Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, well we are discussing TM30, Thai House Books and 90-day reporting. I thought of making this video after reading recent comment on our channel. Quoting directly: "I own my own condo, Yellow Book and all. Many times now when I travel and stay hotel, if the hotel files a TM30, it screws up my recorded address. Then when I try to do a 90-day report online, it is rejected. They say that my home is 'such and such guesthouse' not my condo as I claim on my 90-day report." Quoting further: "So then I have to physically go tell the TM 30 people I live in my (expletive deleted) condo. After that I go tell the 90-day report people I live in my condo. This is Chiang Mai Immigration. WTF." 

Yeah a couple of things going on here. As we have discussed, this is kind of a weird one. They tried to get rid of TM28 and they actually did, it became TM27. I did the analysis of that in a prior video; I don't even want to go anywhere near that. We put that past us. But in the past, it was actually statutorily required that for those that are foreign nationals in Thailand, you file this thing called the TM30, that is your address report but then if you go stay for any longer than 24 hours any place else, you had to file at the time the TM28. Now what happens, this is kind of a phenomenon that may run folks into some trouble, if they stay somewhere, yeah they file a TM30 on their behalf and then that TM30 essentially overrides the prior TM30, in this case associated with this person's Yellow House book, and that then requires them to have to go back and sort of put everything back in place with respect to their local Immigration Office which is a headache to say the least, I'm sure.

But a couple of things and I want to just get this back out there. I've said this before and this needs to be made clear because I think a lot of people presume things with Yellow Tabian Baan, the Yellow House Book. Yellow House Books have nothing to do with Immigration. Yellow House books came about as an amendment to the Civil Registration Act here in Thailand in 1991 and they were amended to allow foreign nationals who did not have Immigrant status, i.e. Non-permanent Residence, to go ahead and get a yellow book. It was viewed at the time as that was kind of a courtesy if you will. It does provide some levels of convenience and in a sense I also think it might have been done as a means and method of, there's kind of a census component associated with the Thai House Books and I think that it was done sort of in line with that. That was kind of why it was passed but remember we are talking about the Civil Registration Act not the Immigration Act of 1979 which requires TM30s. Two different Acts, two different laws, two different requirements for the foreigner.

So that's how you are ending up with this situation where you have a Yellow House book but then if you stay somewhere else in the Kingdom, you could end up with another TM30 filed which could throw off not only your TM30 as well as possibly your Thai visa extension because the TM30 is part and parcel of that, but it could also throw off your next 90-day report here in the Kingdom of Thailand.