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.

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).

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.

Know Your Rights - Russian Registration Laws.
Effective as of 1 November 2002 the new law "On the Status of Foreign Citizens in Russian Federation" (Law #115-FZ, issued 25/07/02) regulates such issues as Russian visa registration, describes the proccess of applying for a permit of stay in Russia or for Russian citizenship.
Here we will only show what this law says about visa registration.
Specifically, Article 20-1 claims that "A foreign citizen, once entered the Russian Federation, must register during the first three working days after his arrival, at the order provided by this law and other federal laws". Article 20-2 claims that the children under 18, who entered Russian Federation with their parents, or with one of the parents, should be registered together with the parent.
The order of registration is defined in the Article 21. Specifically, the Article 23-3 says that a foreign citizen should register at the place of his arrival in Russian Federation. (e.g. if you arrived in Irkutsk, and plan to stay there for longer than 3 days, you should register, even if you're going elsewhere after). The Article 23-3 also says that if a foreign citizen changes the place of his stay, he should register in the new place during the first three working days after his arrival. (e.g. if you came to St. Petersburg for 4 days, and then plan to stay in Moscow for another 5 days, you should register twice - once in St. Petersburg, then in Moscow.)
Article 21-6 claims that if a foreign citizen lost his documents during his stay in Russian Federation, he should not register. In this case, he should leave Russia not later than 10 days (including holidays) after he obtained the temporary documents.
According to Article 22 the foreigners who enter Russian Federation with diplomatic purpose, should be registered by the Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs. (If that is your case, we advise you to contact the organization you're visiting in Russia to learn in detail about the registration process, as it is different)
The documents needed for registration are listed in the Article 23: 1) a migration card with a stamp of passport control at the border; 2) passport or an identity document (it should be passport, because there's visa in the passport).
According to Article 24, a hotel must register a foreign citizen who is staying there, and forward all the information to the Russian immigration officials. When a foreigner leaves the hotel, the hotel must forward the date of leaving to immigration officials again.
The categories of foreigners who should not be registered are listed in the Article 25: 1) president of a state, head of international delegation, members of foreign government organisations, and members of their families; 2) (sic) foreign citizens, who arrived to Russia for the period not longer than 3 days, excluding those who stay in a hotel (in this case, the hotel will register this person anyway); 3) sailors, pilots; 4 and 5 lists other categories.
Please, note, that if you were fined twice for breaching the Russian registration rules by the authorities, this information will be entered in the database and there's a high chance you won't be able to get a Russian visa for 5 years.

Where 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.
If you're staying in a hotel: If you are staying at a hotel, the hotel must register your visa (according to the 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 in 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 in 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: - in this case the landlord should register your visa. Back in 2005 it meant going to OVIR, local police station, queuing for hours, etc. etc.

In 2007 the law has changed and now it's very easy – forget about OVIR, it's obsolete now. Here's how the registration is done:

1. A foreigner submits his passport and migration card to the landlord. The landlord takes these to any post office or a local immigration office and fills out a registration form (download it from our blog). He also enters his own passport details and needs to have his own passport when going to the post office. It's essential that the landlord himself is registered at this address. The good news is that no approval of the other people registered at the apartment is needed (as it was before).

2. The authorities accept the form and give a tear off coupon with a stamp to the landlord. He gives it back to the foreigner and the foreigner keeps it until departure. Please note that the foreigner himself is not supposed to go to the police at all.

3. The registration is to be done within three business days upon arrival.

4. When leaving, the foreigner gives back the tear off coupon to the landlord (he does not need to show it at the border) and the landlord passes it to the police. This should be done within 24 hours after departure. If the landlord doesn't pass it to the authorities, he/she may be fined and the foreigner might not be allowed to Russia anymore. So make sure the landlords sends to tear off coupon back to take you off the registration records.

5. The procedure can be done in any post office. In this case the same documents are presented to the post office, they check them and give the landlord the coupon back and when the foreigner leaves, the landlord can send the coupon back by post as well. This procedure (submitting the registration by post) works in Moscow, we do not yet know if all the post offices in Russia are aware of this procedure.

What If You Don't Register?
I wouldn't bother writing all that if it was ok not to register your visa. But it's not. First, you might have problems with the police (if they stop you to check your passport), second, you might have problems with immigration officials when you're leaving Russia: from having to pay a fine, to being deported.
The fines that you might pay (about $100-$200 US) in both cases are higher than the registration fee. In the worst case, you may even be deported from Russia, if you don't have your registration.
If you are deported, you can't enter Russia for 5 years after the deportation.
So, we strongly recommend you to register your visa in 72 hours (only working days count) upon arrival.
If you have any problems with registration, don't let it go, read the information below, it should help you to solve them.
Also it's always better to know how far your rights extend to, so below we also provide references (and short descriptions) to some Russian visa registration laws, which might be useful if somebody wants to take advantage of you.
Recent reports suggest that if you were fined twice for breaching the Russian visa registration rules, you significantly lessen your future chances of getting a Russian visa (for 5 years).

