Form EX-15
Passport
Or national identity card
Cita previa code
Make sure to have your appointment code ready, or else bring a printout of your cita previa confirmation
A "Reason" for needing a NIE
This will vary based on why you're applying. The categories are: "Social reasons", "Professional reasons" and "Economic reasons". Make sure that whatever you use, it's in Spanish.
Model 790 - Codigo 012
For second visit to police station to pick up NIE, you need to bring Modelo 790 form and accompanying payment slip. It is easiest to pay this at BBVA or Caixa atms
[Note: This text concerns the "white NIE". For "green NIE", please see here]
Googling this one may suggest that getting a NIE is as easy as rocking up to your nearest police station, flashing your winning smile, and filling out a form. Nope.
Head's up: If you do not want to go into the trouble of understanding the whole process, here are two tips for services that offer to help you with your NIE:
Register in Gran Canaria is a local offer, that can also help with further steps up until residency and freelance registration etc. Contact register-gc[at]outlook.com
My NIE.co.uk is a remote service that can help with NIE appointment preparation, but can't be there in person to help, and also doesn't offer further steps along your way to Spanish residency.
The first thing to understand about the NIE is that there are two flavours: White and Green (for EU citizens). A white NIE implies that you are not a resident; it enables things like the ability to buy a house or a car, and perform other bureaucratic tasks. It's a piece of flimsy white paper with a stamp. A green NIE, conversely, is a green piece of flimsy card. This is the residence card. It doesn't have a photo, but it's as close as EU citizens get to an ID card, even as a Spanish resident. I had really wanted an all-in-one ID card – but you're not actually entitled to one as an EU extranjero. If you lose either type of NIE, you have to go through the whole process again.
Non-EU citizen long-term residents will need a biometric Tarjeta de Identidad Extranjero (TIE) in a separate process.
Supposedly it's actually possible to get a green NIE without ever getting a white one. You can get the Green NIE in Las Palmas, at Plaza de Concordia. Maybe if you work for a company or something like that, it can be done that way, but for me, I needed the white NIE before I could do any of the other steps here, and the green NIE comes at the very end.
To get a NIE in the post-Covid era, you go to this link and make an appointment. You can't just walk into a police station any more.
Select "Las Palmas" from the "PROVINCIAS DISPONIBLES" dropdown and hit "Aceptar" (look how much Spanish we're already learning 🧑🎓).
Which Police Station? There are three possible police stations to apply for the white NIE in Gran Canaria: Policia Nacional in Las Palmas (Luis Doreste Silva 68), Extranjería in Maspalomas (Aveinda de Moya 4) or Extranjería in Telde (Eduardo Chillida 1).
Some swear on traveling to Maspalomas after fruitless attempts in Las Palmas, others have been turned away down south after their one hour bus ride and had more luck in Las Palmas. So it's really up to the stars!
Okay, so you've got your online appointment. You'll likely have to wait about two months for this, meaning that declaring your residency in Spain within the required three months is already a pipe-dream. But no worries, no one will care about that requirement 😉.
Wait time: Some people have reported only waiting 3 weeks for their cita, this probably depends on the season, and on luck. At peaks there are either no appointments available, or you have to wait up to three months. Sometimes last minute slots pop up. Register Gran Canaria may be able to book such a last-minute slot for you if you're lucky.
Tip: It might be worth making your life easy by using one of the above mentioned services (Register Gran Canaria or mynie.co.uk). They'll fill out your forms, sign you up for your appointment, use their own Spanish phone number, and give you a dummy NIE to pay your tasa at an ATM. Instead of going to the hassle yourself, you could be lying at the beach whilst trusting in their expertise :-)
Most guides will tell you that once you have your cita, you just rock up to any bank and pay the application fee (la "tasa", Modelo 790, Código 012), which was a little over €9. I probably visited every bank in Las Canteras, and not one could be bothered with the hassle. Many banks have only very small opening hours for this specific transaction if you're not their customer (as ridiculous as only on Tuesdays from 9am-10am). But even if you are their customer, you can often only pay at a bank once the police has told you your NIE number to fill in on the payment slip. This means you have to be going back and forth between police station and bank more than necessary. Make your life easy and use an ATM!
