Moving to Koh Samui: A Checklist

Updated August 2026

Written by

Writes the area guides and relocation checklists

Unpacking suitcases in a newly rented home on Koh Samui

Before you fly: book and pay online

We moved here in 2018 with two suitcases and a toddler, and the only reason the landing week stayed calm is that the home was already booked and paid from Melbourne. Book before you fly: search with real filters, confirm rent and deposit as separate lines, sign the lease digitally, keep every copy in your account. Arriving with your keys already assigned turns a relocation into a holiday with boxes.

Before you fly: papers worth preparing

Paperwork travels lighter than furniture. Check your passport has comfortable validity beyond your planned stay, print nothing but carry digital copies of everything, and if a visa route needs evidence of funds or work, prepare it while you still have your home country's paperwork drawers nearby. I also screenshot the listing's inventory photos; comparing them against reality later became our family's arrival tradition. Fifteen minutes at a kitchen table abroad saves an afternoon in a Samui copy shop.

First week: walk the condition report

Your first scheduled job lands on day one, not week one. Walk the move-in condition report with the meter readings written down: electricity, water, anything the previous tenant left behind. Photograph each room again yourself, because the report protects both sides only while it matches what your own camera saw. My daughter's height marks on a doorframe made it into ours; small details make the record feel real when you need it most.

First week: confirm the TM30 filing

Has your address reached immigration yet? Form TM30 is filed by the property's owner or manager within 24 hours of your move-in, and the receipt matters later for visas, banking and extensions, so chase confirmation this week rather than someday. Our receipt arrived in my account the morning after we landed, which set the tone: paperwork on this island works when someone chases it, and renting through people who chase it saves you learning that twice.

First month: routines that make it home

The first proper rain taught us more than any guide: which road floods ankle-deep, which market stall reappears, why everyone owns a scooter with good tyres. Use the first month to build the boring routines that decide daily happiness: your grocery loop, your beach hour, your backup route to school or work. Long-term life runs on repetition, and a month is exactly long enough to test one routine per week without rushing any of them.

First month: dates worth calendaring

Two calendars matter now. If your stay will pass 90 continuous days, the TM47 address report falls due on a schedule with its own window, and future renewals or extensions run through the island's immigration office with documents you already hold from move-in. Set reminders once and never think about them again. Rent day goes in the calendar too; paying early from a quiet connection beats paying late from a ferry.

The first item on any pre-arrival list is the home itself: browse villas and houses for rent on Koh Samui.

Keep reading about renting on Koh Samui

Viewpoint over the residential areas and beaches of Koh Samui

Tick off the biggest box first

Book and pay for your Samui home before you fly, with the lease signed digitally and your documents stored in your account when you land.

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