Registration in Russia is one of the matters that generate more doubts in foreigners who visit the country, especially those who are going to stay in apartments or private houses. In this article I will try to clarify the most frequent doubts that arise at the time of registration.
Article updated in September 2017 (published January 2017)
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What is registration?
The registration is basically the process by which the Russian authorities are notified, after your arrival in Russia, of the place where they can find you if needed.
It is generally seen as a process of the Soviet era, when authorities monitored the migratory movements of people and could limit their movement throughout the country.
The good thing is that since 2011 the registration procedure for foreign citizens visiting Russia has been simplified and now is much easier than before.
The bad news is that despite this simplification, the legislation remains unclear in some respects, making each organization to interpret it differently.
In this article I will try to clarify how the registration procedure in Russia currently works, which is mandatory for all foreign citizens traveling to Russia, though the responsibility for the procedure always lies in the host party.
When is it not mandatory to register?
If you are staying in Russia less than 7 business days, you don’t need to register. For example, if you arrive in Russia on Saturday, August 1 and leave on a Monday, August 10, then you don’t need to register since your stay will be 6 business days. Weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) or the holidays don’t count as business days.
The documents that justify your arrival and that allow you to make you the count of the 7 business days are the tickets of the means of transport that you used to enter Russia, be it airplane, train or bus.
Rules during the World Cup 2018
In May 2017 a new regulation was issued. Foreigners must register the first day of their arrival between May 25, 2018 and July 25, 2018 in the cities hosting the World Cup in Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, St. Petersburg, Saransk and Sochi.
When is registration required?
When you are going to be more than 7 business days in Russia. If you cross the border on a Monday, then you have to register if your stay is extended beyond Tuesday of the following week.
If you are traveling from one city to another, then you must register in the new city if you will be staying in it for more than 7 business days. In this case you will be “deregistered” from a city and registered in the new city on arrival. If you will stay 5 business days in one city and another 5 business days in another, then it is sufficient to register in the first city, since your total stay in Russia will be greater than 7 business days, but it will not be necessary to register your stay in the second city, as your stay in said city will be less than 7 days.
If you enter Russia several times (through a double or multiple entry visa) then you must register each time you re-enter, if your stay is more than 7 business days.
Who must be registered?
Registration must be done by the host:
- Hotel. If you stay in a hotel, then the hotel management is responsible for the registration upon your check-in.
- Apartment. The host of the apartment must make the registration, be it an individual or a company that manages the apartment.
- Private homes. If you are staying in a private home of a friend or relative, then your friend or family must make your registration at their home address.
Registration is always the responsibility of the host, which must be a Russian citizen or a foreign citizen with permanent residence in Russia.
Registration must be made no later than 7 working days from the arrival of the foreign citizen to the place of destination.
The foreign citizen can’t register on its own, as it is the responsibility of the Russian host party. In no case is it mandatory for the foreign citizen to be present during registration.
Where must I register?
Registration can be made:
- Directly in the regional offices of the General Directorate of Migratory Affairs of the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation (GUVM, its acronym in Russian). Previously this institution was known as Federal Migration Service (FMS) but was abolished in April of 2016.
- In any post office in Russia (they charge a small fee of 216 rubles).
Registration procedure in Russia
If you stay in a hotel, the administration will register you for free, though it is possible that some hostels or smaller hotels will charge you an amount (which can range from 200 to 1,000 rubles). It doesn’t matter if in your letter of invitation you included a hotel and finally you stayed in a different one, since any hotel has the obligation to make the registration.
For the registration, the hotel will request at your arrival:
- Your passport, from which they will make a photocopy of all pages (including the page where your photo and personal data are and the page that has your visa stamped).
- Your immigration card, from which the hotel will make a photocopy.
With this documentation, the hotel will fill out a special foreign citizen arrival notification form.
The hotel administration will also be in charge of the registration process, by filling up the form and presenting it along with the rest of documentation before the Russian immigration authorities. You will be registered in 1-2 business days.
The main part of the form is the one sent to the authorities, while the bottom part (from the dotted line), or a copy, is the one that the hotel can give you as proof and in which the address and the registration deadline is indicated. Once you leave, the hotel will also inform the authorities.
