Deputies of the Legislative Chamber at a plenary session on July 22 conceptually approved in the first reading a law on tightening liability for accommodating foreign citizens without registration, the press service of the lower house of parliament reported.
Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Diyorbek Sattorov noted that in the first five months, the flow of foreign tourists to Uzbekistan increased by 27%, reaching 5.5 million people. A visa-free regime is in place for citizens of over 80 countries, and an electronic visa processing mechanism has been introduced.
He added that unresolved issues remain in the migration sphere. “Cases are often observed where officials of some hotels, tourist bases, boarding houses, campsites, hostels, sanatoriums, state and private medical institutions, without fully utilizing the created opportunities, receive foreign citizens and stateless persons at their accommodation facilities without temporary registration through the E-mehmon system,” Sattorov said.
According to him, this leads to violations of the established registration procedure, causing a number of uncertainties in their accounting and determining their actual location.
“Failure to comply with the established requirements allows such entities to evade taxes and contributes to the development of the shadow economy. This indicates the insufficient effectiveness of current penalties and requires the introduction of special liability standards for such entities,” the deputy minister said.
The amendments provide for supplementing Article 225 of the Code of Administrative Responsibility with a norm establishing punishment for certain categories of officials of accommodation facilities and medical institutions for violating the registration procedure for foreign citizens, as well as increasing liability for repeated offenses within a year.
It is proposed to grant internal affairs bodies the authority to consider such administrative cases.
In addition, liability of officials for allowing persons without identity documents to reside is being tightened.
Additionally, amendments to 24 laws are planned to bring terminology in line with current legislation. As a Ministry of Internal Affairs representative clarified, after the adoption of the law on reforming the system for obtaining temporary residence permits, technical adjustments need to be made to a number of laws, and the concepts of “permanent place of residence” and “temporary place of residence” should be replaced with “place of residence” and “place of stay,” respectively, to ensure their compliance.
In October 2025, the law “On Registration of Citizens of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Foreign Citizens, and Stateless Persons at the Place of Residence and Place of Stay” came into force. The document introduced the “E-notification” system, which provides for registration and enrollment of permanently residing foreign citizens and stateless persons when applying for registration at the place of residence.
Source: www.gazeta.uz