Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

As part of efforts by Azerbaijan's government to facilitate visits to Azerbaijan for foreigners, from now on visitors arriving in the Land of Fire can register their stay in the county at the post offices.

Based on the new change, the visitors can register their stay at any post office under Azerbaijan's postal operator Azerpoct. To this end, a contract has been signed by the postal operator and the Migration Service. The service will be available in the near future.

Over 96,500 foreigners registered their stay at the service in September. Migration Service said it received more than 8,300 applications from foreigners and stateless persons last month in connection with extension of the period of their stay in the country, permit for permanent and temporary accommodation, admission to citizenship, restoring and denial of citizenship, as well as determination of citizenship and refugee status, issuance and extension of individual work permit.

Based on a law from April 2013, any foreigners and stateless persons arriving in Azerbaijan for a period exceeding three days should registered at the Migration Service.

For this purpose, the receiving party of foreigners at hotels and other public places or apartments, should submit an application form of registration based on the place of the foreigners and submit the copy of the person's ID to the Migration Service personally, via mail or email within 3 days.

The service is free and application forms are available at the Service, post offices and at www.migration.gov.az. E-application must be send to [email protected].

Upon receiving the application, the Migration Service immediately registers the foreigners upon place of their stay and presents written notification to receiving party within 1 working day.

Foreigners can be registered for the period of their stay in their visa, or for 90 days for foreigners arriving under the visa-free regime.

It also must be noted, that after foreigners leave the place of their stay, the receiving party should brief the Migration Service about the change to cancel the registration. Foreigners are considered as unregistered upon expiry of their registration period.

Foreigners should also renew their registration after changing the place of their stay.

The procedure of the registration is not a complex one, however, some foreigners and receiving parties don't take it serious and this usually leads to penalties and even deportation with a ban on visiting the country for a defined period.