Registration after obtaining a temporary residence permit

So you have received a stamp in your passport that confirms your temporary residence status in Russia. What comes next? The law requires a foreign national to apply to the local migration service office within seven (7) business days for registration at the place of residence.

The law states that the seven business-day registration deadline shall be counted from the date of TRP issuance. The problem is that the stamp which confirms the grant of a TRP does not indicate the date of TRP issuance. There are different ways of solving this problem. Some Migration Service Offices specify the TRP issuance date in the document that confirms approval of temporary residence application. Other offices may offer different ways to address this problem. Please keep in mind that you would need to have some sort of document (or a note made by an FMS officer) confirming the date your temporary residence permit was granted.

So, you have put together all the required documents and submitted them for your registration before the deadline. How long will it take for the Federal Migration Service to process your registration? The answer to that is: it depends. It depends on specific circumstances, even though the law expressly requires that the office handling the registration process should “put the requested stamp on the same day.” This rule may actually work this way at some FMS office, but there are 130 district FMS offices in Moscow alone, and the processing speed will depend on the way registration is processed in each particular district. In practice, there are two basic ways:

• The application and required documents are submitted to a FMS office directly (in this case, if you are lucky enough, you could get your registration the same day or within the following two to three days)

• Documents are submitted to a local residents’ registration office which is usually part of a UIPPC (United Information & Payment Processing Center) or a “District Engineering Service,” a “Multifunctional Service Center,” a “Managing company,” Condominium Partnership Board, etc. (in this case processing may take up to one or two weeks).