FIDE registration & reporting guidelines

The National ELO rating system has been archived since July, 2026, and is available as a read-only system. Our ranking is now based on the FIDE ELO ranking.

How to report tournaments for FIDE ELO?

There are four main steps to be done in order to report your tournament for FIDE ELO:

1. pre-register your tournament using a standard form and send it to the RBCF FIDE delegate
2. report intermediate results when required
3. send in the tournament results report in time
4. pay the rating fee as soon as the RBCF received the FIDE invoice and forwarded the tournament costs to you

1. Pre-register your tournament

Registration of tournaments is done through the RBCF FIDE delegate. In order to respect FIDE deadlines, registration needs to be done latest:

• 14 days before the tournament start for tournaments where players cannot score a norm
• 21 days before the tournament start for tournaments where players can score a norm

Registration of a tournament is done through the registration form availabe on the FIDE forms overview page. Fill in at least all the required fields, and send it to the RBCF: fide@frbe-kbsb-ksb.be.

The RBCF FIDE delegate will review your request, register the tournament at FIDE, and send you back one or more FIDE registration number(s). Your tournament is then visible in the list of FIDE registered tournaments.

When registering your tournament, take into account the reporting requirements that the RBCF has agreed upon with FIDE:

• For tournaments that run over a short period of time (<= 30 days), a single registration and report are always required and sufficient.
• For long (> 30 days) tournaments without postponed games, one report per month (not needed per round) suffices.
• For long (> 30 days) tournaments, in which the pairing system allows for postponed games, we give the tournament organiser the option (= responsibility) to determine the best way to report.
  We advice to report the rounds in order, and only report once all round results are known. In other words: you register your tournament round dates on the ultimate date in which the games have to be played. You submit your reports accordingly. It is important to note that the reports always have to follow the registration form.

Let’s look at some examples:

1. You organize a summer tournament of 5 days, e.g. July 7th – July 12th.
   → You complete the tournament registration respecting registration deadlines. After the tournament, you submit a single FIDE ELO report, latest 3 days after the tournament end. All results will be processed for the FIDE August rankings.

Actual playing dates	Registered playing dates	Reporting deadline	Notes
July 7th – July 12th	July 7th – July 12th	July 15th	Single report, ELO processing happens August 1st

2. You organize a local club championship running over 5 months, with the Swiss pairing system. You pair the people present in the club on the round dates. You play 2 rounds per month.
   → You make a tournament registration, and split the registration in 5 parts (single registration file, long-round tournament), one part for each month you have games played. Latest 3 days after the last round of each month is played, you submit a FIDE ELO report. The results of that month will be processed for the next month FIDE ranking list.

Actual playing dates	Registered playing dates	Reporting deadline	Notes
September 15th (R1) September 22th (R2)	September 15th September 22th	September 25th	First report, ELO processing happens October 1st for rounds 1 & 2
October 6th (R3) October 20th (R4)	October 6th (R3) October 20th (R4)	October 23th	Second report, ELO processing happens November 1st for rounds 3 & 4
November 15th (R5) November 29th (R6)	November 15th (R5) November 29th (R6)*	December 2nd	Third report, ELO processing happens January 1st for rounds 5 & 6
December 11th (R7) December 18th (R8)	December 11th (R7) December 18th (R8)	December 21st	Fourth report, ELO processing happens January 1st for rounds 7 & 8
January 5th (R9) January 12th (R10)	January 5th (R9) January 12th (R10)	January 15th	Fifth report, ELO processing happens February 1st for rounds 9 & 10

3. You organize a club championship in a round-robin format, running from September till June. You allow for players to postphone games. All games have to be played latest end of June.
   → You determine deadlines for each round to be completed, e.g. final deadline for all rounds and games July 15th. You make a tournament registration using July 15th as the deadline for all rounds. Latest July 18th, you submit a single FIDE ELO report. All games will be included in the August FIDE ranking list.
   → Alternatively, you impose a deadline to your players to play the first 4 rounds by January 15th latest. You make a tournament registration using two reporting periods (January & July). You submit the first 4 rounds latest January 18th, for FIDE February ranking list. The remaining rounds are reported in July.

Actual playing dates	Registered playing dates	Reporting deadline	Notes
September 15th (R1) October 22th (R2) November 6th (R3) December 20th (R4) January 15th (R5) February 29th (R6) March 11th (R7) April 18th (R8) May 5th (R9) June 12th (R10)	July 15th (R1) July 15th (R2) July 15th (R3) July 15th (R4) July 15th (R5) July 15th (R6) July 15th (R7) July 15th (R8) July 15th (R9) July 15th (R10)	July 18th	Single report, ELO processing happens August 1st

The RBCF gives the tournament organizer the choice about reporting frequency and reporting dates. The choice is mandatory, e.g.

