Accommodation for Russia tourist visa
 

Hello,

From my research, it seems like you need a registered hotel or other accommodation to give you a specific number to include in your visa application after reserving said hotel/accommodation.

I was wondering if you can get a visa then cancel the hotel reservation and reserve something else. I don't know if it'll open things up to scrutiny or if you must stay at the hotel stated in the application that gave you the number for the visa.

Based on my experience, I would assume no. The routine seems to be that you pay the hotel to have an employee who is a Russian citizen "invite" you to visit Russia so that you can get a visa and, when you arrive at the hotel, they register your passport for the exact length of your reserved stay. If you're switching hotels or cities, this can be a problem.

It is possible to get a visa based upon staying at a specific hotel, but then cancel the reservation after receiving the visa. I have done this several times during visits to Russia. You still will want to have the hotel you end up staying at register you though, or else you will have trouble exiting the country. When staying privately, we have made hotel reservations to get the visa invitation letter, then cancelled the hotel reservation, and stayed with a friend who did the registration procedure through the local city office. If your stay is short enough, 48 hours, I think, not counting weekends, you don't have to register.

But it's really important to keep the registration slip if you move on to another location or hotel. They will want to see where you were previously.

If you do make a res at a hotel you dont plan to keep, Make sure you read ALL the fine print, alot of hotels will charge you if you do this after they registered you, Fee varies. At least thats what I found when I was planning my trip to LED a couple of years ago

Russian visa hotel invitation
 

For what it is worth, when I got my multi-entry tourist visa (US passport holder) for Russia, I had booked a hotel that provided a "complimentary" tourist invitation letter, but was advised by the hotel that should I cancel or not show up for my reserved stay, they would charge me a penalty roughly equivalent to $100USD. I had to present this invitation letter to SVO airport in Moscow.

As a follow up question for everyone more familiar with Russia travel, my visa was processed December 5, 2017 and valid for multi-entry between January 5, 2018 through March 19, 2020. I already have the visa and made one stay (December 2017 until January 2018) and am not planning a return trip. Do I need another invitation letter from a hotel to show at the airport or a rail crossing? I am planning a return trip to Moscow for next month (December 2019) and have the option of either traveling by train from Poland through Belarus to Moscow (which I am considering because I believe that Belarus now allows visa-free for 30 days for US citizens) or flying directly into Moscow and departing DME Moscow airport. I believe this question is still relevant for the original poster on a subsequent trip... is the invitation required for each subsequent visit to Russia?

Be careful, Belarus does NOT allow visa free travel if you arrive by train. You must arrive by plane at MSQ and you cannot arrive/depart on flights from/to Russia. Nor can you cross Belarus-Russia border by train, car or bus even if you have visas for both countries.

I don't know enough about Russian visas to answer the first part of the question.

While I have heard cases of US nationals traveling overland MSQ to MOW, since my trip is short I have decided to avoid risk and fly into MSQ then transit RIX before landing in DME. Cheers, Robert

I used one of the online services that offers invitation letters (~US$20), and stayed with friends, so had no hotel registration record. No issues arriving or leaving.

^^^ Which on-line service did you use? Do you recommend them based on your experience?