Moscow law requires everyone to hold a temporary or permanent registration at the address of one's residence. Permanent registration is only available for the citizens of the Russian Federation. Non-Russian citizens visiting or living in Moscow have to obtain a temporary registration within three working days from the day of their arrival to Moscow.

Hotel vs. Apartment Registration

If you are staying at a hotel, the registration will be done by the hotel. However, when you move to an apartment, the registration has to be obtained with the help of your landlord and the party that has issued the invitation for your visa (travel agency or your employer). The period of hotel registration is fourty days maximum. The period of apartment registration may be as long as the remaining duration of your Russian visa, but no longer then six months.

The procedure of apartment registration is not simple and may vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. In addition, there are significant differences between registering a business and a tourist visa. To make your life easier, and if your stay in Moscow is only fourty days or less, Evans will be glad to recommend you a firm that will provide you with a temporary registration at a hotel, regardless of the actual address of your stay for a fee of $30 to $60 USD. For long-term temporary registration in the apartment, the process is the following:

Who Has To Do It

Your landlords (all the owners of the apartment along with everyone who has permanent registration in the apartment) have to fill an application (zayavlenie) for your registration in the Passport office (pasportny stol) of the local building administration (DEZ). If you own your apartment, you will have to follow the same steps for your own registration. Unfortunately, the landlords have to visit the DEZ personally. In some instances, one may be fortunate enough to convince the DEZ official to accept the signed application from all of the owners, if one of the landlords brings along the original passports of the others. In other cases, a notarized power of attorney may work.

Required Documents

Make sure your landlords file a separate application for every member of your family requiring registration, since you will have to submit the original Zayavlenie for each family member. You will need to provide a passport and visa copy for every person. The landlords must present the originals (not a notarized copy) of ownership documents and passports.

Download the application form

Fees

In municipal buildings communal services such as gas, water, and a fixed monthly communal fee are still subsidized and are calculated based on the size of the apartment and the number of people residing in it. Therefore, registering additional people in a property increases its monthly communal payments. The DEZ official will calculate the increase in communal payments for the whole period of the registration and will issue a bill that you or your landlord will have to pay in the Sberbank before the DEZ will deliver a registered application.

Visa Registration

When you receive the registered by DEZ application for your registration, it should be passed to your travel agent or your employer that issued you an invitation for your visa. Only the organization that has invited you to Russia may complete your registration. It will take the originals of your passports, visas, migration cards along with the DEZ applications and a number of other documents to the authorized body to finally obtain your official temporary registration in Moscow.