Hi

I am a British passport visa and have a one-year multi entry Russian visa. I plan to enter / leave Russia several times within this period, and I will be moving constantly from place to place.

What do I need to do re registration? Do I need to register each time I enter? Or each time I go to a new city (that would be a pain!), or every 90 days, or what?

Also, the validity dates of visa are for one year, but the period of stay says 90 days... and that I can only stay 90 days out of each 180... What exactly does this mean? Is it strictly enforced? (i.e. at the border will they have some way of working out if there is any 180 day period where I have exceeded a 90-day stay?

Thanks

Daniel

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You have a maximum of 90 days out of 180 days to stay in Russia at any one time. So you 12 month visa will actually only give you a total of 180 days stay in total. I don't think it is worth taking the chance to overstay on the 90 days.

We registered the very first time we entered Russia and subsequently every time we felt the need to stay in hotels etc (which was very rare). We did however make sure to register in the Altai region. The border guard (coming in from Mongolia) made the point to show us the requirement to register the visa in the area with 3 days of entry. We did this, but not sure if it really was necessary. Most places (hotels) we came across won't really register you if you stay for one night. From memory, you had to register if you stay in one place for more than 3 nights.

I think the rules did change at some point, but I won't be too worried. As long as you try and do it every time you stay in hotels and obviously the first time you enter russia.

Please keep in mind that this is from our experience - it might not be the correct thing to do.

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I think you need to register with three business days of arrival, every time you enter the country. No need to re-register if you change cities, but it wouldn't hurt either, so if you stay in a hotel have them do so. In my experience, most hotels will (indeed insist that they) register you even if you are there for one night, but maybe its different out in Siberia.

I am not sure about the ninety day rule but I would imagine that they input your entry and exit dates into a computer, which would tell them if you've exceeded the ninety day period. I would try to stick to these periods, although I can't say I've heard of any specific problems people have had in this regard.

How to register a Russian visa, Russian visa registration laws

Submitted by admin on Mon, 08/03/2009 - 17:30 Every foreigner who comes to Russia should have his/her Russian visa registered within 72 hours upon arrival, excluding holidays and weekends. Before it is 72 hours after your arrival, your tickets (train, bus, plane tickets) to the place you're in (e.g. Moscow) is the document, which can confirm how long you've been staying there.

What is a Registration

Visa registration is a relic of the past dating back to the Soviet time designed to make sure you're not going to occupy the valuable Russian soil without authorities' permission.
Nowadays, the purpose of the registration is to notify the immigration authories about the place of your stay while you're in Russia. You would think that the Landing Card, which you fill out on the plane before you arrived to Russia would suffice, but no, the registration is a totally different thing and should be done separately.
The registration used to be a little stamp in your passport on a paper attached to your visa and/or on the new migration card (if it was given to you) before 2007. However, in 2007 the laws have changed and now you get a special piece of paper that confirms your registration has been submitted.

Officially, it's not your obligation to register your visa, it should be done by the accommodating party. However, if you don't register your visa, you may be fined as well as deported (although the latter is very unlikely) and denied from entering Russia again (maximum 5 years).
We will explain how you can have your visa registered later, first we would like to show where the legal basis for this weird rule comes from.
Where and How to Register Your Russian Visa
According to the new law issued in 2007 it is the responsibility of accommodating party to register your visa once you arrive. So forget about OVIRs and forget about asking your travel agency to register your visa – they can't do it anymore. Actually this is good news, because it means no more queues and lower prices ($5 as opposed to minimum $20 before).

If you're staying at a hotel:

If you are staying at a hotel, the hotel must register your visa (according to the Federal Law #115-FZ, Article 24). The hotel administration will ask you for your Russian visa, passport, and migration card (which was given to you at the Russian border). A small registration fee can be imposed (from $0.5 US to about $5 US) and normally it takes from a few minutes to a day to have your visa registered. If you're staying at a hostel, they'll most likely register your visa only if it was issued with them. It means that if you want to be more flexible in choosing where you live, it's better not to get your visa through hostels, because then you'll be obliged to stay there at least for one night, othewise they won't register your visa. The reason is that hostels in Russia don't issue the invitations themselves, but do it through affiliate travel agencies, that's why the travel agency rules apply to them as well (see below).

If you're staying with friends or renting an apartment:

According to the new rules any Russian citizen with "propiska" (registration) can register a foreigner at his/her apartment at a local police station or any post office. The whole procedure takes about an hour (because of the forms you need to fill out and queues) and costs about €5. You can also use a travel agency that issued your visa, but they will basically have to do the same: find a person who has a flat in the city you're in and have them register you on their address. That's why you'll pay €20, not €5 (because someone else will have to queue and get paid for it
Please note that not registering your Russian visa may lead to serious problems: detention by police, fines on departure, prevention from boarding the plane, etc. We strongly advise you to register your Russian visa to avoid possible consequences.

I think it clarifies what could happen if you don't register your visa properly. In some hostels you are charged for registration almost the same amount the fine could be.

"The new Russian administrative codex, which became effective on the 1st July 2002 is implemented by the Russian Federal Law # 195-FZ (30 Dec '02). The Article 18.3 (Federal Law #195-FZ) states that in case of such infringement a fine up to 1000 R ($20 US) may be imposed, and also the foreigner who made such infringement may be (but not necesserily will be) deported (sent out) of Russia. Also, the police has a right to take you to the police station for not longer than 3 hours, if it is necessary to learn who you are and to give you an invoice for the fine. That's all. As you see, the worst thing that can actually happen with the police if you don't register your visa at all is 3 hours in the police and maximum a $30 US fine."

More INFO

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Capo Sakke, thanks for the info. The whole process is probably rather intimidating for people not familiar with the language or how things work here. Even for those of us familiar with the system, it is a real pain!

Thanks motoreiter I don't understand Russian either but have been working on your country and done Ladoga to Murmansk via old military trails so have some experience how things work there. :confused1:
All information is available trough Internet but takes some time to search.
Nevertheless it's here now.
I'll be passing by north of Moscow on June.

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Hi Daniel
In short it's often a pain to get the registration done in the east of Russia. You don't say what your route through Russia is, but it sounds like it can be easier in the western part of the country.
Near the borders I went through eg Kazakhstan and Mongolia the hotels seem to know what is needed to be done, but I think you'll see from some of the posts and threads here that many of us who have travelled through had problems away from the borders.
I was nearly always camping, so at one hotel near Novosibirsk, I had only stayed there because they assured me they would get me through the registration process and then as I was checking out I found out they hadn't. This resulted in me doing a sit-in for six hours until they got it done. I was a bit desperate as I was at the end of my three working days period of grace allowed.
At some of the police checkpoints, they will look at passports and check that you have a hotel registration slip.
I went in and out of Russia twice and it seemed that as long as I had one registration done for that visit, no-one questioned it. Some of the people here on Horizons have been fined when they've got to the border to leave and have no registration slip.

Good luck.

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