The first week: address registration and why it comes first

What you need to do

After arrival a dozen tasks appear at once, and it feels as if their order does not matter. It does, because several of them are blocked by one document — proof of registration at your address.

Address registration is an entry in the local register stating where you live. It is required when applying for a residence permit, often when opening an account, usually when arranging insurance. Until it exists, the other procedures either do not start or start and run into it.

Two things follow. First, look for housing with registration in mind: the landlord must be willing to confirm that you live at that address. Second, in most countries registration has a limited window after moving in, and that window starts when you move in — not when you get round to the paperwork.

The order of the first week

1. Move in and get the landlord's confirmation of your address. Without it there is no registration, and without registration there is nothing else.
2. Register your address. The window is short and runs from the move. Booking an appointment also takes time, and that time sits inside the window, not after it.
3. Arrange insurance if you do not have it yet. In some countries a residence permit will not be issued without it; in others you cannot enrol at the university — so it is not the last item but a condition of the earlier ones.
4. Register with the immigration authority, where that is a separate step. In some countries registering an address and registering as a foreigner are two different procedures in two different places.
5. Apply for a residence permit. Here the deadline works differently: it is counted not from entry but backwards from the date the visa expires.
6. Open a bank account. It almost always comes after registration, and that is not the bank being difficult: an entry in the register is what proves where you live.

What goes wrong

All the deadlines are assumed to start from the same event. There are three different ones. The address-registration window runs from moving in. The residence-permit deadline is counted in working days from entry in some countries, and backwards from the visa's expiry in others. Confusing them means being late while, by your own understanding, breaking nothing.

Address registration and foreigner registration are taken as one procedure. They are different entries in different registers, and one does not replace the other.

Housing is taken where registration is impossible. A short let, a sublet without the owner's consent, a room "without registration" — each of these means the chain stops at step one. The question about confirming the address is asked before signing, not after.

Insurance is left for later. It is needed for more than the visa: in some countries a residence permit is not issued and enrolment is not completed without it. Left to the end, it undoes the work of the earlier steps.

People wait for one country-wide instruction. The registration window and the list of documents are set by the local administration: in two cities of the same country the appointment window and the paperwork may differ. What you need is your city's page.

The Moldovan side is forgotten. Leaving the country for a long period without being removed from the military register is penalised, and that is a procedure of its own, done at home. A long stay in another country may in itself also require registering your residence there.

Where this is stated officially

• Your Europe — residence documents and formalities: what is required of an arriving person and in which order.
• BAMF — the German federal office for migration: residence procedures and the lists attached to particular statuses.

How to check the requirement is still current

Check your own city's page rather than a general portal: the general rule sets the frame, but the appointment window and the list of documents are set by the local administration.

Deadlines and requirements by country are collected below, each with a link to its primary source and a verification date. These deadlines change more often than most, so the date here is not decoration: it tells you how fresh the thing you are about to rely on actually is.