• You as a tournament organizer have to decide on the registration & reporting frequency and dates
• The registration and reporting dates have to be aligned at all times!

Note: in the exceptional case that a tournament covered by these rules is a title tournament, it is important for the organizer to carefully report the match dates. After all, FIDE checks the games played when awarding the title. In that case, it is essential that the match dates correspond exactly with the dates in the title application.

2. Report intermediate results when required

For tournaments for which you have registered multiple reports (= multiple FIDE registration numbers received), send in the intermediate tournament reports in time. For these longer tournaments, only the first round will be invoiced. This means, there is no financial drawback in having multiple FIDE registration numbers and corresponding reports.

3. Send in the tournament report in time

Final tournament results need to be submitted for reporting at the latest 3 days after the tournament ended.

FIDE calculates for each homologated tournament (or round) the month in which the results will be processed. The rule is that if the end date of the tournament or round is until the third last day of the month, then it is month + 1. If the end date of the tournament or round falls on one of the two last days, then it is month + 2. Examples:

• 01/07/2024 to FIDE Rating List (FRL) of 1 August 2024
• 15/07/2024 to FRL of 1 August 2024
• 29/07/2024 to FRL of 1 August 2024
• 30/07/2024 to FRL of 1 September 2024
• 27/02/2024 to FRL of 1 March 2024
• 27/02/2025 to FRL of 1 April 2025

If a tournament ends on 30/07/2024 and the report is sent to the RBCF manager the same day and he also loads the results the same day, the results will only be processed for the FRL of 1 September.

This is not the case the other way around. If the tournament results are not uploaded by the RBCF manager three days before the end of the month, the results will only be processed in month + 2. For example, the report with the results is uploaded by the RBCF manager on 30/07/2024, then these results will only be processed for the FRL of 1 September 2024.

The documents that are part of the report are:

• The report according to the KRAUSE format (with the details of the tournament in the header and then the players with their results per round). This report can be created by any pairing program. Care must be taken to ensure that all tournament, referee and player information is entered carefully.
• The TRF (Tournament Report Form) file. trf_it3.docxtrf_it3.doctrf_it3.doc
  Optional: When using PairTwo: the SWS file of the last round. The tournament data must be strictly filled in (tournament name, type, tiebreaks, tempo, start and end date of the tournament, dates of the rounds, name of the arbiter(s), FIDE registration number, name of the players, etc.). ,…).
• A PGN file with the tournament games – required for players who have achieved a standard.
• Optional: a file in ZIP or RAR format compressing the photos of the Belgian participants – each of the photos will have a JPEG or GIF format of 160×200 px vertical.

If a player achieves a norm during a tournament, he should contact the head referee. He prepares a FIDE certificate and sends it signed immediately to the general address: fide@frbe-kbsb-ksb.be.

4. Pay the rating fee

The RBCF pays all rating costs – from the official transition up to June 2027 – for tournament registrations and rating fines, insofar as the latter can be attributed to the RBCF.

An invoice is send by FIDE to the RBCF twice a year, in January and July. The RBCF sends through indivual invoices to the tournament organizers, with the costs for the tournament reporting. All costs charged by FIDE for rating reporting are invoiced to the tournament organizers. The RBCF does not add any markup to these invoices.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the benefit of tournament pre-registration?

Visibility, controllability and discipline.

Visibility, because players can consult the FIDE rated tournaments list for an overview of tournaments that will be rated.
Controllability, because both RBCF and FIDE can verify whether tournament results are reported as expected.
Discipline, in order to avoid late submissions.

The benefits of tournament registration far outweight the additional effort. As such, the RBCF is also preparing pre-registration for national ELO processing. Regardless of the fact that we’ll migrate our ranking system to FIDE only, pre-registration will become a requirement in the future. We plan a transition period for all organizer to adapt to this new way of working.

What are the requirements for games to be rated?

• the rate of play must be accepted by FIDE.
• all listed arbiter must have a FIDE arbiter license and there must always be at least one chief arbiter
• there must be a chief organizer who must have a FIDE ID

How do I generate an (intermediate) tournament report?

FIDE ELO reporting is natively integrated in the SWAR pairing software. Consult the SWAR manual for more details.

What are player requirements to be able to participate?

All players need to have a FIDE ID in order for the tournament results to be processed.

