Do you have to register when you arrive? Six countries where the answer is yes

Most travellers never discover this obligation exists, because the hotel discharges it for them. The registration card you fill in at check-in is not an administrative formality of the hotel's own invention — in much of Europe it is how the state is told you are there.

Stay somewhere that does not do it, and in several countries the duty becomes yours, with a deadline attached.

This is separate from your 90/180 allowance. Registering does not add days and failing to register does not take any away. It is its own obligation, with its own penalties.

Where the traveller has to act

Three countries put the duty on you directly when your accommodation does not register guests.

Czechia — 3 working days to report to the Alien Police. If you are staying at a commercial accommodation facility, it is done for you and you need do nothing.

Belgium — 3 working days to register with the municipal administration of the place you are staying, if you are not in a lodging house subject to the legislation on the control of travellers. The declaration is valid for a maximum of 90 days.

Luxembourg — 3 days, either by making a declaration of arrival at the communal administration or by completing the accommodation form at the establishment where you are staying. The accommodation form serves as the declaration.

The pattern is the same in all three: a hotel covers you, a friend's spare room does not.

Where taking accommodation triggers it

Austria works slightly differently. Anyone who takes up accommodation in a dwelling must register within 3 days. Tourist accommodation keeps a guest register that covers you, and stays of 3 days or fewer are exempt outright.

So a long weekend in a hotel raises no obligation at all. A fortnight in a friend's apartment does.

Where nothing happens until you have been there a while

Germany is the one people worry about unnecessarily. The Anmeldung has a fearsome reputation among people moving to Germany, and it does not apply to a short visit.

Under Section 27 of the Bundesmeldegesetz, for people who otherwise live abroad and are not registered in Germany, the duty arises only after 3 months in the country — and then you have 2 weeks to register.

A three-week holiday triggers nothing.

Where somebody else does it and you never see it

Portugal places the duty entirely on the accommodation provider. Hotels and other accommodation report foreign guests electronically through SIBA, the system for lodging bulletins. The form you fill in at check-in is what feeds it. You register nothing yourself.

What about everywhere else

This is where honesty is more useful than a longer list. DAYOZA publishes six countries here because six are what could be verified against that country's own government source. Several others were researched and deliberately left out:

• For Slovenia and Malta, an obligation surfaced in search but the official pages could not be read — one government site was returning its own outage notice, the other sits behind a challenge page. A search engine's summary of a law is not a reading of it.
• For Switzerland, the sources describing a registration duty concern EU and EFTA nationals taking up residence under free movement, which is a different question from what a short-stay visitor must do.
• For Liechtenstein, the eight-day duty in law applies to someone holding an assurance or visa for a residence permit, not to a visitor.
• For Iceland and Sweden, the only finding was the absence of a requirement — and "nothing is required" is itself a claim about the law that a missing web page does not establish.

If you are staying privately in a country not listed above, the reliable move is to ask your host or check that country's own immigration or police site. It is a short task and the alternative is a fine for something you did not know existed.

The rule of thumb that actually holds

Hotel: covered. The check-in form is the registration.

Anywhere else — a friend's home, a flat you rented privately, a boat, a house you own — assume you may need to act, and check. The deadlines above are three days in four of the six countries, which is not long enough to find out after you arrive.

And if your stay is long enough for any of this to matter, it is long enough to be worth checking your 90/180 position at the same time. The two obligations are unrelated, but they bite on the same trip.

Sources: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic — reporting duty of foreigners; Belgian Immigration Office — short stay; Guichet.lu — staying in Luxembourg for less than 90 days; oesterreich.gv.at — registering a residence; Section 27 Bundesmeldegesetz; SIBA — Sistema de Informação de Boletins de Alojamento.