The hotel guest register (Form 7) and the accommodation slip (Form 8): what the regulation still says next to KBS

Form 7 is the Accommodation Register, the day-by-day record of every guest's identity and arrival and departure dates; Form 8 is the accommodation slip. The Kimlik Bildirme Kanunu implementing regulation still describes both, sets five-year retention and limits access to authorized official bodies or a court decision. Its 2022 addition also requires daily computer records reported to law enforcement.

A night auditor hands over a shift with a printed arrival list, a KBS screen and a bound book nobody has opened for months. The question at the desk is simple, and the regulation does not answer it in one line: does that book still have to exist? After reading this article you will know what the regulation actually says about the hotel guest register (Form 7) in Türkiye, how long it is kept, who may open it, and which questions only the local authority can settle.

Is there still a guest register book at the front desk?#

The regulation still describes one, and it also requires computer records; because the text does not choose between them, the practical answer comes from the local authority, not from this article.

The real question a front office manager asks is this: must the bound Form 7 book be filled in alongside the KBS notification for the same guest, or does one record now serve both purposes? The confusion is reasonable. The regulation was written for a paper workflow and was later amended with a computer duty, and the quoted text contains no line repealing the register. A text that adds a duty without removing the old one leaves both standing.

The method of this article is narrow: quote what the text says, mark where the text stops, and refuse to declare the register dead or alive. Two duties should be separated from the start. KBS is the identity notification duty, a report sent outward to law enforcement. The register is a record-keeping duty, a document the facility holds itself. The same guest identity data feeds both, and they can exist at the same time. This article quotes no fine amounts, makes no claim that the book is abolished, and makes no claim that it is still mandatory in practice. For the notification side of the desk, see KBS explained: guest identity notification for hotels in Türkiye.

What are Form 7 and Form 8 in the regulation?#

Form 7 is the Accommodation Register, in which the identity of every Turkish or foreign person offered a place to sleep is entered day by day with arrival and departure dates; Form 8 is the accommodation slip, which the access rule treats alongside the register.

The operative wording, in the İçişleri Bakanlığı's regulation text on the Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi (opens in a new tab) (14.11.2026), is that the identity of every Turkish or foreign person offered a place to sleep, with arrival and departure dates, is entered day by day in the Accommodation Register (Form 7). Two phrases deserve attention. "Day by day" means the register is a running daily record of who is in the facility, not a per-guest form filed once and forgotten. "Offered a place to sleep" is wider than a hotel room: it covers any facility that gives someone a bed for the night, from a city hotel to a small pension.

The distinction that matters at the desk: the register is the facility's own daily record, the KBS notification is a report sent outward, and the same identity data feeds both. One is not the other, and satisfying one does not by itself satisfy the other.

The register and the slip are not the same document#

Be explicit about the limit: the quoted text names the accommodation slip and links it to the register in the access rule, but does not describe the slip's fields, so this article does not invent them. Resist the common shortcut of treating a printed arrival list from the property management system as the register. It may or may not satisfy the local unit; that is exactly the kind of question to settle with the authority in writing before relying on it.

What does the 2022 computer-record duty add?#

It adds a duty to keep all records on a computer day by day, to connect to the terminals of the general law enforcement forces, and to report records to them instantly.

The additional article says plainly that accommodation facilities must keep all their records on a computer day by day, connect to the terminals of the general law enforcement forces and report records to them instantly. Note the breadth: "all their records" is not limited to guest names or identity data. The mechanism is a connection between systems, not an email or a phone call at the end of the shift.

The regulation's own word is "instantly", and the quoted text states no deadline counted in hours. No hour figure should be promised to staff, because the text does not give one. What the text also does not do matters just as much: it does not repeal Form 7, and it does not say the register may be dropped once the connection works.

The practical reading is that two duties can run in parallel, and a facility satisfies both until the responsible unit says otherwise. A hotel that keeps the register and sends the computer records has met the text as written; a hotel that drops the book has made a judgment the text does not make for it.

