Under section 38 of the 1979 Immigration Act, the person who accommodates you files the TM.30 report, never you. That holds in a private rental as much as in a hotel.
What section 38 says
The Immigration Bureau quotes the statute at the top of the TM30 system’s user guide. This is its English rendering:
“House owners, heads of household, landlords or managers of hotels who accommodate foreign nationals on a temporary basis who stay in the kingdom legally, must notify the local immigration authorities within 24 hours from the time of arrival of the foreign national.”
The people named are house owners, heads of household, landlords and hotel managers. The guest appears only as the person being accommodated.
Staying somewhere that is not a hotel
China works the other way. A hotel there registers you, but anywhere that is not a hotel the duty passes to you or your host, with a fine on the guest for missing it. Section 38 has no such transfer. It names a landlord letting a condominium in the same breath as a hotel manager, and neither the statute nor the Bureau’s guide gives a foreign guest any filing obligation.
If you rent a Thai apartment and wonder whether you should file something, this source says no. Whether your host knows that is a separate matter.
What the Thai text adds
The Bureau publishes the page in Thai and English. The Thai text of section 38 has three things the English summary leaves out:
- No immigration office in the locality. Notification goes to the police officer at the local police station.
- Bangkok. Where the house, residence or hotel is in Bangkok, notification goes to the official at the Immigration Division rather than a local office.
- Procedure. Notification follows regulations prescribed by the Director-General, so the detail of how to file sits in an instrument neither page reproduces.
None of the three changes a guest’s position. All three change a host’s, so send a confused landlord to the Thai page rather than the English one.
Which properties file it
The Bureau’s description of the online system names the operators it was built for: hotels, guesthouses, mansions, apartments and ordinary rental houses. The form is TM.30. Operators file over the internet, from a computer or a phone, instead of in person. One account can file for several addresses, which suggests the system was designed for people who run more than one property.
What it changes about where you book
Your own paperwork stays the same. What changes is what you rely on.
A licensed hotel files routinely, because the desk that takes your passport also runs the notification. An informal let may be run by someone who has never registered for the system. When you book, ask whether the property is a registered operator, whatever kind of building it is. The statute treats a guesthouse, a mansion, an apartment and a rental house identically, so the building type tells you nothing.
If you collect hotel chain status, book direct. A booking made through anyone but the hotel forfeits the points and the night credit.
What neither page says
No penalty appears on either page. The statute creates the duty and says nothing about the consequence of missing it, and the guide explains the software, not the sanction. Any figure you find elsewhere is not from this source.
Neither page says a guest is ever asked to produce the notification, which is the question this rule most often raises for a guest. If a number or a document requirement would decide something for you, the Director-General’s regulations are the place to look. They are not on these pages.
Thai properties, where the question is whether the operator files at all (affiliate link)