The renormalization scheme in nonequilibrium thermal quantum field theories is reexamined. Instead of the self-energy diagonalization scheme, we propose to diagonalize Green’s function at equal time. This eliminates the problem of on-shell definition related to time-dependent energies and spatially inhomogeneous situations, and yields a Boltzmann equation that contains memory effect. The new diagonalization scheme and the derivation of the Boltzmann equation from it can be applied to any thermal situation. It allows the treatment of a nonequilibrium problem beyond perturbational calculations in a self-consistent manner. The results are applicable to both thermo field dynamics and the closed time path formalism.