Thailand Introduces Online TM6 as Tourism Fee Faces Delays

[SABloke]

I honestly can't remember the last time I did a TM6 🤔 3 trips in the past 15 months. I seem to recall asking for one on a plane and the flight attendant said they weren't needed anymore. Am I going crazy? 

 

Edit to add: I enter using the Thai queue (not a Thai citizen though), so maybe that's why they don't ask for it?

[SABloke]

10 hours ago, HuaHinHim said:

especially if it means reducing the immigration workforce

 

Nah, it just means that now there will be 7 people checking your re-entry permit application at Chaengwattana, rather than the current 4 🙃

[Patong2021]

14 hours ago, lordgrinz said:

 

Yeah, because it's always a good thing to connect to a public WIFI in a foreign country. Then its a really good idea to start plugging personal data over that WIFI into an online form run by a foreign country that I wouldn't trust to run a lemonade stand.

 

That's not how it works. If we use the US CBP MPC or the Japan Arrive  method, the information is completed in advance and a QR code is generated. You scan the QR code at the electronic gate. I did this  in Japan. It works rather well for arrival and was through a very busy arrivals hall in 10 minutes.

[Puccini]

9 hours ago, SiamAndy said:

I was referring to Resident Expats, their numbers will be decreasing over time due to the nonsense the Thai Bureaucratic state subjects them to.

 

Yes, it would be interesting to see statistics about the number of people on one-year extensions, preferably broken down by category. I wonder if immigration makes them.

[watchcat]

13 hours ago, Puccini said:

 

I don't understand what you mean. Could you elaborate, please?

 

If someone at the bank or Immigration office ask for your telephone number, use a fake number.

[sandyf]

On 1/24/2025 at 8:33 AM, lordgrinz said:

 

Yeah, because it's always a good thing to connect to a public WIFI in a foreign country. Then its a really good idea to start plugging personal data over that WIFI into an online form run by a foreign country that I wouldn't trust to run a lemonade stand.

Sounds like US paranoia, quite obvious you never tried to enter the UK during covid.

[sandyf]

15 hours ago, Tomtomtom69 said:

Again one of these discriminatory things, where foreigners need to fill out more paperwork but locals are exempt.

Like other countries.

[lordgrinz]

2 minutes ago, sandyf said:

Sounds like US paranoia, quite obvious you never tried to enter the UK during covid.

 

I've been using computers since I was 8 years old, worked as a programmer, EDI specialist, and IT systems engineer. I also have seen Thailands idea of secure apps and websites, I'm not impressed, but please do what you see fit with your personal information.

[Sydebolle]

Honestly, just another way of making the access to Thailand more challenging. 

The private industry which is providing services, hotels, transport, food etc. to the visitor, are more than well aware of what it takes; so the statistical data of tourists are well established by those providing the service. On checking into a hotel, guests register and the hotel reports (or maybe not?) the overnight stay of the visitor back to the immigration. It is also not the government's job to establish statistics on who arrives/departs on which aircraft, vessel or car as it is irrelevant for the functioning of the logistics and usually the carriers will adjust frequency and tariffing of transportation themselves - it is called free market economy. 

So I cannot see the purpose of the TM6 any longer. I cross very frequently into Laos and had to fill in a TM6 card each and every time. I paid a kid a little programme to print the blanks from my computer to these TM6 forms and not a single immigration officer ever looked at the form nor asked me, why this was completed by a computer. 

Mount Bureaucracy just gets another load of snow - me thinks! 

[Rolo89]

They have this in Malaysia and it's never more than 30 seconds to get through the e-gates now.

 

I'm all for it if it reduces the waiting from 30-50 mins to seconds.

 

You'll soon need an "authorization to travel" before entering most countries which is annoying, but if it makes for a speedy entry after a long flight it's worth it.

[sandyf]

37 minutes ago, lordgrinz said:

 

I've been using computers since I was 8 years old, worked as a programmer, EDI specialist, and IT systems engineer. I also have seen Thailands idea of secure apps and websites, I'm not impressed, but please do what you see fit with your personal information.

Good deflection, but irrelevant.

Online submissions are the way of the world, but those glued to an armchair can only complain.

Ignorance must be bliss. I have seen passengers begging to borrow phones so they could board a flight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_locator_form

[Upnotover]

11 hours ago, SABloke said:

I honestly can't remember the last time I did a TM6 🤔 3 trips in the past 15 months. I seem to recall asking for one on a plane and the flight attendant said they weren't needed anymore. Am I going crazy? 

