Guest Register Format and Maintenance for Indian Hotels

What This Page Covers, and What It Does Not

Search for the guest register format for hotels in India and you mostly find two things: generic front-desk blog posts with no India-specific detail, or legal explainers that tell you what the law requires without showing you what the actual page in the register looks like. This guide is the second thing that’s missing: the actual format, the columns, a filled-in sample entry, ready-to-copy templates for both a physical register and a digital spreadsheet, and the habits that keep a register audit-ready.

It deliberately does not re-explain the legal side of guest registration, which is already covered in detail on the Guest ID Compliance guide: which laws apply, what IDs are acceptable, how long to retain records, and what the penalties are for getting it wrong. Read that guide for the “why.” This one is the “what it actually looks like and how to keep it correctly.”

One more distinction worth making up front: a guest register format for domestic guests and Form C for foreign guests are two different documents with two different purposes. The register is your property’s own ongoing record of every guest. Form C is a specific form filed with police or the FRRO for foreign nationals only, within 24 hours of check-in. This guide covers the format of both, starting with the register every property needs regardless of who is staying.

The Domestic Guest Register: Standard Format and Columns

Every hotel, homestay and resort in India needs to keep a register of guests, regardless of star category, room count or whether it is registered as a formal “hotel” at all. The Guest ID Compliance guide covers which laws require this and what happens if a property does not comply; this section is about the format itself: the columns a register needs and why each one is there.

At a minimum, a register needs to capture enough to identify who stayed, when, and with what proof of identity. In practice, most properties use a wider set of columns than the bare legal minimum, because the extra fields make the register useful for front-desk operations too, not just compliance:

A property can add columns beyond this (GSTIN for business travellers claiming input credit, a “verified by” column for staff initials, or a remarks column for anything unusual), but the thirteen above cover what most state police formats and inspection checklists expect to see, in this order or something close to it. This is, in effect, the standard guest register format for hotels across most Indian states, with only minor local variation.

The Physical Register: What to Actually Buy and How It Should Be Set Up

Properties that keep a paper register are not expected to rule columns onto plain notebook pages. Stationery shops in most Indian cities sell a pre-printed, pre-ruled book for exactly this purpose, usually labelled an “Arrival and Departure Register,” an “A&D Register,” or simply a “Hotel Guest Register.” It comes ruled with the standard columns already printed, in bound volumes sized by the number of leaves (commonly sold in quires: a 24-leaf, 48-leaf or 100-leaf book, on ledger-weight paper that holds up to daily handling).

A few format details matter more than they might seem to at inspection time:

• The book should be bound, not a stack of loose sheets. A police officer or inspector checking the register is partly checking that pages cannot be quietly removed after the fact.
• Pages should be pre-numbered by the printer. A hand-numbered book invites the question of whether pages were renumbered later.
• Entries run in serial order with no skipped numbers and no blank rows left in between. A gap in the sequence is one of the first things an inspection looks for.
• One row is used per guest stay, not per room per night, so a five-night stay is one row with a check-in date and a check-out date, not five separate entries.
• When a book fills up, it is dated, retained for the required period (covered on the Guest ID Compliance page), and a new book is started rather than continuing on loose inserted pages.

A Sample Filled-In Entry

For a domestic guest checking in on a two-night stay, a correctly filled row looks like this (names and numbers below are illustrative, not real):

Two things worth noting in this example: the ID number is partially masked when the register (or its digital equivalent) is shown to anyone other than the property or an authorised inspecting officer, which is a data-handling practice covered on the Guest ID Compliance page, and the check-in time reflects when the guest actually arrived, not the time printed on their booking confirmation.

The Foreign Guest Register and Form C

Foreign nationals staying at an Indian hotel, homestay or resort get entered in the same domestic register as everyone else, using the same columns, plus one additional legal step: a Form C has to be filed with the local police or FRRO within 24 hours of check-in. The legal requirement, the filing process and the penalty for missing it are covered in full on the Guest ID Compliance guide; this section covers only the register-format side.

Because a passport carries more identifying detail than a driving licence or voter ID card, properties that host foreign guests regularly often keep a supplementary register, or extra columns, capturing the fields Form C itself asks for, so that filling the form is a copy job rather than a fresh lookup each time:

Keeping these fields on hand at check-in is a format choice, not an extra legal requirement, but it is the difference between filing a Form C in two minutes and holding up a guest at the desk while someone digs through a passport for the visa page. Form C itself is filed online through the Bureau of Immigration’s e-FRRO portal in most cities, which is the official channel for this filing.

Moving the Register to a Digital Format

A spreadsheet or purpose-built system can replace the bound paper register, and for most properties running more than a handful of rooms it is easier to keep accurate. The column headers carry over directly from the physical format, so a spreadsheet version can use this as its first row, ready to copy in:

S. No. | Guest Name | Permanent Address | ID Document Type | ID Document Number | Mobile Number | Number of Guests | Room Number | Check-in Date & Time | Check-out Date & Time | Purpose of Visit | Vehicle Number | Signature / Verified By

What makes a digital register legally acceptable in place of a paper one is a separate question, covered in detail on the Guest ID Compliance guide: whether entries can be edited after the fact without a trace, whether the record can be produced on demand, and how long it is retained. A spreadsheet on a shared drive technically holds the same columns as a bound register but usually fails that bar, since rows can be edited or deleted with no record that it happened.