• Affiliated Belgian players without a FIDE ID are allowed to participate in tournaments organized in Belgium and will automatically receive a FIDE ID when uploading the first tournament file. However, the full date of birth must be filled in for the players without FIDE ID in the report.
• Non-affiliated Belgian players without a FIDE ID need to affiliate in order to be able to participate. The underlying reason is that membership with FIDE involves costs and that these must be recovered at least once if a membership with the association is obtained.
  If this requirement is not fulfilled, the player will not receive a Belgian FIDE ID and hence the tournament will not be sent to FIDE for rating treatment.
• Foreign players need to have a FIDE ID in order to be able to participate. The RBCF manager cannot assign a FIDE ID to them. Assignment of the FIDE ID needs to be done by the player’s foreign chess federation.
  If this requirement is not fulfilled, the tournament will not be accepted by FIDE.

Important notice for organizers of tournaments that count toward the ELO FIDE ranking, and for players who do not have a FIDE ID and are playing a FIDE-approved tournament abroad.

The general FIDE rule is now clear: all players who have played in a FIDE-approved tournament must have a FIDE ID at the time the tournament report for the FIDE rankings is sent out.

FIDE distinguishes two cases: national players and foreign players.

• When a federation sends a tournament report to FIDE, national players without a FIDE ID automatically receive a FIDE ID.
• For foreign players, FIDE no longer wants to automatically generate FIDE IDs. For FIDE, it is now up to the federation sending the tournament report to ensure that foreign players have a FIDE ID. Therefore, for FIDE, the rating officer of the federation introducing the tournament must ask each federation a player comes from to assign him a FIDE ID and the created FIDE ID must be found in the tournament report.

The RBCF board of directors disagrees. It finds that requesting FIDE IDs from other federations is not the responsibility of RBCF, but rather of the FIDE-approved organization of the tournament (organizer/principal referee). Specifically, if the organizer of a FIDE-approved tournament admits foreign players without a FIDE ID, he must ensure that each foreign player has a FIDE ID from the relevant federation no later than when he sends the tournament report to the RBCF.

How do I find information to contact another country’s federation?

Go to the FIDE website: https://www.fide.com/directory/member-federations

Is there a penalty if results are submitted after the deadline?

The clubs must send the RBCF manager no later than three days after the end of the tournament (and in the case of a norm by a player also the pgn file). If a report is uploaded too late by the RBCF manager, a fine will be imposed. This fine will increase each month that the reports are not processed.

If after three months in which the report could have been processed, the results have not yet been received, the tournament can no longer be processed and a fine will follow. FIDE invoices the fine to the RBCF, but the RBCF simply invoices this fine to the club / league / federation of the organizer.

For the sake of clarity, let’s give an example. Suppose a tournament ends on 27/07/2024. The calculated FRL will be 1 August 2024. However, a club can send its report without a fine until 30/07/2024. If it does so on that day, the games will not be processed for the FRL of 1 August 2024, but they will be for the FRL of 1 September 2024. FIDE will NOT impose a fine because all deadlines were respected.

What are the additional requirements in case a norm is obtained by a player?

When a Belgian player obtains a norm, he should receive a signed document from the chief arbiter. In the best case it should already been signed by the organizing federation. He must without delay scan this document and send it to the Belgian FIDE Delegate. Additionally, he must send the link of the tournament website of the result and also a pgn-file containing the relevant games:

• Is this in a Swiss tournament or in a team tournament, then only the games of the player(s) who achieved a norm should be put in that pgn-file.
• Is it achieved in a Round Robin Individual tournament, then ALL games should be put in that pgn-file.

Finally, if there is not a recent players photo on the FIDE ratings website, the player must send a recent photo with the exact measures of 480 pixels wide and 600 pixels high.

What if an incorrect result is reported to FIDE?

If an error is found in a reported (round of a) Belgian tournament, then the organizer/chief arbiter must (i) inform the Belgian FIDE Delegate and (ii) share the corrected report.

There are two possibilities, depending on whether the error was discovered within the same month that the tournament must be reported:

• If yes (same month): then the Belgian FIDE Delegate can resend the corrected report
• If not (different month): then the Belgian FIDE Delegate has no possibility to change something. He will send a correction request to the FIDE Rating Officer. In the past the most correction requests were not treated. It’s crucial for organizers to understand the importance of accurate reporting.

Questions & references

The FIDE Rating Regulations are the official FIDE source of information. For all questions or feedback, please reach out through fide@frbe-kbsb-ksb.be.

FIDE ELO – cost structure