 

Edit to add: I enter using the Thai queue (not a Thai citizen though), so maybe that's why they don't ask for it?

They were suspended for arrivals by air in 2022.

[MikeandDow]

The TM6 will be reintroduced on the 1st may, you will have to fill out. if you want to enter the country, end of story !!

[lordgrinz]

31 minutes ago, sandyf said:

Good deflection, but irrelevant.

Online submissions are the way of the world, but those glued to an armchair can only complain.

Ignorance must be bliss. I have seen passengers begging to borrow phones so they could board a flight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_locator_form

Yes, ignorance of your own safety and security of private information is rampant today, open your eyes before it's too late. But yes, ignorance is bliss.

[johnnybgood]

TM6

Is there a photocopy machine on arrival?

How many signed copies to they need?

[Jonathan Swift]

On 1/24/2025 at 8:31 AM, Ralf001 said:

 

How would I know ?

I think that was a rhetorical question

[Hawaiian]

1 hour ago, MikeandDow said:

The TM6 will be reintroduced on the 1st may, you will have to fill out. if you want to enter the country, end of story !!

Until they change their minds again.  Then a new story begins.

[MikeandDow]

7 minutes ago, Hawaiian said:

Until they change their minds again.  Then a new story begins.

Up to them !!

[Skeptic7]

It's been gone for quite a while, so bringing it back is not streamlining...it's complicating. Just leave it gone FOREVER. 

[StevieAus]

On 1/24/2025 at 6:38 AM, lamecn said:

So, now it's become compulsary for tourists to have a mobile phone and ability for roaming?

The UK has introduced an electronic arrival form for non UK passport holders operative from 1 Jan this yea which costs 10 pounds

Malaysia has a similar system which is free and easy to use.

[MikeandDow]

9 minutes ago, StevieAus said:

The UK has introduced an electronic arrival form for non UK passport holders operative from 1 Jan this yea which costs 10 pounds

Malaysia has a similar system which is free and easy to use.

What has the UK and Malaysia got to do with Thailand ?? The system they use there suits them, the TM6 suits Thailand, People are biching about it, its simple dont come !!

[KannikaP]

Don't really want to read through five pages, so can anyone tell me what I shall need, live here for years on Retirement Extension. Used to fill in that silly TM6 and was so pleased when it stopped, although 2 or 3 minutes with a ball-point an hour before landing didn't make much difference.

So now, returning in February after 3 weeks in UK with a Re-Entry Permit, what will I need please?

[josephbloggs]

6 minutes ago, KannikaP said:

Don't really want to read through five pages, so can anyone tell me what I shall need, live here for years on Retirement Extension. Used to fill in that silly TM6 and was so pleased when it stopped, although 2 or 3 minutes with a ball-point an hour before landing didn't make much difference.

So now, returning in February after 3 weeks in UK with a Re-Entry Permit, what will I need please?

You can't even be bothered to read even a tiny bit of the article?? Did you just see the headline then came to ask someone to read it for you? Literally the very first sentence says this comes in on 1st May. 

[Tropicalevo]

22 hours ago, TheAppletons said:

 

  MDAC takes less than 10 mins online to fill out.  Confirmation is instant.

That was not my experience back in November.

They did not confirm the MDAC within the three days that we were told to do it, and no one asked me for it when I entered Malaysia (and I still did not have one).

[KannikaP]

10 minutes ago, josephbloggs said:

You can't even be bothered to read even a tiny bit of the article?? Did you just see the headline then came to ask someone to read it for you? Literally the very first sentence says this comes in on 1st May. 

OK, sorry Joseph. Will be a good boy from now on. 

[josephbloggs]

41 minutes ago, KannikaP said:

OK, sorry Joseph. Will be a good boy from now on. 

Thank you.

[Upnotover]

1 hour ago, KannikaP said:

o now, returning in February after 3 weeks in UK with a Re-Entry Permit, what will I need please?

Nothing.

[MangoKorat]

21 hours ago, MikeandDow said:

of course !!  when a tourists books into a hotel the hotel does a TM 30   do you not know how immigration works here!!

Of course I do but I doubt 99.9% of tourists know about the TM30. Do you actually think a tourist would check to make sure they were registered if they moved to stay with a Thai friend for example? 

 

I've stayed at plenty of hotels where my girlfriend has dealt with the booking - my passport wasn't asked for so no TM30 was done.

 

In any case, you are just being obtuse.  My point in the post you initially quoted was that tourists are not going to like having a phone app or any other form of tracking. 

