TM30, 90-day reports and a Thai driving licence
Thai residence admin is a chain, not a list. One filing your landlord makes — or forgets — gates almost everything else you will need. Most people discover this at the counter.
The individual tasks here are small. What makes them difficult is that they depend on each other in an order nobody sets out, and the first link in the chain is not something you file yourself.
TM30 — the one you don't file
The TM30 is an address notification. Critically, the obligation sits with your landlord, hotel or property owner, not with you, and it must be filed with immigration within 24 hours of you taking up residence.
You need a valid TM30 receipt in order to:
- Affix your visa sticker at immigration
- Request a residence certificate
- File your 90-day report
You depend on someone else having done paperwork correctly, and you generally find out whether they did at the moment you need something urgently. A landlord renting mainly to Thai tenants may never have filed one and may not know they are supposed to.
Ask for the TM30 receipt when you sign the lease, not when you need it. If the landlord does not know what you mean, that is your answer about how the rest of the year will go.
The 90-day report
Foreigners staying long-term report their address to immigration every 90 days. The form is the TM47.
Two practical points that cause most of the trouble:
- The address on your 90-day report must match the address on your latest TM30.
- Some immigration offices will not accept the report at all if there is no active TM30 on file.
So a 90-day report is not really a standalone task. It is a check on whether your TM30 is current — which is why moving house without a new TM30 being filed causes problems that surface up to three months later.
The residence certificate
Issued by immigration, this is the document that proves your Thai address to other institutions. It typically costs around ฿500 and takes one to two business days.
You will need it for a driving licence, and it is a common form of address proof when opening a bank account. And it requires — again — that your landlord has filed the TM30.
Converting a foreign driving licence
Better news here: if you hold a valid foreign licence, converting it is more straightforward than most people expect.
| Step | What it involves |
|---|---|
| Practical driving test | Exempt — you do not take one |
| Aptitude tests | Four short tests (reaction, colour, depth, peripheral vision) |
| Written theory test | 50 multiple-choice questions on Thai signs and road rules |
| Pass mark | 45 out of 50 — 90% |
| Address proof | Residence certificate, most commonly |
The theory test is where people come unstuck, and the reason is the pass mark rather than the difficulty. Ninety percent leaves room for five wrong answers out of fifty. Confident drivers who skip revision because they have driven for thirty years fail on Thai-specific signage and right-of-way rules that are genuinely different from home. Study the material.
Some provincial offices ask for additional documents such as a work permit or rental agreement. Requirements vary by office — call ahead rather than travelling twice.
The order to do things in
- Lease signed — get the TM30 receipt from the landlord at this point
- Residence certificate — ฿500, one to two days, needs the TM30
- Bank account — needs the address proof and the right visa
- Driving licence — needs the residence certificate
- 90-day reports — ongoing, needs the TM30 to stay current
Everything traces back to step one. If you take one thing from this page: get the TM30 receipt in your hand at the start, and get a new one every time you move.
Fees, forms and office practice vary by province and change over time. Figures above are as published at the date shown — confirm with your local immigration office before relying on them.