Will there be a problem with my Russian visa?
 

I recently hired a visa service company (Go To Russia) to ensure that I get a full 30-day visa for my upcoming trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg (May 5 to May 15).
I also paid an extra fee to have Go To Russia register my 30-day visa upon my arrival in Moscow. I could have had my hotel do this, but they would have registered my visa only for the days I am staying with them, not for the entire 30 days of my visa.

However, I just found out that I will need to re-register my visa every time I arrive in a new city in Russia and stay for more than 3 days. Since I will be going back and forth between Moscow and St. Petersburg, I have the following concern:

Will there be a conflict between my service company registering my visa for 30 days upon my arrival in Moscow, and my hotels also registering my visa, but only for the days I'm staying with them?* In this case, which registration would count with the Russian government, the one my hotel makes, or the one my visa service company makes?

It is very important to me that my 30-day visa will actually be valid for 30 days. I do not want to have problems leaving the country should there be some kind of delay or travel disruption.


* I will be in Moscow from May 6 to May 10
I will be in St. Petersburg from May 10 to May 14
I will be back to Moscow from May 14 to May 15, then depart to New York.


FYI: Go To Russia does not have a St. Petersburg office, otherwise I would have simply re-registered with them upon my arrival in St. Petersburg.

I think you are confused as to what this registration means and how it is done. First of all, your visa will remain valid unless it is explicitly cancelled by the Russian government. Visa validity does not depend whether you follow registration rules in Russia or not.

Now about registration. In Russia, citizens and non-citizens are supposed to register at the place they reside or temporarily staying. When you stay at hotels, they register you automatically once you present your passport at check-in. If you stay in a private citizen's home, that citizen is responsible with registering you at his/her address. Either way, as a visitor you are not expected to stand in long queues in regional Federal Migration Service centres or post offices to register yourself. Besides, if you are staying for less than 3 days, you are not even required to be registered at all. I suppose, you will be staying at hotels only during this trip?

I have never dealt with visa centres, but I cannot understand how they can physically register you in Russia. What address would they provide?

The three day period has been extended to seven business days a while ago. This means that you'd need to register in a place if you are staying there for seven business days or longer.

With your schedule, there is technically no need to register at all, provided you keep your ticket stubs as proof that you didn't stay anywhere for seven days or more.

The hotels would still register your even if you stay for just one night, but some don't even bother (I've seen that often in the provinces, not so much in the big cities).

There's no need to pay Gotorussia for this.

Thanks for clarifying. I guess GoToRussia ripped me off by implying that if I don't register with them, my visa would only be valid for the days I am staying at my hotels. I already paid for this, as I didn't want to take any chances in the bureaucratic nightmare of a country.
By the way, are you sure that the rule has been extended to 7 days?

So, you're saying that, technically, once I get my Russian visa, I don't have to do anything else?
I already paid GoToRussia to register my 30-day visa with them, so I might as well do this on arrival.

The registration of the visa must be done by EITHER the accomodation provider OR the invitation issuer within 7 days of your arrival. The visa service companies are thus charging for a service that will automarically be done free of charge by your hotel.

You don't need anything else and you didn't really need gotorussia registration to begin with given you plan to stay at hotels...

Yep, there is no such thing as "registering the visa". Seems like GoToRussia is sleazier agency than others if they go these lengths to extort more money from inexperienced tourists.

What should I do now? They claim that the visa will only be registered for the dates I am staying at my hotels, which is true. I didn't want any problem with this, so I sprung for the full 30-day registration.

What is true? Again, there is no such thing as "visa registration". Did you already get the visa? That is all you need to enter and exit Russia. When you check into hotels, they will register you.

Yes there is such a thing, but there is no need to pay for the agency to do it. It used to be federal and now it is local/regional government responsability, since '07. As I stated earlier: The registration of the visa must be done by EITHER the accomodation provider OR the invitation issuer within 7 days of your arrival. This includes internal/domestic travel.

If you go to MOW and stay in a hotel for 8 days and then go to LED and stay with a friend for another 8 days, then you would have to be registered in MOW by the hotel, and then in LED by your friend.

Even if you take the weird idea that there is such thing as 'visa registration', there's no point to argue. Just because there are less than 7 business days between May 6 and May 15.

No, there is no such thing. Whether you have visa or not, you have to register at the place where you reside - permanently or temporary. Foreigners and citizens should go through this procedure. How can you call it a visa registration if it has nothing to do with the visa and has no effect on the validity of the visa?

Same process applies to a Russian citizen (although the time requirement might be different). What does visa agency have to do with this? They just produce an invitation to obtain the visa. What happens after the visa is issued does not concern them.

Semantics. You must register. Yes, you don't register your visa, but you must register and your visa number is part of that registration process. That they refer to this registration as "Visa Registration" is irrelevant. It refers to a process that is required and if you didn't want to use a hotel or make your friend do it, then yes, you would want to pay the agency to do it for you. Yes, it is a ripoff for 98% of all travelers,, but they are still referring to an actual task.

I've had good service from Go To Russia in the past ten years and even used their St Petersburg Office last year. I'm sure you can get a refund from them for the registration fee you've already paid if you call and request it now before your trip begins.