What changed on 1 September 2025
For years hotels filed Form C under rule 14 of the Registration of Foreigners Rules, 1992. On 1 September 2025 the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 came into force and repealed the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939; the new Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025 replaced the 1992 rules the same day. For an accommodation provider the practical changes are:
- The form is Form III. The Rules print it as “Form III [Earlier Form ‘C’]”. The job is the same.
- OCI cardholders are now included. Rule 17(1) says “every foreigner, including an Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder”. They were exempt from Form C before.
- The list of accommodation is longer. Homestays, rented accommodation, tents, hostels, paying-guest houses and the premises of religious institutions and charitable trusts are named.
- Departure has its own deadline: within 24 hours after the guest leaves.
- Records are kept electronically for at least one year and shown on demand.
Who has to report, and for whom
The Act puts the duty on the keeper of accommodation — the person in charge of managing the place, including anyone that person authorises. “Accommodation” is any premises, temporary or permanent, where a foreigner stays, and the Rules spell out that it includes a boarding house, club, dak bungalow, rest house, hostel, paying-guest house, sarai, rented accommodation, home stay, tents, hospital, and the premises of religious institutions and charitable trusts.
- Not covered: residential premises of a non-commercial nature — a family putting up a friend from abroad — unless the civil authority directs otherwise for a specified area.
- Who is a foreigner: anybody who is not a citizen of India. An OCI cardholder is covered; an Indian citizen living abroad, travelling on an Indian passport, is not a foreigner and is not reported.
- Nepal and Bhutan: the 2025 exemption order frees their citizens from the passport and visa requirements. We found no exemption from the accommodation report, so ask your FRO before leaving them out.
Reports go to the Registration Officer. A notification of 1 September 2025 authorises the Superintendent of Police of each district, or the Deputy Commissioner of Police, to act as Registration Officer and designates them Foreigners Registration Officer (FRO).
The deadlines
| What | By when | Where it says so |
|---|---|---|
| Report the arrival (Form III) | As soon as may be, and not beyond 24 hours after the foreigner arrives | Rule 17(5) |
| Report the departure | As soon as may be, and not beyond 24 hours after the foreigner leaves | Rule 17(6) |
| Keep the record | Electronically, for at least one year | Rule 17(1) |
| Show the record | At any time, on demand by the Registration Officer, the District Magistrate or a police officer not below Head Constable | Rule 17(2) |
The clock runs from the guest’s arrival at your property. A guest who checks in at 11 pm must be reported by 11 pm the next day — which is why the desk should file it the same night, not leave it for the morning shift.
Registering your property on the portal
You cannot file until the Registration Officer has approved your account, so do this before your first foreign guest arrives. The Bureau of Immigration’s own guide sets out the steps:
- On indianfrro.gov.in, open the Form C / Form III section and register as a new user. The accommodation types offered include hotel, guest house, bed and breakfast, dharamshala, service apartment, institute and individual house.
- Enter the user’s details (name, designation, email, mobile), the property’s details (name, capacity, address, state, district, FRRO, type and grade) and the owner’s details.
- Print the “Request Form for User Registration”, sign it, and hand it in with the documents your FRRO or FRO office asks for.
- Wait for the office to approve the account. Until it does, the portal will not let you enter a guest.
- An individual house owner registers with OTP verification instead, and the portal asks for the owner’s identity and address proof.
What to collect at check-in
Most of Form III is copied from the passport and the visa, so take a clear photo or scan of both — or of the OCI card — at the desk, and ask the rest while the guest is standing in front of you:
| Part of the form | What it asks |
|---|---|
| Your premises | Name and address of the accommodation, and its phone number |
| The guest | Full name as in the passport, nationality, passport number, visa or OCI number and type, a phone number in India, email, and a photograph |
| Arrival | Arrived from, date and time of arrival, purpose of visit (tourism, business, employment, medical, student, conference, other), previous place of stay |
| Departure | Date and time of departure, and the next destination |
The form is one per foreigner: a family of four foreign nationals is four reports.
Filing it, step by step
- Log in to the Form III portal, or the Indian Visa Su-Swagatam app, with your approved account.
- Enter the guest’s details from the passport and visa, and add the photograph.
- Submit within 24 hours of arrival and note the acknowledgement the portal gives you.
- Keep that acknowledgement with the guest’s stay record, so anyone can see it was filed and when.
- When the guest checks out, enter the departure — date, time and next destination — within 24 hours.
- Keep it all for at least a year, ready to show on demand.
What happens if you do not report
Failing to report a foreign guest breaks section 8 of the Act and rule 17 of the Rules. The Act’s general penalty is imprisonment of up to three years, a fine of up to ₹3,00,000, or both. The offence can be compounded — settled by paying a set amount — for ₹50,000 in each case, by the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer; compounding is not available again for a similar offence within three years of the last one.
Mistakes to avoid
- Leaving out OCI cardholders, who were exempt under the old rules and are not now.
- Filing the arrival and forgetting the departure.
- Waiting for the first foreign guest before registering the property, then missing the 24 hours while the account waits for approval.
- Filing “next morning” for a guest who arrived yesterday morning.
- One report for a whole family or group instead of one per foreigner.
- Passport photos saved on staff phones and forwarded on WhatsApp — see the next section.
ID documents and guests’ data
The passport scans, Aadhaar copies and phone numbers a hotel collects are personal data. A passport photo forwarded once cannot be taken back, so handle them as carefully as the cash:
- Aadhaar. Under UIDAI’s Aadhaar (Sharing of Information) Regulations, 2016, anyone collecting an Aadhaar number or a document carrying it must use it for a lawful purpose, tell the person why and what the alternatives are, take consent, keep it secure, and not keep it longer than the purpose needs. UIDAI’s guidance is to verify Aadhaar by scanning its QR code and, if a copy must be kept, to keep the number masked; the Aadhaar app lists hotel check-in by QR scan as one of its uses.
- Every ID copy. Keep ID images in one private place, not in phone galleries and chat groups; let only the people who need them open them; tell guests what you keep and why; and delete them when you no longer have a reason to keep them — while keeping the Form III record for the year the Rules require.