The short answer: every foreign national in mainland China must register their address with the local police within 24 hours of moving in, unless a hotel does it at check-in. Since September 21, 2026 that registration can be filed online anywhere in the country, with the same legal effect as going in person. If you rent, your landlord files it.
The obligation itself has not changed
Article 39 of the Exit and Entry Administration Law is short, and it has read the same way since 2013. Stay in a hotel and the hotel registers you. Stay anywhere else, which means a rented apartment, a friend’s spare room or a family home, and you or the person putting you up must register with the public security bureau where you are living, within 24 hours of arriving. The National Immigration Administration sets out Article 39 in English, and the full Chinese text of the law is published on the site of the Chinese consulate-general in Hamburg.
This is the single most commonly missed obligation among foreigners in China, and it is missed by people who are otherwise completely in order. It applies every time you move, not only when you first arrive. It applies when you come back from two weeks abroad. It applies to the week you spend at a friend’s place between leases. Our reference page on address registration and overstay penalties sets out the deadlines and what happens when they are missed.
What changed on September 21, 2026
The National Immigration Administration published Announcement No. 7 of 2026, taking the online registration channel nationwide that same day. You can now file through the NIA government-service platform, the 移民局12367 app, or the mini-programs inside WeChat and Alipay. The announcement is explicit that filing online and filing at a police station carry equal legal weight.
Before this, the online channel ran as a pilot in seven provinces and municipalities: Hebei, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangxi, Chongqing and Sichuan. It opened on March 20, 2026. Everywhere else meant finding your local 派出所, working out its hours, and taking your passport there in person inside a 24-hour window that usually started the moment you got off a long flight.
If you have lived in China for any length of time, you already know what that particular errand costs you. One of the quieter pleasures of the last few years has been watching these small frictions come off one at a time.
Who can file online, and who cannot
This is the part worth reading twice, because the convenience does not reach everyone equally. The NIA’s own policy explanation and its service-platform guidance set out three cases.
You own the home. File it yourself, online, whenever you like.
You have registered at this address before through the platform. File it yourself again. This covers the common case of returning from a trip to the same apartment.
You rent, or you are staying in someone else’s home. Your host files it for you. The guidance is direct about this: where a foreigner rents or borrows another person’s residence, the host completes the registration on their behalf. The host can be a Chinese citizen or a foreign national, and in practice they are the one with the property documents the form wants.
For most people reading this, that third case is the one that applies, and it means your compliance depends on your landlord doing something in the next 24 hours. Ask them the day you sign the lease, not the day you move in. If they will not, or cannot, you can still go to the police station yourself, which remains available everywhere and always will be.
About that 72-hour rule
You will find a great many pages, including some good ones, telling you that the deadline stretches to 72 hours in rural areas. For foreign nationals, it does not, and it has not for over a decade.
The 72-hour figure came from the 1986 implementing rules to the old aliens entry-exit law. Those rules were repealed on September 1, 2013, in the final article of State Council Decree 637, the regulation that replaced them. What governs you now is Article 39, and Article 39 says 24 hours with no geographic exception. The 72-hour deadline still exists in the separate registration rules that apply to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan residents, which is very likely how it survives in so much English-language advice aimed at foreigners.
Treat 24 hours as the number, wherever you are.
What this looks like in practice
Arriving at a new address, the sequence is short. Confirm who is filing, you or your host. Have your passport, your current visa or residence permit, and the lease or the host’s property document ready, because the online form asks for the same information the counter asks for. File within 24 hours. Keep the confirmation, because the registration record is what the Exit-Entry Administration Bureau will ask for when you apply for or renew your permit.
None of this is difficult. It is simply easy to forget, and the penalty for forgetting falls on you rather than on the person who should have told you. If you are working out how the registration record fits the longer route, temporary versus permanent residence covers where a long stay eventually leads. And if you would like a second pair of eyes on where you stand, get in touch. Working out whether you have a problem is not something we charge for.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I need to register my address in China if I am staying in a hotel?
- No. Hotels register every foreign guest with the local public security bureau at check-in, as Article 39 of the Exit and Entry Administration Law requires of them. You need do nothing beyond presenting your passport at the desk. The obligation falls on you only when you stay somewhere other than a hotel.
- How long do I have to register my address in China?
- Twenty-four hours from the moment you arrive at the address. This applies everywhere in mainland China, urban or rural. The widely repeated 72-hour rural deadline came from implementing rules repealed on September 1, 2013 and no longer applies to foreign nationals.
- Can I register my address online in China?
- Yes, anywhere in mainland China since September 21, 2026, through the National Immigration Administration service platform, the 12367 app, or the WeChat and Alipay mini-programs. Online filing has the same legal effect as registering at a police station. If you rent your home, your host files it rather than you.
- Do I have to register again if I move apartments or come back from a trip abroad?
- Yes to a new address, every time, within the same 24 hours. Returning to an address you have already registered through the platform is simpler, and you can refile it yourself online rather than asking your host.
- What happens if I do not register my address in China?
- Failure to register is a breach of the Exit and Entry Administration Law and is handled by the local public security bureau, which can issue a warning or a fine. The practical cost is usually larger than the penalty: a missing registration record can hold up a residence permit application or renewal until it is put right.
Which route actually fits you?
Work, family, study, investment and permanent residence each carry conditions that are easy to miss until the year they matter. Tell us where you are now and we will tell you plainly which one applies.
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