This is the gap OpenStays’ built-in digital register is designed to close. Every check-in captured through the platform, whether a guest books directly, arrives via an OTA, or checks in as a walk-in, gets logged automatically with the fields above, the entry is tamper-evident once saved, and the register can be exported or printed in under two minutes if a police officer or inspector asks to see it on the spot. Retention follows the required period automatically rather than depending on someone remembering not to delete old rows, and a compliance dashboard flags any stay that is missing an ID or a completed entry before it becomes a problem at inspection time.

Keeping the Register Audit-Ready: Daily, Monthly and Annual Habits

Daily

• Fill in each row at check-in, not at the end of the day or the end of the week. A register filled in retroactively tends to have rounded-off times and gaps.
• Check that the ID document matches the name being written down, on the spot, rather than trusting what the guest states verbally.
• Leave no row blank. If a field genuinely does not apply (no vehicle, for instance), mark it rather than leaving it empty, so an empty cell always means “missed,” not “not applicable.”
• Fill in the check-out time when the guest actually leaves, not in advance.

Monthly

Reconcile the register against the booking or reservation records for the same period. Every stay in the booking system should have a matching register row, and vice versa; this is the reconciliation step where a register kept separately from the booking system tends to drift out of sync, and it is the specific gap OpenStays’ automatic logging is built to close, since every stay is captured into the register at the moment it is booked or checked in rather than copied over by hand afterward.

• Scan the serial number sequence for gaps or repeated numbers.
• Spot-check a handful of entries for legibility and completeness, especially on the physical register.

Annually

• Close out a register book once it is full, note the date range it covers on the cover, and start a fresh one rather than continuing on inserted pages.
• Move closed registers into the retention period required for the property’s category (see the Guest ID Compliance guide for the exact duration), stored where they can be retrieved quickly if requested.
• Confirm nothing has been disposed of before its retention period is up.

Common Register Mistakes That Cause Problems at Inspection Time

• Gaps in the serial number sequence, usually from a page being removed or an entry skipped and never filled in.
• Missing guest signatures, especially on walk-in bookings made in a hurry.
• Entries made well after check-in, sometimes the next morning, which shows up as multiple guests all checking in at suspiciously identical times.
• Foreign guests recorded in the main register with no matching Form C filed, or filed late.
• Handwriting illegible enough that a name or ID number cannot actually be read back.
• No register kept at all for informal or short-notice bookings, on the assumption that a booking made through an app or aggregator does not need one.
• A digital register with no audit trail, where rows can be edited or deleted without any record that a change was made.
• Register pages or files not produced when asked, because no one remembers where the older, filled-up volumes were stored.

Most of these are habit failures rather than format failures: the register format itself is simple enough that the columns above rarely trip anyone up. The last two on this list are the ones a tamper-evident digital register, like the one built into OpenStays, removes almost entirely, since entries cannot be quietly altered and the full record is exportable on demand rather than dependent on someone locating the right physical volume.

A Few Real-World Situations

Frequently Asked Questions

What format should a hotel guest register be in?

Either a bound, pre-numbered paper register with the standard columns (name, address, ID details, dates, room number, signature) or a digital equivalent with the same fields, provided the digital version keeps an audit trail of changes. See the format table earlier on this page for the full column list.

Is a digital guest register legally valid in India?

Yes, provided it captures the same information a paper register would, keeps an audit trail of any changes, and can be produced when asked. OpenStays’ built-in register, for example, logs each check-in automatically and exports on demand rather than relying on a spreadsheet that anyone could edit unnoticed. The specific conditions for what makes a digital record acceptable are covered on the Guest ID Compliance guide.

How many columns does a guest register need?

Most properties use around thirteen: serial number, name, address, ID type and number, mobile number, number of guests, room number, check-in and check-out date and time, purpose of visit, vehicle number, and signature. The exact list can vary slightly by state.

Can a property just use a plain notebook as its guest register?

It technically can, but a plain notebook makes it easy to leave gaps, skip fields, or lose pages, all of which are the first things an inspection looks for. A pre-printed, pre-numbered register book or a proper digital system avoids that risk for a small one-time cost.

Do homestays and small guesthouses need to keep a register too?

Yes. The requirement to record guest details applies regardless of property size or category; a two-room homestay is expected to keep the same kind of register as a large hotel.

What is an “A&D Register”?

A&D stands for Arrival and Departure. It is the common commercial name for the pre-printed register book sold at stationery shops for exactly this purpose, and it is the same thing as a “hotel guest register.”

Is Form C the same as the guest register?

No. The guest register is the property’s own ongoing record of every guest, domestic and foreign. Form C is a separate form filed with police or the FRRO specifically for foreign nationals, within 24 hours of check-in.

How long should a completed register be kept before it can be disposed of?

This depends on the property’s category and the applicable state rules, and is covered in detail on the Guest ID Compliance guide. As a format matter, a closed register should be dated and stored intact, not partially disposed of, until that period has passed.

In Summary

A guest register, whether paper or digital, needs the same core information regardless of format: who stayed, their address and ID, when they arrived and left, and their signature. The format itself is not complicated; what causes problems is inconsistency, gaps in the serial sequence, entries filled in late, and registers that cannot be produced quickly when asked. A pre-printed A&D register book or a digital system with an audit trail, filled in the same day and reconciled monthly against bookings, covers nearly every situation this page has walked through.

This guide is for general informational purposes and reflects a common, widely used register format as of August 2026. Exact column requirements can vary by state; property owners should confirm current requirements with their local police station or state tourism department, and refer to the Guest ID Compliance guide for the legal obligations behind the register itself.