Armenia’s State Population Register Law HO-233-N is enacted and is not yet in force. It commences the day after the new population register repository is launched, and by 1 January 2027 at the latest (Article 26(1)). No launch has been announced as of 16 September 2026, so the 2002 register law HO-419-N and Government Decision N1231-N still govern every address registration made in Armenia today.
Two rules in the enacted text reshape registration for tenants and owners. A person may be registered at only one main address, and a person is registered at the address of their permanent residence irrespective of the consent of the owner or lawful possessor of that property. Both sit in Article 23(3) of the statute, so no government decision can withdraw them. Only the commencement date is open.
इस पृष्ठ पर
एक नज़र में
| मद | 16 सितंबर 2026 को स्थिति |
|---|---|
| कानून | HO-233-N, adopted 3 July 2025, published 21 July 2025 |
| सेना मे भर्ती | The day after the register repository is launched, and by 1 January 2027 at the latest (Article 26(1)) |
| Launch status | No repository launch announced. HO-419-N and Government Decision N1231-N remain operative |
| What it repeals | HO-419-N (2002 register law) and HO-288-N (Public Service Number law), Article 26(2) |
| मालिक की सहमति | Not required for main-address registration once the law commences (Article 23(3)) |
| अधिकार | Ministry of Internal Affairs, through its Migration and Citizenship Service |
| Related reform landing first | Identity document law HO-210-N, outer commencement date 1 November 2026 |
What applies to a registration made today
HO-419-N and Government Decision N1231-N remain operative, and the body handling registration is the Ministry of Internal Affairs acting through its Migration and Citizenship Service. The Passport and Visa Department of the Police was absorbed into that service in the 2022 and 2023 internal affairs reform, and Article 18 of the Law on Police, which had carried the passport and register functions, was repealed. Send applications, certificates and enquiries to the Migration and Citizenship Service.
Two routes are open. Documentary registration is made on an ownership certificate, a lease, or the owner’s consent, and produces a result in one to two days; where it relies on consent, the owner has to attend. Annex 4 paragraphs 3 to 5.1 of Government Decision N1231-N recognise other evidence, so an uncooperative owner does not by itself close the documentary route. Factual registration rests on actual residence, is processed online, takes around ten days, and needs no cooperation from the owner. Your passport is no longer held during the factual check, though home visits still occur.
A resident registers within 15 days of receiving a residence permit and reports a change of address within 7 days. Citizens of EAEU member states must register in the population register even while holding a lawful-stay certificate, because Article 97 of the EAEU Treaty carries only a 30-day exemption. Russian citizens register on the international passport, with the entry stamp and a translation.
What the fine actually is
Article 195.1(2) of the Code on Administrative Offences penalises a resident who fails to supply address data, supplies false data, or fails to report a new address, at three times the calculation base: AMD 3,000, about USD 8 at the CBA official rate of 364.18 on 16 September 2026. Officials of authorised bodies who fail to feed the register are penalised at thirty times the base under Article 195.1(3), AMD 30,000, about USD 82 at the same rate.
The calculation base is fixed at AMD 1,000 by Article 3 of the Law on Minimum Monthly Salary, which substitutes that figure for the minimum wage across the codes and laws. Figures near AMD 225,000 that circulate for this offence come from multiplying by the 2026 minimum wage of AMD 75,000 instead, and overstate the penalty roughly seventy-five-fold. The separate Article 195 offence of residing without a passport or registration was repealed on 30 November 2011 and should not be cited as live law.
A registration gap can cost AMD 500,000 three years later
Government Decision N1190-N, in force since 14 August 2026, pays AMD 500,000 (about USD 1,373 at the same rate) for each child born on or after 1 September 2026. A foreign-citizen parent is refused unless they were registered at an Armenian place-of-residence address for three continuous years as at the child’s date of birth. The condition looks backwards, and a gap three years ago cannot be repaired now. The same decision requires a foreign-citizen parent to file in person at the territorial centre, so the online route is closed to that group.
HO-233-N में क्या बदलाव हुए हैं?
The register covers Armenia’s resident population, 3,103,900 as at 1 July 2026 according to the Statistical Committee of Armenia. A person counts as permanently resident once they have been physically present in Armenia on lawful grounds for 183 or more days in the current year (Article 2(15)); Armenian citizens serving in Armenia’s diplomatic missions abroad count as permanently resident whether or not they are present.
- One main address, and it is mandatory. The main address is the person’s place of permanent residence, entering it is an obligation on the resident, and a move must be recorded on the platform. The main address is also the basis for the voter register.
- Owner consent stops mattering. Registration follows permanent residence irrespective of the consent of the owner or lawful possessor (Article 23(3)).
- A non-main address for notices. It may coincide with the main address and may be changed at any time (Article 23(5)).
- Email becomes service. Once a person enters an email address and consents to its use, a notice sent there is proper service, attested by the system (Article 23(6)).
