips of many expats here recently. We have been talking about it a lot lately most notably because Pattaya Immigration, which seems to be doing something that maybe sort of a more national trend although different offices do things slightly differently, Pattaya Immigration has made it very clear that TM30, there are new protocols associated with it most notably if one leaves the country and returns, upon their return a new TM30 needs to be filed lest they be unable to deal with things like getting a certificate of residence, dealing with Visa Extension etc., even 90 day reporting until a new TM30 is filed.

What it means is in the past, there has been this sort of time period for roughly the last 4 or 5 years, well about 4 years where if you just file one TM30 as long as your principal residence did not change, you didn't have to ever file another TM30. Now the protocol is changing over at least down in the Eastern Corridor specifically at Chonburi Immigration but it looks to me like it is a broader trend so it is worth commenting sort of nationally as well that moving forward you are going to have to deal with TM30 or filing a TM30 after returning from trips abroad, every trip abroad moving forward. Which sort of begged the question to me when I was making another video, where I said look well somebody pointed out that with the end of the TM6 card, to be clear the TM6 not the TM7 - I was speaking erroneously in prior videos, I made a mistake and called it a TM7, not a TM6. The TM6 was the old arrival/departure card now phased out; we no longer use that anymore because biometric, digital biometrics do intake of people's biometric data upon entry to the Kingdom people no longer fill out the TM6 form. This has led to a situation where there is something of a "gap" from the time one arrives in Thailand to their first 90-day reporting where Thai Immigration may not exactly know where one's address is. The TM30 fulfills that function but what if somebody doesn't do it, is sort of the question? Then where does that leave us?

I think the answer there is do TM30 at the airport. Create a new TM30 card, or one specifically for use at the airport, looks like the old TM6 - we will throw the TM6 up on screen so people can see it – just create a new one that you hand out on the planes when people come in. They fill out their address, they hand it off to the Immigration guy when they come in, the Immigration Officer when they come in, and still deal with biometrics and everything but that initial TM30 is just done and it creates a lot less consternation on people who are just trying to come to Thailand and live their lives rather than have to deal with really a quite redundant set of bureaucratic forms and things all for in my opinion probably information that is not completely, absolutely necessary when you do a cost-benefit of the amount of time and consternation that goes into dealing with all these forms versus what Immigration is going to get out of it. Then when you think about it, the way to sort of deal with it is just do the TM30 at the airport. They have arrived, just create some mechanism whereby a person can just, again just create a TM30 card that looks like the old TM6 card; hand it out on the airplane, tell people that look, "if you are staying in Thailand, if you are Non-Immigrant go ahead and fill this out." Strictly speaking tourists should too but tourists are not going to have to worry about this because their hotel is going to do their TM30 for them. They deal with all that in an online system but Non-Immigrant holders they are going to know what they are, they are going to know their position and maybe say "hey we have a TM30 form for you, if you just want to deal with that while you are at the Immigration kiosk coming through, we can go ahead and do it.”

With digitization and everything getting better and better I can't imagine why this is difficult but it will be interesting to see. Probably no one would take me up on this suggestion but I do think it is a good idea to sort of bridge that gap between arrival and subsequent 90-day reporting here in the Kingdom of Thailand.