Hotel stay reporting software: export in the right template, no retyping

Part 1: The legal framework from 1 July 2026 that the executive team needs to know

• Law No. 118/2025/QH15 (passed on 10 December 2025, in force from 1 July 2026) amends Article 30 of the Law on Residence on stay notification.
• Circular 116/2026/TT-BCA (29 June 2026, in force from 1 July 2026) guides the Law on Residence and sets out the ways to notify and the stay notification form CT14.
• Circular 87/2026/TT-BCA (9 June 2026, in force from 24 July 2026) replaces Circular 53/2016/TT-BCA and governs temporary residence declarations for foreign nationals.
• Decree 96/2016/ND-CP, Article 44 — the responsibilities of accommodation businesses.

For Vietnamese guests, the property notifies the commune, ward or special-zone police where it is located of six items: full name; date of birth; personal identification number or passport number; reason, period and address of the stay — before 11 pm, or before 8 am the next morning if the guest arrives after 11 pm. Decree 96/2016/ND-CP requires guest details to be entered before the guest goes to the room and kept for at least 36 months.

The shared portal of the Ministry of Public Security

Since 21 May 2026, the Ministry of Public Security has used a single site for both Vietnamese and foreign guests at tbltkbtt.bocongan.gov.vn, with an app called "TBLT KBTT". The portal offers file upload, a template list for entering many Vietnamese guests at once, list download of guests already declared, and, according to the Ministry of Public Security, supports managing several branches under one main account. Signing in takes a password, a verification code and an authentication code from an authenticator app. The portal is still being rolled out, and practice may differ from one locality to another.

Penalties

Under the current penalty rules (Decree 282/2025/ND-CP, as amended by Decree 347/2026/ND-CP), an accommodation business that fails to notify a stay may be fined between VND 2 million and VND 12 million depending on the number of guests: VND 2–4 million for 1–3 people, VND 4–8 million for 4–8 people, VND 8–12 million for 9 people or more. Missing a single group of 9 guests already falls into the highest bracket. Failing to declare the temporary residence of a foreign guest is penalised under separate provisions.

Part 2: Foreign guests — declared on arrival, the particular pressure on resorts

• Declare electronically as soon as the guest arrives at the property, on the electronic temporary residence declaration system run by the Ministry of Public Security (Circular 87/2026/TT-BCA).
• This applies even when the guest books through a digital platform — whichever channel the booking came through, the property is the one that declares.
• The declaration account is kept secure by the declaring person and is suspended after 12 months without a declaration.

International guests arrive at scattered times around the clock, so declaring them has to be tied to the check-in itself, not gathered up at the end of the shift.

Summary of deadlines, channels and reporting content

Part 3: Groups checking in all at once

• The group list sent in advance is only a draft. The reported details must match the documents of the people who actually check in; groups often have someone drop out or someone travelling in another person's place.
• A mixed group runs on two deadline tracks. Vietnamese guests follow the 11 pm or 8 am deadline; foreign guests in the same group are declared as soon as they arrive.
• One receptionist in charge of the group checks each profile against the documents and is responsible for reporting the whole group.
• Reconcile the numbers before uploading: the number of guests in the file must equal the number of guests who actually checked in.

Group handling and temporary residence declarations within the DiHotel ecosystem were introduced in the article on the deeper benefits of DiHotel. The point to stress: when each guest's profile is complete from check-in, reporting the whole group is one file and one upload.

Part 4: Several properties — who is responsible for reporting at each one

• Each property has one main person in charge and one night-shift backup, named specifically and updated when staff change.
• Whose phone holds the authentication code. If the person holding the device is off on the busiest night, the backup must be able to sign in.
• Do not share passwords through messaging groups; the rules require the declaring person to keep the account secure.
• Seasonal properties check their account before the season, because a temporary residence declaration account is suspended after 12 months without a declaration.
• One table of reporting channels by property: which property uses which channel, and who the contact is at the ward or commune police.

The report to the executive level needs only three numbers each morning for each property: guests who checked in yesterday, guests reported, guests not yet reported and why.

Part 5: Export in the right template, no retyping — what the software does and does not do

With DiHotel, the receptionist scans the citizen identity card or passport at the desk; full name, date of birth, document number and nationality are filled into the guest profile without typing. The system stores only the extracted details, not an image of the document — a detail that matters for personal data protection duties, analysed in the article personal data protection for hotels.

• Select the list to report: an international guest who has just arrived, a group that has just finished checking in, or the Vietnamese guests who checked in during the shift.
• Export a file in the template the reporting portal requires, from the very profiles entered at check-in.
• The receptionist signs in to the portal with the property's account, uploads the file and reviews the list on the portal.

DiHotel does not connect directly to the police reporting portal, because the portal does not allow outside software to connect to it directly and signing in requires the declaring person's authentication. The upload is still done by the person who holds the account; what disappears is the retyping.

Part 6: Tracking who has and has not been reported, and a daily control routine

• Record each guest's status — not yet reported, reported, waiting for the morning round — in the guest profile or the shift log, not in the memory of the person on duty.
• Check before uploading the file: the document number has the right number of characters, the date of birth is in the right order, the nationality, the arrival and departure dates, and the number of guests matches reality.
• Before closing the night shift: review guests who have checked in but have not been reported; guests arriving after 11 pm move to the before-8-am round.
• Start of the morning shift: compare in-house guests with the list of declared guests downloaded from the portal.

These routines do not depend on the tool, but when every property runs on the same AI hotel management software, the list to review is already available in the same way everywhere. The architecture and security behind it are described in the article DiHotel's enterprise platform.

What is hotel stay reporting software?

The term refers to two things: the police reporting channel, currently the shared portal tbltkbtt.bocongan.gov.vn; and the hotel management software on the property's side that helps prepare the data for reporting. DiHotel belongs to the second kind: it exports a file in the template the portal requires for reception to upload.

What should a resort welcoming many international guests keep in mind about reporting?

Under Circular 87/2026/TT-BCA, the electronic temporary residence declaration for a foreign guest must be made as soon as the guest arrives; if the paper form NA17 is used, it must be delivered to the commune-level police within 12 hours, or within 24 hours in remote areas.

How is a group arriving after 11 pm reported?

Vietnamese guests arriving after 11 pm are notified before 8 am the next morning; foreign guests in the same group must still be declared as soon as they arrive. The Vietnamese guests of the group can be exported into one file and uploaded in the morning round, after reconciling against the number of guests who actually checked in.

Does DiHotel send guest data straight to the police portal?

No. The Ministry of Public Security's portal does not allow outside software to connect to it directly and requires the declaring person to sign in and authenticate. DiHotel exports a file in the template the portal requires from the details entered at check-in; reception uploads the file to the portal without retyping each guest.

How should a chain with several properties assign reporting?

Each property should have one main person in charge and one night-shift backup, with the reporting account kept secure by its holder and no passwords shared through messaging groups. Ask the ward or commune police where each property is located which channel applies, because practice may differ from one locality to another.

What is the fine for not notifying a stay?

Under the current penalty rules, an accommodation business that fails to notify a stay may be fined between VND 2 million and VND 12 million depending on the number of guests not notified. Failing to declare the temporary residence of a foreign guest is penalised under separate provisions.