#extranjeria

Well, after months of confusion and anxiety the day finally arrived; we had our cita previa (appointment) at the Foreigners Office (extranjeria) in Sevilla on 20 November. For those of you preparing for a move, I’ll provide the somewhat boring details.

Keep in mind, we are on non-lucrative visas, which we applied for at the Boston consulate. The consulate will ask you what date you are moving to Spain and put that date on the visa as the start date with an end date a little over 90 days out (for example, the dates in my visa are 4 Nov through 16 Feb), which they paste into your passport.

You have 30 days from the date you enter the country to visit the extranjeria to apply for your residence permit or TIE. Depending on the extranjeria you are going to, you may or may not need an appointment. We needed one for the Seville office and booked it before leaving the USA (thanks to our friend Carrie C.).

Why did we have to go all the way to Seville for our appointment if we are living in Cadiz province, you might ask. Good question. Of course, it’s a little complicated.

The Boston consulate does not require (or did not in July 2018) applicants to provide proof of accommodations in the form of a lease. This was not crystal clear to us on their website and someone from the internet said to just bring proof of a hotel reservation for a couple of weeks starting on the day of your intended arrival, and explain that you will find a long-term rental when you get there. So that’s what we did. We were unsure in July where we would ultimately be living so wanted to book at a hotel that allowed free cancellations. I chose a chain hotel in Sevilla, booked a room for two weeks, and printed out the confirmation page. I even had the thing translated and included it in my visa application package. Total waste of time and money. While the person who checked us in did ask us our address in Spain, when we said that we didn’t have one yet, he didn’t bat an eyelash. And the woman with whom we interviewed actually chuckled when she saw we had translated the confirmation page.

A few weeks after submitting our visa applications, we lined up a three-month rental in Barbate on Airbnb. But, because we listed an address in Seville on our application, our NIE is linked to Seville. Carrie C. wrote to the extranjeria in Cadiz to find out if we could apply for the TIE there, and the answer came back, No Way. So off to Seville we went.

Quick tips based on our experience:

Take the complete package of materials that the consulate returns to you at your appointment.

Get your Spanish passport pictures taken at a photo shop in Spain since they’re a little different from US passport photos. Just search google maps for “photo store”.

Fill out, print, and sign this form in advance and include it in your package.

Go to a bank with this form completed and pay your fee in advance. Santander near the extranjeria in Seville took our payment and gave us a receipt. Note: a few bloggers who went to other offices said they went to their appointments first and then went to the bank, so we went to our appointment without having paid. This resulted in the attendant that took our package giving us a major eye roll and sending us off to the bank with an irritated huff. Luckily, the bank was just across the road. But it was a waste of 30-45 minutes and added stress. Lesson: every office is different! Read the instructions carefully.

Empadronamiento, si o no?

Helpful folks on the Spain Gurus Facebook group told us that we needed to sign up on the padron in the town where we were living BEFORE the cita previa at the extranjeria.

So within days of our arrival in Barbate we headed to the town hall (ayuntamiento) to register on the padron. This was frustrating to say the least. We tried twice and never did register. The woman who “helped” us both times insisted that we needed an NIE in order to register. I tried to explain that WE HAVE AN NIE. It’s printed right on the visas that’re pasted in our passports. I, of course, showed it to her. No dice.

She just insisted over and over that we must go to the policia in Cadiz to get the NIE and then come back. Whatever. In the end, we didn’t need it, and I got very worked up for no reason. The bottom line is that each extranjeria will have its own list of requirements for your TIE appointment. The Seville office did not list the padron as a requirement, and they did not ask for it (yes, read the instructions carefully, then read them again and ignore the internet). Other extranjerias may require it.

Now we’ve moved to Conil de la Frontera and must register on the padron here, so it’s a good thing we didn’t register in Barbate. I’ll save all that for another post.

How now?

After we paid our bank fee and returned to the office, we jumped the queue and went back to the same attendant we’d already met. He reviewed our materials, took our finger prints and signatures, and then handed us a letter telling us to return in exactly one month to pick up our TIEs. Success!

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