Who keeps the register, for how long, and who may open it?#

The facility keeps it under the operator's responsibility for five years starting from the calendar year after the year the register was filled, and only authorized official bodies may use it without a court decision.

The retention rule, in madde 24 of the regulation on the Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi (opens in a new tab) (14.11.2026), has its own shape: five years starting from the calendar year after the year the register was filled, not five years from the guest's departure.

Counting the five years#

Work the arithmetic as a reading, clearly labelled. On that wording, a register filled during 2026 stays inside its period through the end of 2031: the clock starts on 1 January 2027 and runs five years. Confirm this reading with the authority before destroying anything, because a destruction mistake cannot be undone. Keep this clock separate from your own retention table for guest files and KBS data, which is a different question with a different answer; see How long should a hotel keep guest records? Building a retention and destruction table.

Who may look#

Madde 25 says that, apart from the authorized official bodies, nobody may use the accommodation slips and registers without a court decision. In practice that means a locked cabinet or a permissioned folder, a short access log, and one person who answers requests and records what was shown and to whom. A guest, a tour operator or a private auditor outside that description should not be given the register without the legal basis being checked.

Responsibility sits where the text places it: at the facility, on the operator. That means a named person and a written routine, not an assumption that the night auditor owns it.

What happens to the register when the operator changes or the facility closes?#

The quoted text sets no handover rule, so the workable course is to treat the registers as records that stay with the facility and to put every handover in writing.

The text quoted here describes the duty and the retention period but not a change-of-operator procedure. The consequence follows from the retention rule itself: the five-year clock does not restart when a new operator takes over, so registers still inside their period travel with the property. The same reasoning applies to closure. The retention period argues for keeping the volumes for the rest of their term rather than destroying them on the last day of the contract.

Ask for a handover schedule listing register volumes by year, signed by both sides, and check it against the yearly volume list. Do not assume that an export of KBS submissions replaces the register in a handover; they are different records with different owners. Where the text is silent, the answer comes from the responsible unit, not from this article.

How do you run the desk without photocopying ID documents?#

Record the identity data the regulation asks for, in the register and in the KBS notification, and keep the identity document itself out of the photocopier.

Look at what the register actually needs: identity details plus arrival and departure dates, entered day by day. Nothing in that list requires an image of the document. A photocopy creates a copy of personal data that sits outside both the register and the KBS notification, with its own retention and destruction date to manage, and no duty in the quoted text asks for it.

Separate the three records at the desk: the register, the KBS notification and any guest file. Each has a purpose and a clock, and mixing them makes every one harder to defend. Limit who sees the register to the staff whose job needs it, and keep the cabinet or folder out of shared drives the whole team can browse. Make shift handover countable: number of entries, number of volumes, signature of the person handing over. Before changing any desk habit on identity documents, read the KVKK side of the same question in ID photocopies at hotel check-in and the KVKK questions to settle.

What should you ask the local police or gendarmerie unit and your adviser?#

Ask whether your facility is still expected to fill Form 7 alongside KBS, ask for the answer in writing, and take the retention and destruction questions to your adviser at the same time.

Put the practice question directly: is the paper register still expected at our facility, in what form, and who inspects it. Ask about the computer side: which system connects, which terminal receives the records, and what cadence the unit expects in practice. Ask what happens when the register is incomplete or missing, without assuming any penalty figure; the amounts are outside this article and belong to your adviser.

Take the retention and destruction questions to your adviser together with the KVKK questions, so one answer covers the register, the KBS records and any guest file. Then file the answers: a dated note of who said what, kept with the register volumes, so the next manager inherits a decision rather than a rumor. That closes the loop on this article's method: the regulation text is quoted here, the practice question is settled locally, and no article can settle it for your building.

What to do next#

Write down what your facility does today, register volume by volume and KBS notification by notification. Confirm that description with the responsible local unit and your adviser, and file the answer with the registers. The parts fit together as one chain: the regulation names the records, sets a five-year clock and an access rule, adds a computer duty, and leaves the practice question to the authority.