One of the topical issues that refer to legal status of foreign residents who live in host countries is the change of a purpose of entering this country, which entails the change of their immigration status. The paper deals with the issues of legal regulation of immigration status of foreign citizens, analyzes the experience of both foreign countries and the Russian Federation in resolving the issue of changing the immigration status without leaving a country. The authors have made some proposals on improving the system of legal regulation in the Russian Federation, which would help efficiently solve the problem under analysis.