First 72 hoursPolice accommodation registration within 24 hours
Police accommodation registration within 24 hours
Anywhere that is not a hotel must be registered with the police within 24 hours of moving in. Hotels file for you. A friend’s sofa, a lane house and a private flat do not.
- 01
Hotel or serviced: they usually file. Still get the receipt before you go to the bank.
- 02
Private flat or lane house: file yourself, online first, at the public-security English login. If it bounces, go to the station for that street address — not “I think this is Jing’an”.
- 03
Typical papers: passport, visa or visa-free entry stamp, lease, a photograph of the doorplate, the fob.
- 04
Visa-free visitors file too. The 240-hour exemption is not an exemption from registration.
- 05
The receipt is what banks, licence conversion and residence permits ask for. Without it, do not promise a debit card the same afternoon.
Housing Ask at the viewing whether management will help. Lane houses, village houses and mixed commercial-residential stock fail this most often. Villas in Huacao and Qingpu: the station is far, so the online filing matters more.
Official sources
First 72 hours
- SIM card, bank account and mobile paymentThe order matters more than the brand of bank. A travel eSIM is data. A mainland real-name number is what receives bank texts.
- Move-in inspection and deposit evidenceThe deposit comes back on the dated photographs you take today. WeChat-compressed pictures without a date, and no meter readings, are how both sides later tell a different story.
Each guide gives the official process with source links and effective dates, plus the pitfalls we have recorded from real cases. Anything requiring a licence is referred to registered providers only.
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