Flash Trip to Shangai and Local Police Register
 

China is very rigorous with the movements that a foreigner do within the country. Actually, you must do register in local police of the new place you are and if you dont you may be fined when you try to go out or you will have problem to get future VISA.

Im planning a "flash" trip from Hunan to Shangai, the problem is that i will stay about 22 hours in Shangai and dont gonna rent hotel, just go, stay few hours and come back, and i dont know if i may do police registration, and if i do, where may i register as the place i will stay.

Help and feedback about this issue is so welcome.
Thank you.

Don't sweat this. You will not be able register anyway.

But this will lead to any future problem?

Where are these people coming up with these things? Where did you get your information about China?

I have registered ~10 times (only when needed for things like work permits) in 20+ years, and I wouldn't dream of registering any short term visitors who stay with me (I give the paranoid ones necessary documentation and point them towards the psb to enjoy the process on their own).

Don't worry about that. When you stay in a hotel, all the guests must register with the hotel and the government will know about that. When you take a train or a flight, you must present your ID/passport and they know where you are going. My wife spends weeks in China every year moving around from cities to cities and she never registers.

OP doesn't seem to be staying in a hotel.

OP’s also staying less than 24 hours.

Difficult to convey what these rules mean in reality and how they are enforced to anyone who’s not a frequent visitor/resident. Plenty of cases to be found online where people got “caught” so good for OP to ask about it. Personally, wouldn’t worry a minute about it. Enjoy your Shanghai visit!

" . . . just go, stay few hours and come back, and i dont know if i may do police registration, and if i do, where may i register as the place i will stay."

It doesn't sound like you're staying anywhere: not in a hotel not in a private place. Homeless in Shanghai as it were. The police registration needs an address, needs an owner of some sort at that address. Just try to register in your situation and I have no doubt you'll flummox the people at the paichusuo.

You need to register within 24 hours and you are there for less than 24 hours. So, no issue.

Looks like if you don't stay in a hotel or a dwelling place, you don't need to register. note: "Looks Like" means don't bet on it.
22 hours is kind of a long time of no sleep. If they try to jam you up...you can always play the F card.

“Article 39. Where foreigners stay in hotels in China, the hotels shall register their accommodation (住宿登记) in accordance with the regulations on the public security administration of the hotel industry, and submit foreigners’ accommodation registration information to the public security organs in the places where the hotels are located.”

“For foreigners who reside or stay in dwelling places (住所) other than hotels, they or the persons who accommodate them shall, within 24 hours after the foreigners’ arrival (入住) at that dwelling place, go through the registration formalities with the public security organs in the places of residence….”

When you check in, the hotel is supposed to copy your passport and then file your registration online with the public security bureau within 24 hours
You or the person whose home you are staying at should register with the local police station (派出所) within 24 hours of the time you arrive at that home

Many, if not most, PSBs require a certification form of some sort in addition to the property lease or ownership documents. At most residential compounds, the management office provides the certification form. The problem is, these offices don't always have people on hand or their chop is locked in a drawer that the people who are there don't have access to. After this, you need to go to the PSB that covers your district; mine recently moved 1 km away from its previous location, and didn't bother to place a sign on the door stating where the new location was. Oh, and after the move, they created a new "must provide 2 photos" requirement; conveniently, there is an overpriced photo place two doors away.:D

Like I said upthread, anyone who stays with me and really wants to register is on their own (I will give them the lease, of course).

I’ve lived in China for 5 years, I usually register, but I have not found it to be a must. During political sensitive times, it is a good idea to be registered because you are more likely to be randomally checked by the police. I prefer to be registered, because I feel like the enforcement of all laws is subjective, and should I have a civil issue like being hit by a car or something, I don’t want the joke of a legal system here to decide because I am not registered, so I am a bad foreigner who doesn’t follow the rules.

But, I’m leaving the country on Monday for 2 weeks, I”lol be back for a week, out again for a few days, back again for 3 days, and out again for about 2 weeks, and back for a month, I likely will not register at the police station 3 different times, especially because my local police station doesn’t actually seem to know how to register people. Also, if you go there on a weekend, they will tell you to come back on Monday, so much for 24 hours if you get in on Saturday or Friday after business hours. Even when they do register me, it is a process that takes 30-60 minutes, while they try and find the one cop who knows how to use the computer, and the one cop who knows enough English to transcribe information from my passport to the computer, and a third cop who sorta ends up watching the other two.

If they really found registration important, there would be a streamline process throughout the country, there would be 24 hour registration, with multiple desk cops trained to handle it. It is paperwork for the sake of paperwork. Also, if it was really a highly functioning system, you could go to any police station in the city and do it, rather than the one specific station with access to your address.

It is a time wasting joke, and I question the benefit of the system. This is a country where if you try to get a police check for your time in Beijing, in Shanghai, the entire system will ground to a haunt and nothing will be able to be done, because they don’t have access to those records.

I've always lucked out on this--it's never been more than about 20 minutes. On the other hand, my wife is a native speaker, if they don't understand something about the passport she can explain. It's also always been only one cop.

Yeah, it could be made much more efficient. To a considerable degree it should be able to be handled at immigration--our arrival cards have the address we are going to stay at on them. Why is that not sufficient unless we stay at multiple places?

I strongly suspect it's one of these things that hangs on from when they did care. It's awfully hard to get rid of old rules in China. It's also got some substantial holes in it--the majority of the time we have been in hotels they haven't registered us. We have yet to travel not in the company of at least one Chinese citizen and the hotels tend to take the easiest path--register our room to them even if they aren't staying in the same room we are. I would think this would be a common problem--until the era of AirBNB staying in a private home would pretty much mean you had fairly close ties with locals.

If you don't care about staying hotels without registering, why do you even bother with the far cumbersome process of self registration?