TM30 for Thai hotels: what you have to report, to whom, and by when

If your hotel has a foreign guest tonight, Thai immigration law expects you to tell the local immigration office. The notification is called TM30 (T.M.30, or in Thai ตม.30), and it is one of the few pieces of daily paperwork where a late or missing filing is the hotel's problem, not the guest's.

This article explains what the rule says, what the forms need, how hotels file, and a routine that keeps it from turning into a daily scramble. It is general information, not legal advice. Where we could verify a point in an official or authoritative source we cite it. Where we could not, we say so.

What the rule says

The duty comes from Section 38 of the Immigration Act B.E. 2522 (1979). In the English translation law firms quote, a head of household, the owner or possessor of a dwelling place, or a hotel manager who allows a foreigner to stay temporarily in the Kingdom must notify the local immigration authorities within 24 hours of the foreigner taking up residence (FRANK Legal & Tax via Mondaq, 14 November 2019). The Thai Immigration Bureau's own website lists the "notification of residence" service for foreigners, states the 24-hour deadline, and links to the online TM30 system at tm30.immigration.go.th (immigration.go.th, accessed 11 October 2026). We could not load the TM30 system page itself, so we have not checked what it says about hotel accounts.

Three points that matter in practice:

• Hotels get no exemption. A Tilleke & Gibbins summary of the June 2020 police notification says the duty applies to property owners and hotel managers alike, within 24 hours of the stay (Tilleke & Gibbins, 16 June 2020).
• It covers foreign nationals, not Thai guests. One law-firm summary also notes that holders of permanent residence are not obliged to be notified (Mondaq, 14 November 2019). Check with your immigration office if you have a guest in an unusual category.
• The responsibility is the host's. The Mondaq summary above notes that when the host does not file, the practical consequences often land on the guest too, which is a good reason to tell guests you do it.

What changed in 2020, and what did not

The same June 2020 notification, effective 30 June 2020, removed one repeat filing: a new TM30 no longer has to be submitted each time the same foreign national returns, if the return falls within the stay period already notified (Tilleke & Gibbins, 16 June 2020). The 24-hour duty for each new stay stayed. When you file, you state the period the guest will stay, with arrival and expected departure dates. How your local office treats a guest who checks out and later returns is a question for that office; we did not find a published hotel-specific ruling.

Do not confuse it with the Digital Arrival Card. Since 1 May 2025, foreign visitors complete the Thailand Digital Arrival Card (TDAC) online before they arrive, replacing the old TM6 card (TAT News, April 2025). That is a traveller-side form that includes the first accommodation. We found no official statement that it replaces the hotel's own TM30, and the sources we read describe them as separate. Confirm with immigration if a guest tells you otherwise.

How hotels file

The Tilleke summary lists the routes: in person at the local immigration office (the Immigration Bureau headquarters for Bangkok), by post, online through the immigration.go.th system, or through the Section38 mobile app, "subject to the requirements of the immigration office" (Tilleke & Gibbins, 16 June 2020). The Bureau's site describes online use as registering at immigration.go.th to receive a username and password by email, and says the form is completed from the passport details (immigration.go.th, accessed 11 October 2026). Check which route your local office accepts: that is the "requirements of the immigration office" caveat doing real work.

What you need for each foreign guest, as the sources describe it: name as printed in the passport, passport number, nationality, arrival date and expected departure date, and your property details. If any of those is wrong, the notification is wrong.

A daily routine that works

None of this is complicated. It fails when it is left to the end of a long shift. A routine that holds up:

1. Capture at check-in, not later. Scan or copy the passport at the desk while the guest is there. A missing digit is easy to fix with the guest in front of you and hard to fix three days later.
2. Confirm the fields that are easy to get wrong. Nationality in particular. It can be stored two different ways (three-letter codes and full country names) or left blank, which is exactly why a report built from that data cannot be trusted blindly.
3. Build the day's list from real check-ins. List every foreign guest who checked in today, plus anyone arriving on a late-night shift.
4. Check the list against the in-house list. If a foreign guest is in the house and not on the list, you have found the gap while there is still time.
5. File within the 24 hours, and keep proof. Keep the confirmation with the day's records.
6. Have a named person for each shift. If the night auditor is sick, someone must still be responsible for the list.

What to do this week

If you file TM30 today, the cheapest improvement is step 4 above: compare your list with the in-house list once a day. If you are about to change your property management system, put TM30 on the cutover checklist: produce the export for a day of real check-ins and compare it with the old system's list before the first live day.

Our checklist for leaving a legacy PMS includes that dry run as one of its acceptance checks.

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