#Thailand - Immigration overhaul – TM6 disappearing and TM30 App being launched

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“We made the decision last Friday. Within two to three months, life will be much easier for foreign tourists and expats.”

In what appears to be a major overhaul of immigration procedures, dare we say ‘modernisation’, foreign visitors will soon no longer have to fill out the “TM6” arrival forms. 

The white and blue form has been a source of confusion for decades as passengers try to fill them out on planes or in a mad rush when they arrive at immigration desks without them, for decades.

The reason for the decision to go all-digital with the arrival procedure is that, of all reasons, the storage of all the white and blue cards had become an issue.

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But wait, there’s more.

Now khaosodenglish.com are reporting that Thai immigration is not only doing away with the TM6 forms, they’re about to launch a new mobile phone app to make TM30 reporting easier.

Kobsak Pootrakool, the Deputy Secretary-General to the PM, also mentioned on Tuesday that another app is being developed to allow long-stay foreigners to complete their 90 day reporting with their smart phone. And, yes, he said a smartphone App was also going to make the TM30 reporting easier.

The TM30 form, and its companion, the TM28, have been a source of expat displeasure over the past five months since the immigration department decided to enforce a little-used 1979 law that required foreigners to report their whereabouts if they had stayed overnight at an address different from their registered address.

The same applied for landlords or owners of accommodation to report foreigners staying at their venues within 24 hours. Along the way there appeared cracks in the enforcement with all sorts of variations and conundrums being thrown up at organised panel meetings and online, little of which was answered with any certainty from the Thai immigration authorities.

 Kobsak now claims that the changes are designed to attract more visitors and accommodate those already living in the kingdom.
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“We made the decision last Friday. Within two to three months, life will be much easier for foreign tourists and expats.”

“Foreigners will be able to report their whereabouts with just four clicks on their smartphone to fulfill regulations that require them to report to immigration authorities every 90 days.”

Deputy immigration commander Nattapon Sawaengkit has confirmed the move to move the TM30 reporting online when contacted for comment, but assigned another officer to explain the details, according to the khaosodenglish.com report.

 Everyone’s favourite arrival procedure, the TM6 form.
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Source - The Thaiger

#Thailand scraps "arrival and departure card" for tourists and comes with app for TM30

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A senior Thai official said yesterday that foreign tourists will soon no longer have to fill in a "departure and arrival card" (TM6) when they arrive in Thailand.

Kobsak Pootrakool, deputy sec-gen to the Prime Minister, also touted a mobile application in the works for 24-hour reporting under the TM30 form system, which has been a source of controversy in recent months. Kobsak said both changes are designed to attract more visitors and accommodate those already living in the kingdom.

“We made the decision last Friday. Within two to three months, life will be much easier [for foreign tourists and expats],” Kobsak said.

He spoke at a gala dinner to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Elite Plus Magazine at a hotel in Bangkok on Tuesday evening, where audience members included ambassadors from ten or so countries.

Explaining the government’s decision, Kobsak said arrival and departure forms for tourists, known as TM6 forms, have led to a storage problems. The government expects a total of 20 million visitors to Thailand this year.

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“[The immigration police] have to have a huge warehouse to store these papers,” Kobsak said, adding that the police rarely look at the information in the forms, which are only stored “just in case.”

He also said the government and the immigration police agreed last Friday to streamline other procedures. Foreigners will be able to report their whereabouts with just “four clicks” on a smartphone to fulfill regulations that require them to report to immigration authorities every 90 days.

But the cherry on top seems to the revelation that the police are developing a mobile phone application for the infamous TM30 form, which requires foreign residents and their Thai landlords to file a report to the police every time the former spends a night outside their registered province.

Tourists are generally exempted from the rule, as the forms are filed by their hotels and accommodation hosts.

Deputy immigration commander Nattapon Sawaengkit confirmed the move on Wednesday when reached for comment, but assigned another officer to explain the details.

The officer, who declined to give his name, gave little information other than hinting that QR codes will likely be used.

