TM30 Filing in Thailand: a Landlord's Practical Guide

TM30 is the single most common compliance question we get from new owners, and it is also the one most owners get wrong. Either they have never heard of it, or they have heard of it and assume "the building handles it" — neither of which is reliably true. This guide explains exactly what TM30 is, who has to file it, when, how, and what happens if you don't.

Bangkok-focused, condo-focused, written for landlords who rent to foreign tenants — including the increasing number of mid-term and long-stay expats whose visa extensions hinge on a clean TM30 trail.

What TM30 is

TM30 is the notification of residence of foreigners required by Section 38 of Thailand's Immigration Act B.E. 2522 (1979). The text of Section 38 reads, in essence: the owner, possessor or head of a household where any non-Thai national stays must notify the local immigration office of that person's stay, within 24 hours of the foreigner's arrival at the property.

The filing applies to every type of accommodation — hotels, serviced apartments, condos, houses, villas — and to every length of stay, from one night to ten years. The duty falls on the host side, not on the foreigner.

The notification itself is named "TM30" because it is filed on Immigration Form TM.30 (or its online equivalent). The form captures the property address, the host's identity, and the foreigner's passport details and arrival date. The immigration office uses the data to track where each non-Thai national is staying at any given time — relevant to visa enforcement, criminal investigations, and security work.

When TM30 applies

Three things determine whether a filing is required:

1. Is the guest a non-Thai national? Yes → TM30 may apply. Thai nationals do not trigger TM30, regardless of where they stay.
2. Are they staying at your property? Including arriving back from a domestic trip — many owners do not realise this. If a long-stay tenant leaves Bangkok for a week and returns, a fresh TM30 is, strictly speaking, required (enforcement varies).
3. Has the address been notified for this stay before? If yes, and the tenant has not been away, no re-filing is needed until they leave and return.

For a typical mid-term rental, that means one TM30 filing per booking, lodged within 24 hours of the guest checking in. For daily rentals (which we generally do not recommend and most condo by-laws restrict anyway), it means a filing per booking. For a long-term tenant who stays put, it is one filing per lease — re-filed if they travel out of Bangkok and return.

If you rent to a Thai national, TM30 does not apply. If your guest is Thai but their partner is foreign and stays alongside, you file for the foreign partner.

Who has to file: owner, building or operator?

This is the question that creates most of the confusion.

The legal duty falls on the householder or possessor of the property, which in practice means the registered condo owner, unless the owner has formally delegated the duty to another party. Three common scenarios:

• Owner files directly. Works fine if the owner is in Thailand and has registered as a TM30 householder. Most overseas owners cannot meaningfully do this — the online portal requires a Thai mobile number and ID, and the 24-hour deadline is unforgiving.
• The juristic person files. Some condo buildings — particularly serviced or hotel-leased buildings — will file TM30 on behalf of every unit they manage. This is not the default. Most regular condo juristics expect each owner to handle their own. Do not assume; ask in writing.
• The operator files. A registered property management company files on every booking for every unit they operate. This is the model we run on, and it is the only one that scales cleanly for a portfolio of units.

The owner remains ultimately responsible — if a filing is missed, the owner's name is on the immigration record. Delegating to a manager does not absolve you of the duty; it shifts the operational work.

How to file TM30

The Immigration Bureau runs an online TM30 portal at tm30.immigration.go.th (also reachable from the main immigration site). Filing happens in two steps:

One-time setup (per property):

1. Register as a householder. You'll need a copy of your title deed (chanote) or the unit's house registration (tabien baan / ท.ร.14 for the unit, if available), your ID or passport, and a working Thai mobile number for OTP.
2. Link the property's address to your householder account. The portal confirms the address against the Land Office record.

Per guest, within 24 hours of arrival:

1. Log in to your householder account.
2. Submit a new TM30 record for the guest: passport bio page, current visa or entry stamp, arrival date, expected departure date.
3. Save the confirmation. The portal returns a reference number which proves the filing.

A paper form (TM.30) can still be lodged at your local immigration office in person, but the online portal is the modern default and the only practical option for a manager handling multiple units.

Common rejection causes: wrong address format (the portal is strict about house number / building name), guest's passport details that don't match the visa stamp, late filing (more than 24 hours after arrival — the system accepts it but flags it, and a fine may be issued).

Penalties

The fine under the Immigration Act is up to THB 2,000 per missed filing, with reports from Bangkok landlords putting actual enforcement closer to THB 800–1,600 for a first offence. Repeat offences and commercial-scale violations (hotels, serial Airbnb hosts under 30-night rentals) attract higher fines and, in extreme cases, business-licence consequences.

The more practical consequence sits on the tenant's side. When a foreign tenant goes to extend their visa, do a 90-day report, or apply for a re-entry permit, immigration may ask for proof that their address has been duly notified — i.e. the TM30 reference. If there is no TM30 on file, the tenant's paperwork can be delayed or kicked back. We have seen tenants miss visa deadlines because the owner forgot to file. The owner pays no fine in that scenario, but the relationship with the tenant rarely survives the second time.

TM30 vs TDAC vs 90-day reporting

Three filings get confused regularly. Quick disambiguation:

• Thailand Digital Arrival Card (TDAC) — the online arrival declaration foreign travellers complete before entering Thailand. It replaced the paper TM6 card in 2025. Filled by the traveller, not the host. Has nothing to do with the landlord.
• TM30 — the host's notification of a foreigner's stay. Filed by the householder, every stay, within 24 hours of arrival. This guide.
• 90-day report (TM47) — long-term resident foreigners' obligation to report their current address every 90 days, filed by the foreigner themselves. Not a landlord duty.

TM30 is the only one a Bangkok landlord is legally on the hook for. Knowing the boundary saves a lot of forum-thread confusion.

How Maison Siam handles it

Every Maison Siam managed property has its address registered to our householder account, so TM30 filings can be submitted in our owner's name within minutes of a guest's check-in. Filings go through automatically on every booking — mid-term tenants on lease signing, short stays (where applicable) on arrival — with the reference numbers retained as part of the unit's record.

The TM30 trail also feeds the juristic-person registration, the rental management agreement, and the compliance documentation we hand back to owners on month-end reporting. Owners never touch the portal, never miss a deadline, and never face an awkward conversation with a tenant whose visa is held up.

If you own a Bangkok condo and are renting to foreign tenants without a clean TM30 process in place, that is a real (and easily fixed) operational gap. Speak to our team — we respond within two business days. For the broader question of whether foreigners can rent out condos at all, see Can foreigners rent out a condo in Thailand?. For an income projection on your specific unit, run our income estimator.

The deeper picture on short-term rental legality — where TM30 intersects with the Hotel Act — is in Is Airbnb legal in Thailand? The 30-night rule explained.