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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawNationality LawVietnam Has Stricter TM30 Style Reporting Compared to Thailand

Vietnam Has Stricter TM30 Style Reporting Compared to Thailand

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are yet again talking about TM30 in the context of Thailand. I am doing kind of a video, I have done this similarly with Cambodia where I am comparing it to other jurisdictions here in Southeast Asia. I have heard people, in person and online and even on this channel, in comments talking about seeking alternative places to live as opposed to Thailand and they are doing this based on the fact that certain aspects of certain visa categories are in sort of a state of flux and I have also heard many folks are becoming frustrated with a TM30 regime, the address residence reporting regime for foreigners in Non-immigrant status here in the Kingdom. So I wanted to make this video as I made another one about how Cambodia is implementing similar measures to the Thai TM30. I wanted to make this video to discuss how Vietnam has had and it appears will continue to have quite a bit stricter regulations with respect to address reporting of foreigners in that country.

Quoting directly from the website, vietnamvisavoa.com and the web page says:  Living in Vietnam. We will go ahead just throw that up there so you can see it so you will know what to look for if you want to go search this and I recommend you do because I am not going to go into full detail and quote everything that is in here. They go into really in-depth detail if you are interested in Vietnam, about the regulations, the regulatory structure etc. This video is more just an overview for those here in Thailand to provide some perspective on how this system would work in Vietnam.  The title of this page is Temporary Residence Registration for Foreigners in Vietnam.  Quoting directly: "Temporary residence registration in Vietnam is a must thing to do in order to reside in Vietnam. Many foreigners stay for quite a long time in Vietnam and do not register their stay until they are asked by police officers to pay an extensive fine. These people again blame the landlord and other agents for not reminding them to do temporary resident registration. According to Vietnamese law foreingers must register their stay wherever they spend night/nights in Vietnam."  By that I think they mean a 24-hour period; so that would be similar to the TM 30 here in the Kingdom. Quoting further:  "The law states and I quote: "Foreigners who stay overnight at the private houses of citizens shall have to personally or through house owners make a temporary residence declaration with the police offices of wards or communes where they temporarily reside.  The ward or commune police officer will then be required to transfer the contents of temporary residence declarations by foreigners to the immigration bodies under the Public Security Offices of the provinces or centrally run cities."  

Then they go through and there are four separate regulations on the admission of foreigners, exit transit, entry of foreigners, update on the process of admitting foreigners, fees for the level of entry etc. I mean they go into pretty great detail over there in Vietnam and the thing I want those who are watching this video to take away from this is the notion that one leaves Thailand and say goes to Vietnam and thereby sort of “escapes” the TM30 reporting, I think that is short-sighted. In fact if anything I think Vietnam it sounds like their system is stricter and it sounds to me from what I heard anecdotally, there are even restrictions on where foreigners can live there. I am not certain how that regulatory structure works because quite frankly I don't live in Vietnam and I don't have a lot of contact with Vietnam. But that being said I wanted to provide this video again to provide a little insight and perspective to those who are currently dealing with these changes or I should say the changes in enforcement with respect to the TM30 as I think most of the systems here in Southeast Asia, the enforcement of immigration systems, utilize or are trying to utilize similar structures to keep track of foreigners in their jurisdictions at any given time.