“The apps are not finished yet. QR codes will likely be used but it’s not concrete yet. It will likely be on a smartphone,” the officer said.

Harsher enforcement of TM30 forms has recently driven expats in Thailand to air their grievances on social media. They say the 40-year-old regulation is outdated and should be amended or scrapped entirely.

The European Association for Business and Commerce, which represents European firms and businesses in Thailand, also urged reforms to TM30 in a statement to Kobsak yesterday.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday night, Kobsak said the law will still remain on the books, but pledged to end foreigners’ discontent with the form. He also acknowledged the government should do better in attracting foreign investment and manpower.

Source - Khaosodenglish

Move to exempt Thais from immigration form

Agency boosting staff and counters at Don Muang airport in bid to alleviate huge crowds of arriving passengers.

EXEMPTING Thai nationals from filling out immigration forms is among the measures being considered to help relieve the overcrowding of arrivals at Don Muang International Airport.

Immigration Bureau commander Pol Maj-General Nattorn Prohsunthorn said yesterday that his agency had discussed the passenger backlog problem with executives of the airport. 

They agreed to increase the number of immigration counters and outsource some of the work.

 He said one of the measures being considered was for Thai passengers to no longer be required to fill the departure and arrival TM6 form.

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The immigration police chief said his agency wanted the proposed exemption to be implemented as soon as possible and it was seeking to expedite amendments to relevant regulations.

He dismissed concerns that cancellation of the requirement would adversely affect national security, pointing out that authorities already have a database of Thai passengers.

“The Immigration Bureau has also sought permission for foreign passengers from certain countries to pass through the automated passport control channels” that are now reserved for Thai passport holders, to help relieve the overcrowding, Nattorn said.

Contingency plans

He said that from tomorrow, the number of immigration officials at Don Mueang airport would be increased to 100, from 42 at present, and they would work four shifts around the clock.

He also said Airports of Thailand (AOT), which oversees Don Mueang airport, has agreed to create space to set up more immigration counters. Within two weeks, the number of immigration counters will be increased from 25 at present to 39, he said.

The Immigration Bureau chief was speaking to The Nation after inspecting immigration operations at Don Mueang airport yesterday, where there were still long queues of arriving passengers.

Over the past year, the number of passengers passing through Don Mueang airport every day has increased to 40,000, up 400 per cent from 2012, when it was reopened as Bangkok’s second international airport.

 On Tuesday, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha ordered relevant agencies to tackle the problem of long immigration queues at the airport.

The PM instructed the Immigration Bureau, AOT and the Transport Ministry to prepare contingency plans to deal with chaos similar to that seen at the airport last Friday night, when almost 10,000 passengers had to wait up to five hours to be processed by immigration officials. The chaos was blamed on the delay of over a dozen flights. 

Meanwhile, the Immigration Bureau yesterday described as “inaccurate” media reports that the prime minister had signed a new ministerial order last Friday to exempt all passengers from having to fill the TM6 form when they leave and enter the country.

In a statement, the bureau said that the order, effective from October 1, would cancel the existing TM6 form and replace it with a new one that asks for information necessary for the Ministry of Tourism and Sports in analysing and planning tourism marketing strategies.

“Passengers still have to fill the form when they leave or enter the country,” the Immigration Bureau statement said.

The Ministry of Tourism and Sports clarified yesterday that from October 1, the existing TM6 form would be replaced by a new one – in which both the “departure card” and the “arrival card” will be on the same page. 

The ministry said in a statement that an electronic alternative to collect necessary passenger information would be needed before the TM6 form was eventually scrapped.

“The relevant state agencies are in the process of doing so,” the statement added.

Recently, Somkiat Tangkitvanich, president of the think-tank Thailand Development Research Institute, said the TM6 form cost Bt5 each and that almost 7 million Thais travelled overseas, according to the 2015 statistics.

He noted that all the information that passengers have to fill in is already on the passport, which has to be produced while passing through the automated passport control machine.

Source - TheNation

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