Problem Situation 1 - Can't Find Where to Register.
Description: What if you're not living in a hotel and the agency that issued the invitation for your visa doesn't have an office in Russia? (it means they fucked you up in a way...)
Reason: This situation may happen if you made your tourist or business invitation through a company that doesn't have an office in the city you're in, and you decided not to live in a hotel, but to live in an apartment or with your friends. It's not a big problem.
Solution 1: Contact the travel agency, explain the situation, ask them what to do. Most probably, they'll make a special letter to UVIR (immigration officials), which you will then need to bring to a local UVIR office. This option is the most legal and cheapest one, but also time-consuming.
Solution 2: You just go to any hotel (the cheapest one), buy a room there for one night only, and ask stamp a registration in your passport for the whole period of your visa. Not that they're obliged to do it, but they can. If they don't want to (for example, because you pay for 1 night only), try to persuade them refering to Federal Law #115 (26/07/02).
Problem Situation - What If You Lost Your Documents?
It's better to be very careful and not to lose the passport with a visa, but if that happened, you should do the following procedure:
Solution (in 6 steps):
1. Go to any police station around the area where your passport was lost and get a special paper, which says that your passport was indeed lost (it's called "spravka" in Russian).
2. Make sure you still have your planeticket with the date of return. If you don't, book a new flight and get the printed confirmation of booking.
3. Make some passport size photos on a special paper (not shiny) - available in any photo places.
4. Go to your embassy to get a new passport (you should contact the embassy just after you lost the passport to start processing).
5. If you have a copy of your lost visa it's better.
6. Take all the documents and papers listed above (the spravka from police, your plane ticket, photos, new passport, copy of your lost visa (if you have one)) and take it to the office of the travel agency that issued your visa support. Usually, it's the same office where you had to make your visa registration. You will be fined about $150-250 US by immigration officials and, if everything will go allright, you'll be given a new visa in a few days.
Problem Situation - Police Scams.
The visa registration thing was made up mostly for people from CIS countries, rather than the foreigners, to avoid illegal immigration. That's why cops stop people on the streets sometimes to check if they have a registration or not (even ordinary Russians are stopped sometimes too, so everybody carries his passport - that's the only legal id we have in Russia, driving licences or id cards don't count).
There's nothing horrible or frightening in being stopped, it's normal. Some cops will care if you don't have a registration, some won't. If a cop stops you to check your documents and you don't have a registration, he has a right (according to the Russian law) to take you to police station and to fine you. He doesn't have rights to detain you for longer than 3 hours (except special cases), or to deport you from Russia (this is done by court decree only).
From my own experience, police never stops or checks women, especially foreigners.
The problem is that sometimes cops use the registration regulation to make money on it. A cop stops a foreigner on the street, checks his passport, sees that he doesn't have a registration (even if 72 hours haven't passed yet) and says something like: "Ok, big problem, pay hundred dollars or go prison". Clearly, this is a real crap, they just want a bribe. If you want, you can pay him a bribe, or you can show them that you know your rights and they'll leave you alone.
Your rights: If less than 72 hours have passed since you arrived in Russia (or in any Russian city) - excluding holidays and weekends - you have not broken any regulations and laws, so you don't even have to pay any fines (refer to Federal Law #115 - 26/07/02, Article 20-1 - see description at the beginning of this page).
If more than 72 hours have passed, and you haven't registered your visa, then it is considered that you made an "administrative infrigement" and you're subject to the Russian administrative codex regulations. 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 ($45 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 $45 US fine. However, you might be deported, and that is a big problem, so we strongly advise you to register your visa.
What to do: If you believe that you didn't make any infridgements (72 hours haven't passed yet), then you can refer to the Law #115 (from 26/07/02) and if that doesn't help, contact your embassy and to tell them you're being harassed by police. In this case, the policeman will be fired.
If you know that you broke the law, you will need to pay a fine. If you want to get an official invoice (according to Fed. Law #195-FZ, Article 18.3), you might have to go to police station where they'll file a special 'act' and fine you officially for not more than $150 US. They can also start procedures to send you out of Russia. In that case, you should contact your embassy.
Problem Situation - Customs.
If, for example, you haven't registered your visa and were not stopped by police or were stopped but always paid the bribes, you might have problems with customs or passport control officials. When my friend came to me once a few years ago, she didn't register her visa (we thought it'd be interesting to see what happens). She was never checked or stopped by police, so that was ok. But when she was leaving Russia, she was stopped by customs control and they wanted to fine her for not having the registration (the maximum fine is, according to the Fed. Law #195-FZ, Article 18.3 is $30 US). So the immigration officer told her something like: "money, money... credit cards.... cheques... no registration... pay pay..." (he obviously had problems articulating English words). She said that she has a registration and showed him some paper attached to her passport (there are many little papers). He asked money again, but she showed the paper again. So, he thought that she was silly or maybe he didn't want to bother (especially that she said she didn't have money), so he didn't fine her.
My advice if you're in such situation: 1) play silly, show some papers (as many as you can find) and make it seem as if you think that's the registration; 2) show you don't have any money, even credit cards. Success isn't guaranteed, but you increase the chance that the immigration officer will not want to involve and will switch to someone else.
HOWEVER, I strongly recommend you not to lead the situation to such extremes and to register your visa, and play according to the rules. Then everything will be fine.

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