The article is devoted to one of the most important sources of the statistics for government demographers - the system of the current counting of the population. It reflects the actual dynamics of demographic events and allows solving the problems of population growth between censuses. Objective: to examine the formation and development of the current counting of the urban population in Ural in 1920-1930s. Scientific novelty: the authors have made the first attempt in the Ural historiography to investigate the current population of the system in its two forms: registrating the natural movement of the population and observing the migration of citizens. The chronological framework of the 1920-1930s is of special scientific interest for the system of the current population counting in the Soviet Union was being formed in this period. Methodology of work: historical method and scientific objectivity. Results: the authors analyzed the regulatory and legal acts of the 1920-1930s on the current population counting, revealed the difficulties in its formation and development, defined the ways to solve encountered problems by Ural statistics, showed the influence of political and socio-economic events of the 1930s on the state of the current counting of the Ural urban population.