In case you stay in a private apartment (e.g. Airbnb apartments), the host is obliged to make your registration; however, they are more likely to charge an amount for this procedure (between 500 and 2,000 rubles) and they may even refuse to do the proceeding (even though they have the legal obligation to do it).
Before making the payment for the stay in the apartment, ask your host if they make the registration and the price they will charge you. If they don’t offer the registration service or they charge a very high price, then look for another apartment that does offer the service or applies a more reasonable fee.
In case that you have already paid for the accommodation and the host does not want to register you at your arrival, what you can do is to contact the agency that issued your invitation letter to explain the case and ask them if they offer the registration service in the city where you will be staying. In this case, the agency will charge you an amount for registration at the agency’s home address or at another address.
If the agency that issued your invitation letter does not offer the registration service, then you will have to look for one of the multiple agencies that offer this service. It must be an agency that has offices in the city where you are staying, since you must approach their offices and present the passport and immigration card so they carry out the proceeding.
If you stay at a friend’s or a relative, then they can register you at any post office, though you also have the option to hire the services of some agency in the city, so they can register you.
Final Considerations
- The registration procedure is the same if you are in Russia through a tourist visa or a business visa, the only difference is that in the case of business visa you can register for a period of up to 3 months.
- If you make the Trans-Siberian route by train and sleep on it, in this case the train ticket would be equivalent to the registration (you always have to keep your ticket in handy).
- The Russian police are not authorized to request proof of registration on the streets. The party that invited the person is the one responsible for any infraction that has occurred. If they ask you for this in the street (which is extremely rare) it is best to call the consulate immediately.
- Registration accreditation is not necessary to leave the country, though the immigration card is required.
I hope this article has clarified how the registration procedure works in Russia. You can tell me your experience below.
Hello. Thanks a lot for the informative article on registration. I have a couple of questions. Let’s say I have student visa for a year, and I am staying in an apartment and registered by the owner.
If I leave my city and take a trip to city A for 3 days and then city B for four days will I need to be registered again when go back home?
What if the same procedure is repeated. I accompany a group in city A for 3 days and city B for 4 days, then again city A for 3 days and city B for 4 days. Will I need to be registered again by the landlord when I go back home?
I would highly appreciate your response.
All the best
This is the best article that I have read.. but I think I will try to register myself at the post office.
Hi I am in the process of getting a tourist visa but will be staying in a private apartment in Saint Petersburg. Will my host have issue registering my visa since its not a private visa but a tourist visa?
Hi, I am in the process of getting a tourist visa even though I plan on staying at a private address in Saint Petersburg. Will the host of the apartment run into problems registering me because my visa is a tourist and not a private visa?
Hello, thank you the thorough explanation in the article. Although you’ve mentioned that those who will be in Russia within 7 days don’t need to register, yet I would still like to ask you some questions. I will be flying from the Czech Republic to Rostov on Don in April 1st, and in April 6th I will fly back to the Czech Republic again exactly from Rostov on Don. During my stay in Russia, I will stay only in a city which is close to Rostov on Don, do I need to register in this case?
Best regards
No, because your stay in Russia is 6 days
Thank you very much for the article! There are lots of useful information. However nowadays Почта России (Post office in Russia) doesn’t do registration for foreigners any more. I was asking around in Post Office in Russia in Moscow and Moscow Region, workers there told me that they don’t offer this service any more. For your reference, I landed in Moscow in the end of 2019 and finished registration in МФЦ in the beginning of 2020.
Thank you for these informations! I have some questions – I have just renewed my student Visa. And now have to renew my Registration too. The landlord currently resides out of Moscow state, not only that it’s troublesome but it cost so much for her to travel all the way to Moscow just to get the registration done. Are there any ways for her to get it done? For example, I thought about (1) deliver my documents to her hometown, get the work done there and she deliver the registration copy back to me. (2) ask help from my neighbour to register me. (3) pay for my Landlord’s travel expenses and her stay here too (I’d rather avoid this option)
Hi Irena
I have Russian tourist visa. My Russian wife has dual citizenship
And apartment In Vologda. We intend to travel to Vologda for three weeks.