- Institutional access is charged. State and local bodies and legal entities obtain access for their statutory functions against a state duty (Article 23(1)(3)).
Article 23(6) reaches well past address registration into how any official notice is delivered. The spending it targets is visible: the Compulsory Enforcement Service spent AMD 653,276,000 on paper notices in 2024, about USD 1.79 million at the same rate, a figure Minister of Justice Srbuhi Galyan gave at the Cabinet meeting of 16 October 2025.
The register’s data content also widens. It records ethnicity (Article 7) and, for a person holding more than one citizenship, every citizenship held (Article 10). Historical data stays accessible and traceable, so an earlier address entry survives in the record once a new one replaces it. On commencement the law repeals both HO-419-N and the Public Service Number law HO-288-N (Article 26(2)), folding register, PSN and civil-status architecture onto one platform.
What owners lose, and what a lease can still do
An owner loses the consent veto on the day HO-233-N commences, and with it the practical ability to keep a tenant off the register. A lease can still regulate the parties between themselves through notice requirements, indemnities and express covenants, and no lease term can defeat a statutory registration right. The tenant is under a legal obligation to enter a main address, so an owner objecting to registration is objecting to something the resident is required to do. Review leases running past 1 January 2027 on this point now.
Advise this as a certainty with an open date. The rule is in the enacted statute, and the draft Government Decision still in consultation governs procedure only: the notification window for a main-address change, the treatment of citizens registered at a foreign address, and the consular data feed.
The PSN, and what passive status would mean
The Public Service Number is issued by the Migration and Citizenship Service with a one working day turnaround. Older guidance naming the Police is out of date, because that function moved in the 2022 and 2023 reform. Any foreigner physically present in Armenia can obtain a PSN regardless of residence-permit status, and a PSN certificate can be requested today through the National Services Gateway or at a Migration and Citizenship Service office. The English term used by the authorities is PSN; ‘SSN’ survives as informal shorthand.
Article 13 of HO-233-N gives the number an active or a passive state, and access to the services listed in paragraphs 4, 5 and 7 depends on it being active: salary payment, tax and payment obligations, social benefits, state support, and the opening of a bank account. Accounts already open sit outside paragraph 7, and so do ordinary transactions on them.
What puts a number into passive state is not yet law. Those grounds appear in a draft that has not been adopted, and the Government Decision on active and passive criteria scheduled for July 2026 under Prime Minister’s Decision N903-A has not been located as adopted. Until it is published, the triggers for passive status cannot be stated with precision.
The identity document law lands first
The identity document law HO-210-N was adopted on 11 May 2026 and published on 29 May 2026. It repeals the Passport Law HO-287-N and the ID Cards Law HO-286-N (Article 16(2)) and commences on the tenth day after the authorised body announces the launch of the unified electronic platform on its official website, with an outer date of 1 November 2026 (Article 16(1)). No qualifying announcement had appeared as of 16 September 2026. A ten-day trigger leaves very little notice once it fires.
The two reforms run on separate triggers. HO-210-N starts from an e-platform launch announcement; HO-233-N starts from the register repository launch. On the current outer dates the identity document reform arrives around November 2026 and the register reform around January 2027, so track them separately.
HO-210-N ties document issuance to the population register. Article 10(12)(3) makes absence from the register a ground for refusing a document, and Article 10(7) requires the application data to match the register entry. Whether an active PSN, as distinct from simply being registered, is also required has not been settled by the published texts: Article 13 of HO-233-N imposes an active-PSN condition on official services generally, while Article 10(15) of HO-210-N bars refusal on grounds the identity document law does not itself prescribe. Treat the register entry as the operative requirement, and check PSN status before applying for a passport or an identity card.
Issuance procedure, the sequencing of identity card and passport, biometric capture and validity periods are not yet published in a form that supports advice. Anyone planning a निवास की अनुमति या एक नागरिकता application around late 2026 should build in the possibility that the document rules change mid-process.
Why 1 January 2027 is not a date to plan around
Article 26(4) required the regulation for the data repository to be adopted within three months of official publication, by 21 October 2025. That act has not been located on ARLIS, and it is the item the commencement trigger depends on most directly. Prime Minister’s Decision N903-A of 8 October 2025 schedules the implementing acts through November 2026, and the items covering the register database regulation, data storage and archiving, and data retrieval through the exchange layer are all past their scheduled dates with no adopted act found.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs was still in procurement and development on the repository through 2026, and no authority has published a target launch date short of the statutory outer date. Read ‘not located’ as exactly that: an act may exist without being findable, and the absence of a published launch announcement is the firmer of the two signals.
One platform already live invites confusion. mcs-register.am has handled address registration since December 2025. It is a separate system, and its launch does not start the HO-233-N clock.
For anyone whose residence status, बैंक खाता or कार्य अनुमति depends on a registered address, the practical position through the rest of 2026 is unchanged: register under the current rules, keep the entry current, and expect the platform to change under you at short notice.
