China’s accommodation registration for foreigners is now online in 7 provinces

Every foreign national in China must have their accommodation registered with local public security within 24 hours of arrival — including travelers admitted under the 240-hour visa-free transit policy.

If you stay in a licensed hotel, the front desk does this automatically at check-in. If you stay in a private rental, spare room, or friend’s home, the duty is yours, and the way to fulfill it depends on which province you are in.

Do hotels register foreigners with police in China?

Yes, and for most travelers that is the whole story. Licensed hotels are required to enter a foreign guest’s passport details into the local police database at check-in.

The traveler does not need to file anything, and no separate receipt is handed over. The law treats the front desk as the registration point.

This is why the rule is invisible to the typical business traveler or tourist. They never hear about accommodation registration because, from their perspective, it does not exist. The moment it does exist is when the room is not a licensed hotel room.

Short-term rentals, serviced apartments without a hotel license, a friend’s home, a family member’s flat — all of those fall outside the automatic channel. If the bed is private, the paperwork is personal.

When you’re the one who has to register

For a private stay, the registration duty sits with the foreign visitor. The official process is simple on paper: within 24 hours of arrival, register the accommodation through the local public security authority. In practice, the route depends on where the property is and on who is answering questions at the local station.

The official material does not confirm a single national document list. As a defensive default, carry your passport, your visa or entry record, and the host’s identity details and residential address.

Some stations may ask for less. A few may ask for something extra. Treat the list as over-preparation, not a guarantee.

Do not assume the host has already handled it. The obligation can fall on either the foreigner or the host, but a traveler who leaves the country without a completed registration bears the risk personally. Before you book, ask the host explicitly: who files, and through which channel.

The online option is real — in seven regions, not everywhere

A National Immigration Administration pilot, launched on March 20, 2026, lets foreigners and hosts file accommodation registration online. The channels run through the NIA government-service website, the 12367 app, and the 12367 mini-programs on WeChat and Alipay.

But the coverage is regional, not national. Seven provincial-level areas are in the pilot: Hebei, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangxi, Chongqing, and Sichuan. Hangzhou, Chongqing, and Chengdu are inside that footprint.

Major transit cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Shenzhen, and Kunming could not be classified as online or in-person-only from the authoritative material available.

Outside the seven pilot regions, registration at a local police station or public-security service window remains the documented fallback. Before arriving, you need to know which province the property sits in, and then check whether that province is on the list.

What the law says happens if you don’t register

Article 76 of the Exit-Entry Administration Law, as summarized by the National Immigration Administration, authorizes a warning and possible fine when a foreigner or an accommodation host fails to register as required. That is the verified penalty baseline.

What the official material does not show is a named case in which failing to register led to detention, a cancelled visa, deportation, or a bar on future entry. Those outcomes exist in the broader legal landscape for immigration violations, but for the specific failure to register accommodation, no authoritative case was found.

That gap matters. It means a short-stay transit traveler should not be falsely reassured, but should also not be terrified into treating a two-night stop as a compliance emergency. The smart move is to register correctly and keep the receipt.

Why the patchwork exists — and why enforcement is hard to verify

China’s accommodation-registration system is administered locally, not through one national database the traveler can log into. The 2026 pilot pushes online filing into seven provinces, but it does not replace local police station registration everywhere. That produces two different systems running side by side, and the official material does not map the border between them for individual cities.

Enforcement is even murkier. How often police actually check accommodation records is not quantified in the official record. There is no published inspection rate, and no data comparing how enforcement falls on short-term transit travelers versus long-term residents.

A commercial travel site describes waits of one to four hours at some transport checkpoints, but no independent source backs that up, so it cannot be treated as representative enforcement data. The legal duty is easy to state — the real-world frequency of being caught is not.

What this means for you

Before booking a private stay, establish which province the property is in. Then put two questions to the host: is that province part of the National Immigration Administration pilot, and who will handle the registration?

Carry a defensive set of documents: your passport, your entry or visa record, and the host’s address and identity details. If the NIA 12367 channels cover your province, file online within 24 hours of arrival. If they do not, go to the public-security service window or the local police station and ask for the local checklist yourself, rather than relying on what a host told you.

Hold on to the registration record or receipt. If neither the host nor the station can explain the process, the 12367 line is the fallback. A piece of paper is easier to produce at a future border crossing than an account of how you tried.

Key terms

240-hour visa-free transit

A Chinese entry arrangement that lets nationals of participating countries stay up to 240 hours without a visa, provided they travel onward to a third country or region. As of August 20, 2026, it covered 57 nationalities and allowed entry through 60 open ports across 24 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. Because the policy admits travelers for up to 240 hours, it is the entry route most likely to produce a private-stay registration case.

Exit-Entry Administration Law

China’s principal statute governing the entry, stay, and exit of foreign nationals. Article 76 of the law provides the legal basis for a warning and a possible fine when a foreigner or an accommodation host fails to register as required. Its registration duty is what makes a hotel front desk collect your passport at check-in, even when the rule itself is never mentioned.

Accommodation registration

The legal requirement that a foreign national’s place of stay in China be recorded with local public security authorities. For private, non-hotel accommodation the deadline is 24 hours after arrival, while licensed hotels complete the filing automatically at check-in. Because the duty is administered province by province, two travelers in identical private flats can face different registration procedures.

12367

The National Immigration Administration’s service number, used for immigration inquiries and, under the 2026 pilot, for accommodation-registration filing. Filing runs through the 12367 app and the 12367 mini-programs on WeChat and Alipay, alongside the NIA government-service website. The same number serves as the filing channel in the seven pilot regions and as a general inquiry line elsewhere, which makes it the one constant across an otherwise fragmented system.

Questions? Answers.