Rental Contract
Of at least 6 months; or house deed
Passport
You should also bring a photocopy of your passport.
White NIE
You must bring the original NIE document.
Receipts of Rental Payments for the previous 1-3 months
You can use something like Revolut transfer receipts, but they must be printed out.
Registation form (Hoja Padronal)
Can be downloaded at www.laspalmasgc.es. They can also provide you with this at ayuntamiento.
Proof of landlord ownership of property
As of recently, they will also ask for a document that demonstrates the landlord owns the property. The document can be one of three (in Spanish): ''Endesa'', ''IV'', or ''seguro de lugar recibo'', and the landlord can provide one of these for you. Alternatively, a utility bill with the address and your name or the landlord's name also would work. [John's note:] I did not have this document, and the clerk was nice and searched in a database and produced one of these documents, but said they would usually expect you to bring it.
Empadronamiento is the process in which you notify your city council (ayuntamiento) that you live in Spain. In Las Palmas de G.C. you go to this link and get an appointment at your nearest office. For empadronamiento in Las Palmas city, you are free to choose any city hall (ayuntamiento) in Las Palmas city, regardless of your exact address. If there are no appointments available online, we suggest the following options:
[John's tip:] Here's a tip that had me stumped for weeks: The appointments for the following week open on a Friday. That means that you can only get an appointment ON Friday morning. Keep refreshing until the IT guy happens to open the appointments. That one took me ages to figure out.
What to bring
You'll need your rental agreement (of at least six months), passport, white NIE and printouts of your last three rent payments (note: only the last month works fine, too). Make sure to bring printed copies of all the paperwork (including a copy of your passport). Showing your banking app to prove that you paid rent in the last three months will not be enough, they want real paper. Same goes for the rental contract, unless it is signed officially with your Spanish digital signature (certificado digital). In regard to the proof of landlord ownership, some clerks can be very picky (one application got rejected because the address on bill didn't include the wording 'ground floor', although there was only one apartment on ground floor in that building), whilst others might forget to check that one at all!
Documents missing?
In case documents are missing, they will ask you to arrange for a follow-up appointment at Mesa 23 (also calling 010 or 928446000). We recommend to try and have everything ready without a flaw, as the follow-up appointments are also not easy to get, and in most cases they count the 25 business days to process your application only after hand in of late documents (not always, but in many cases). Never give the clerk a reason to reject you, they'll usually find one all by themselves 😉
Travel discount
After 25 business days, your empadronamiento will be ready. And with that, EU citizens have discounted travel (75% off boat trips and flights within the Canaries and to mainland Spain*), which is an awesome perk. Non-EU citizens need to be permanent residents (which takes five years for most people).
You can also apply for the resident bus card, with which you can travel for free in whole of Gran Canaria provided you have a minimum of 15 bus trips per month.
*connections between Canary Islands and anywhere in Spain, both directions (e.g. Barcelona and Gran Canaria there and back, as well as Mallorca and Tenerife there and back, but not Madrid and Barcelona).
Still having a headache?
If you would just like to have somebody help you do all this, please reach out to Register Gran Canaria! Happy to help you through all steps of your arrival in Gran Canaria, just shoot us an e-mail!
Contact: register-gc[at]outlook.com