What works from our experience is BBVA and Caixa bank ATMs. Other ATMs should theoretically also work, however can be difficult to figure out. At the ATM, you can your tasa's barcode, and follow the instructions. Thing is, you need a valid NIE/DNI to do that 🙄.
I know.. chicken-egg-stupid! You can either use a "dummy" NIE, or any NIE of a friend. Also a combination of 9s is supposed to work (filling up the length of a NIE), but I personally haven't figured that one out yet. If anybody finds out the exact combination of nines, please share here!
If you don't have a friend's NIE to use, you can either have the police officer jot down your NIE, go pay and return to police station to pick up NIE paper. Or use a "dummy" DNI by mynie.co.uk or RegisterGranCanaria.
You need to have a reason for needing a NIE, and need to show up with a printed statement letter describing your reasons.. No doubt you have your reasons (why else would you be bothering with all this?), but one thing the community has found is that different reasons can cause headaches.
If, for example, you're getting a NIE to start a Ltd (SL) company in Spain, you'll need the paperwork to back-up and explain it all. This will need to be officially translated into Spanish too. We also had a community member whose reasons were to "register as autónomo, open a bank account, and install wifi in her apartment".. and none was reason enough. There has also been some issues with applying for NIE for property purchases, as they will in some cases ask for the pre-contract of purchase.
You're entitled to a NIE if all you want to do is get internet in your flat. And a NIE is a NIE, you'll use the same one you got when contracting internet as later when you set up that SL. So really, one sentence like "we need número NIE because we want to live here, have a bank account etc" is perfectly legitimate, simple, and by all accounts, most likely to be accepted.
"You can't ask for the NIE yourself": We've had officers literally say this, to the exasperation of the applicant. What they mean here is that you're supposed to have, say, a car dealer, accountant, employer, etc, write a document explaining that they are the reason you are seeking a NIE. It's generally considered to be untrue, but you might draw the short straw when it comes to officers.
If chancing it is not your thing, ONE piece of documentation might be the best way to go. Personally, I asked my accountant for a letter in Spanish stating my intention to register as autónomo, and that worked great. It seems as though having more than one reason can confuse the officer's paperwork, any they're actually more likely to push back.
Tip: If you want to significantly increase your chances of getting the NIE without hassle, it appears based on accounts from community members that Maspalomas is a far better choice than Las Palmas. [Note from Register Gran Canaria: I cannot confirm this, I have so far had only one single rejection of white NIE in Las Palmas, which was missing pre-contract for property purchase]
[Las Palmas - Register Gran Canaria's experience:] If your appointment is at 9am, chances are you will have to queue a long time outside the police station. At 10am, things already look better. My record white NIE was arriving 5min before the appointment, and having the NIE for my client in my hand 2min before our actual appointment time 🙌🏻. Things are not always as fast though, and it comes in handy to speak Spanish to understand the queuing system. As there is none, it changes from day to day. Sometimes they make you step aside and forget to call that group again before somebody complains. Other days they get very offended if you stand too close to the counter, etc. etc. Once you enter, scan your bags at security, tell the officer "sí" when he asks if you have a cita, and walk to the first entrance right-hand side. It is the first of the counters.
[Maspalomas - John's experience:] When the day of your appointment comes, many guides will tell you about going into the police station, taking a number etc. However, when I arrived in Avenida de Moya, Maspalomas, I didn't even get near the door. There was a weird barrier around the entrance, with extranjeros gathered all around, and no discernable queuing system. So I stood by the barrier, trying to get one of the officers to review my documents. Eventually (after an hour or so), someone looked through, took my papers and passport inside, and reappeared 10 minutes later. He said I could come back the next day and get my NIE, which I did. Success!
[Telde] No experience documented so far.
Chances are things will be different when you arrive at your chosen office/police station. Good luck!