Handling FIDE ID Requests

If your tournament requires FIDE membership, or a player registers into a FIDE-rated section without already having a FIDE ID, ChessRoster collects what you need to request one and sends you an email with everything ready to submit — no extra data entry.

What the Player Sees

During registration, a player without a FIDE ID checks “I don’t have a FIDE ID” and provides:

Date of birth
Sex as FIDE records it — Male or Female only; a help link next to the field explains FIDE’s transgender player regulations
The FIDE federation they should register under (most US Chess players choose USA or CAN, pre-selected from the tournament’s country) — a help link explains FIDE’s residency rule (Art. 1.7) for choosing a federation
Consent authorizing you, the organizer, to request a FIDE ID on their behalf and to share these details with US Chess and FIDE for that purpose

They see the exact consent wording before submitting, and it’s saved as a permanent record of what they agreed to.

A parent or legal guardian can give this consent on behalf of a minor. If you enter the request yourself on the Register a Player admin form, you attest that the player (or their guardian) authorized the request instead.

The Email You Receive

As soon as the registration completes, ChessRoster emails your tournament’s directors and administrators, plus anyone configured to receive registration notifications for this tournament (as long as they’re still on your staff) — a FIDE ID request email. If nobody fits that description yet (for example, a brand-new tournament with no notification recipients configured), your organization’s admins receive it instead, so a request never goes unseen. It includes:

The player’s full name, date of birth, sex, and chosen federation
Their USCF ID (if they have one) and contact email
The exact consent text they agreed to, with a timestamp
Steps for requesting a FIDE ID through US Chess, with a direct link to US Chess’s FIDE-rated events page
An “Add FIDE ID (once received)” button

Before requesting a new FIDE ID, confirm the player is eligible to represent the chosen federation. FIDE’s Regulations for Registration and Licensing of Players (Art. 1.7) require citizenship, naturalization, or residency in that federation’s country — see the FIDE Handbook for the full rule.

Submitting the Request to US Chess

Once you’ve confirmed eligibility, follow the current US Chess process for requesting a FIDE ID — see their FIDE-rated events guidance for what they need and how long it typically takes. FIDE ID issuance can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks, so it’s worth starting the request as soon as you get the email — well before the event, if you have advance registrations.

Adding the FIDE ID Once You Have It

Click Add FIDE ID (once received) in the email at any time — you don’t need to sign in. That link opens a page showing the player’s tournament, section, and the details they submitted, with a field to enter the newly issued FIDE ID.

As you type, ChessRoster checks the ID against FIDE’s published rating list and shows a match (name, federation, birth year) so you can confirm you have the right player. A newly issued ID may not appear in FIDE’s list yet — it’s only updated monthly — so you can still save an ID that doesn’t show a match.

This link works for 180 days after the request was made. If it’s expired, or you’d rather work from inside ChessRoster, open the registration from your tournament’s Manage → Registrations tab and add the FIDE ID from there instead — the “FIDE ID requested” badge on that player’s row takes you straight to it.

Saving updates the player’s registration immediately; it also appears on the public roster and feeds SwissSys exports and FIDE-rated pairing right away. Once an ID is saved, the link becomes read-only — it shows the FIDE ID on file and a button to open the registration in your dashboard. There’s no “change it here”; corrections are made from Manage → Registrations, the same way you’d edit any other registration field.

If the player withdrew, or the request was closed before an ID was added (for example, the director unchecked “no FIDE ID” without entering one), the link says so instead of showing the entry form, and points you back to your dashboard.

Where This Shows in Your Registrations Grid

Open Manage → Registrations for any tournament that collects FIDE ID requests. Two additional columns appear:

FIDE ID — shows a “FIDE ID requested” indicator while the request is still open.
Date of birth and FIDE fed. — the details submitted with the request.

These columns carry a lock icon and are visible only to you and your tournament directors — never to the public or to other players. Date of birth is hidden by default — open the column picker (the columns icon above the grid) to turn it on; FIDE fed. shows automatically. Click into a registration’s details to see the full request, including the consent text and when it was given, plus an Add FIDE ID shortcut that jumps straight to the field on the edit form.

Privacy

Date of birth, sex, and the requested federation are collected only to support a FIDE ID request, and are visible only to organizers and tournament directors for that tournament — never on the public tournament page or roster. They’re kept after the ID is issued as a record of what the player consented to.

See Managing Participants for more on the registrations grid and editing a player’s registration, and Tournament Notifications for how staff are assigned to your organization and this tournament.