Housing and communal services department: what do you need temporary registration for?

The traditional residence permit was replaced by registration on January 1. An ERB reporter tried to get temporary registration on the day the innovation came into power. However, employees of Minsk reference centres do not really know what the procedure should be like.
Employees of Pershamaiski District department of housing and communal services were surprised about my desire to get a temporary registration because it would not allow me to join the queue for getting a flat of my own and to get a job.

ERB.: I would like to get temporary registration. Who should I turn to and what documents do I need for it?
Specialist: All adult members of your family should come here. We will draw up agreements when you come. Everything is done here. You will need your passport, the passport of the owner of the flat and of everyone registered in it. Whose flat are you going to register in?
ERB.: My aunt’s.
Specialist: What do you need the temporary registration for?
ERB.: We do not have additional 20 square meters so I can only get a temporary registration.
Specialist: What is the use of registering temporarily? Will you come to prolong it every year? Do you need it or what? Well, if it satisfies you… You will not be able to join the queue for a flat and to get a job with such registration.

You will have to wait three days to find out whether the director has allowed you to register or not. ERB decided to find out if three pages would be enough for all registration notes in the passport. The Partyzanski District Reference Centre informed that passports were not required for temporary registration: it would be necessary to buy a special certificate and to change it every year.

Specialist: A special document will be added to the Belarusian passport.
ERB.: Will I have to pay for it?
Specialist: I am not sure about the price. We have no documents describing it at the moment: will you pay or not… You are likely to pay for the residence permit (registration).

A sum of 7 thousand BRB was mentioned. A lawyer from the Partyzanski District Reference Centre does not know what agreement she would have to draw up if I came to get temporary registration tomorrow. She confessed that she was busy studying the document.

Lawyer: We will have to conclude a contract. I am not sure but they say there will be no free contracts anymore. I am reading this document but nothing is said there. So I will have to find out more about the possibility of a free contract. If there isn’t any, you will not have to pay the tax.


ERB asked the deputy head of the department of citizenship and migration of Minsk City Executive Committee Ina Studzenchyk if it was possible to get a job in Minsk having a temporary registration. She said that it was impossible to predict in what way the law on registration would be functioning: officials do not even understand the innovation completely.


ERB’s note:

You used to need 12 square metres of living space per person to be registered in a flat. The number changed on January 1: it is 20 square meters for Minsk now (but the whole floor space is taken into account) and 15 metres for the rest of the country. You will need at least 4 square metres for a temporary registration.