During this time, we want to take five day cruise on Princess Anastasia. Trip is from St. Petersburg to Estonia, Sweden and Finland.
What Russian invitation documents will I need to show for this trip?
Thank you, Terry
and
Hi Irena, thanks for your information. I have one concern, I’m in Moscow for studies and I’ve rented an apartment with a one year contract, but my landlord says he can’t make me the registration, is that true? or is it too much work and he doesn’t want to do it? In that case, is there a way I can do it on his behalf?
I will be traveling to Russia with a friend. We are staying in Moscow for 6 days ( 4 of which are bussiness days ). Then we will be in Astrakhan for 12 days ( 8 of which are bussiness days ).
My question is will I have to register in both citys or only in Astrakhan?
Urgent – Please Help – Visa Registration Problem
I arrived in Russia five days ago am staying with a friend. Yesterday we tried to register my visa but discovered that the rules have changed and that we should have registered within three days. I am very worried and I don’t know what to do. Any advice? My full stay is for seven business days.
Hi Irena! Your information is very appreciated, and is more than usefull. I am going to Saint Petersburg – Moscow in June. The trip will be a bit more than 3 weeks. I will apply for Tourist visa, there is a chance of a friend of mine will be in Saint Petersburg (Russian citizen and flats owner) at the same time, we are not sure yet. The point is, he has offered me to stay in his flat, if we coincide, in order to save some money as will be a long trip. Do you think is it possible? Or should I stay and be registered by hotel?
What is “Immigration card”?
Hi thanks for your information. I would like to ask as in my case , I’ll be reaching at Saint Petersburg on 10/6/2018 ( btw fifa period) , and going to nizhny on 12/6/2018 , lastly Moscow 15/6/2018, and leaving russia on 16/6. In this case should I reregister again in nizhny and Moscow ?
Our recent stay in Russia was only 5 business days (we stayed 28 Dec – 04 Jan ). Our hotel in St. Petersburg charged us 400 rubles each for “visa registration”. According to your information – we should not have been charged because we were lest than 7 days. Is this correct?
Correct
Thanks for posting very important article. It helped me a lot, but still i have to understand few things. i will be very thankful if you reply back. i already got tourist visa for Moscow, Russia. I will arrive Moscow on Saturday from S7 airline with transit on Novorisky. I mentioned that i will travel around Moscow in my Invitation letter and had 7 days initerery. But i am going other city on the next day of my arrival i.e Sunday( Chelyabinsk ). I will returned on Saturday to Moscow and will stay in the same hotel again. I will return from Moscow on Sunday 10 pm with transit on Irkutsk. My question is do i have to get registered? when i fill up migration card what would i mention , should i only mention Moscow because of my invitation letter or Chelyabinsk? where do i have to registered as in the rule for 7 working days. I will actually leave Russia from Irkutsk on Monday 11 am because i have waiting for 2.30 hours .
I just got back from Russia one week ago. We stayed at Airbnb apartments the entire time. None of my hosts assisted with registration so I decided to stay in a hotel my last night night in the country, business day 8 after reading all the “scary” registration stories. I made sure the hotel registered me and they gave me the form. When I was going through passport control the next morning, no one even looked at it. In fact they took the form that I had folded in half in the passport out of the passport pages and handed it to me. No questions were asked about my stay…nothing. Same goes for my travelling partner who went to a different passport agent. In the end registration was not needed for a 10 day stay in Russia. This was departing from Moscow SVO airport. Hopefully registration is disappearing from Russian law as its such an ancient process.
I just came back from Russia last week. I had read about registration before going. I booked my first hotel for 2 days in Moscow. They asked for my passport and migration card and registered my visa upon arrival, although I never received any paper confirmation. I was with a Russian friend and we rented an apartment for 5 days after that. We then moved to Noginsk where we rented another apartment for 1 week. I always assumed my visa was registered properly but I am not sure anymore. All to say they never asked for anything at passport control when I left either. I will be more on my guards on my next visit though.