 

That is the underying reasoning behind all this - the Thai government have brought it all up before, several times.  They want the ability to track the whereabouts of a particular tourist - current and past locations. They think that by doing so it will help them to identify people involved in a crime or overstaying.

 

The last time this was proposed, they thought they could make tourists use a SIM card which they had to put in their phone and that would be used to track them.  Would you want to replace your SIM with a government one?  Its Thailand not China or North Korea - people on their holidays just don't want even the feeling they're being tracked.

 

Apart from that - have you ever known any Thai online system work properly?  Did you ever try to send your 7 day Covid test results?  When the App didn't work, were you worried you'd be stopped at the airport upon leaving, thinking you'd be arrested for not complying, even though you'd tried?  I and thousands of others probably had that experience but in fact nothing happened. In any case - even if the system did work and I had been able to send my 7 day test results - they had no way of knowing if I'd tested myself of the family dog.

 

I'll tell you what all this is about - its about money. Someone high up in the authorities will have a cousin who has a company that will create the app that tracks tourists and everyone will feed from the trough. They won't care one jot that the App isn't actually capable of tracking anyone because they don't care - they will have had their feast.

 

People entering bent on commiting crime would simply leave the phone in their room or take the govt SIM out, there would be no check on that or action until afterwards.

 

So I'll turn it around - 'do you not know how things work around here'?

 

I repeat what I said in the post you originally quoted:

 

This will really go down well with tourists.

[MangoKorat]

21 hours ago, MikeandDow said:

of course !!  when a tourists books into a hotel the hotel does a TM 30   do you not know how immigration works here!!

So if the hotel does a TM 30 why do they want this online TM6?  It will be much the same as the old paper one - you state where you will be staying - remember many people actually move around and don't book their stays until they get to Thailand.

 

How many people will bother telling them they've moved to once they've done the original notification? I don't know if things have improved but a lot of small hotels'Thai style resorts still have no idea what a TM30 is.

 

We will have to see what the mechanics of this thing are if its ever introduced - but I am confident that it will both fail to work and not be checked.

[MikeandDow]

33 minutes ago, MangoKorat said:

Of course I do but I doubt 99.9% of tourists know about the TM30. Do you actually think a tourist would check to make sure they were registered if they moved to stay with a Thai friend for example? 

 

I've stayed at plenty of hotels where my girlfriend has dealt with the booking - my passport wasn't asked for so no TM30 was done.

 

In any case, you are just being obtuse.  My point in the post you initially quoted was that tourists are not going to like having a phone app or any other form of tracking. 

 

That is the underying reasoning behind all this - the Thai government have brought it all up before, several times.  They want the ability to track the whereabouts of a particular tourist - current and past locations. They think that by doing so it will help them to identify people involved in a crime or overstaying.

 

The last time this was proposed, they thought they could make tourists use a SIM card which they had to put in their phone and that would be used to track them.  Would you want to replace your SIM with a government one?  Its Thailand not China or North Korea - people on their holidays just don't want even the feeling they're being tracked.

 

Apart from that - have you ever known any Thai online system work properly?  Did you ever try to send your 7 day Covid test results?  When the App didn't work, were you worried you'd be stopped at the airport upon leaving, thinking you'd be arrested for not complying, even though you'd tried?  I and thousands of others probably had that experience but in fact nothing happened. In any case - even if the system did work and I had been able to send my 7 day test results - they had no way of knowing if I'd tested myself of the family dog.

 

I'll tell you what all this is about - its about money. Someone high up in the authorities will have a cousin who has a company that will create the app that tracks tourists and everyone will feed from the trough. They won't care one jot that the App isn't actually capable of tracking anyone because they don't care - they will have had their feast.

 

People entering bent on commiting crime would simply leave the phone in their room or take the govt SIM out, there would be no check on that or action until afterwards.

 

So I'll turn it around - 'do you not know how things work around here'?

 

I repeat what I said in the post you originally quoted:

 

This will really go down well with tourists.

Well for one i think you are total  paranoid about this !! The TM6 And TM30 have been used for 15years i know of, no complaints, Thailand has always Tracked Tourist and expats,  it is just the way it is, never been a big deal, I was not in Thailand when covid was about so i dont know anything about a 7day test, now they want to go online so what !! there will be paper available, your bitching about some thing that has not happened yet !!  and iam sure if the Tourist dont want to fill out the forms they wont come !! thats up to Thailand to sort out !  and if you dont like it you know what you can do !!