You arrive in Spain in order to live here and from everywhere you hear that you need to obtain
Cita previa.
A date with the office. (“Cita” means “date, appointment”.) You should apply online: https://sede.administracionespublicas.gob.es/icpplus/
You choose the province and the city. We were checking all the cities in order to find the one with the shortest waiting time. And “the shortest” meant two months. That is why I strongly recommend taking this step as fast as possible.
You can also check the website every day and wait for a free place in the city you prefer most. I’ve heard it works.
The other option is to pay for help with formalities. The price varies from 50 to 90 euros per person and you can count on faster handling of the case. I don’t know how can they do it but I know that I’d rather wait and spend that money differently.
Documents.
- Passport + copy of the page with a photo. Theoretically, the identity card should be enough. In practice, not always. Passport is a safer option, so make one before you move.
- One photo.
- Completed EX-15 form. Here’s the website you can download it. You write your name, address in Spain and the reason why you need NIE. I was advised to say “purchase of the house” or “opening bank account” but I’ve already had the latter.
- Paid
tasa (around 10 euros), the form you can download here. (I’ve received adirect link in a confirmation e-mail. Sadly, it didn’t work so we found it ourselves and went to the bank to pay the fee.)

- Passport number.
- Surnames and name.
- Address in Spain: type of the street, its name, number, your telephone, municipality, province, postcode.



- Place.
- Date.
- Payment method: cash or debit the account.
- Code from the picture.
Preparations.
Armed with documents mentioned above we waited for the day. On the one hand, I felt confident that everything will go well. On the other, I was worried because I’ve heard too many stories and we were driving 100 km one way and if… if we missed some papers we would have to
We set off to Alcoi early in the morning. We arrived with more than half an hour to spare. And here is very important advice! Be earlier! Much earlier. GPS led us to the police station but there was no parking space for visitors. We were circling narrow, one-way streets, up and down. Very interesting city, I must admit, but we were short of time. We drove again through the center and I spotted underground parking. Unfortunately, we were in the wrong lane. So again, one-way streets, right turn only, and we found ourselves on the other side of the bridge. Somehow I found that parking on the maps and set GPS. We parked the car and with less than 10 minutes left, hurried to the police station.
Our date.
We entered the building. A very polite policeman asked for the purpose of the visit and showed us the waiting area. We met a Polish couple who paid someone for help with gaining
Another nice gentleman took Tomek’s documents first. I wasn’t sure if we completed everything well and I still had to write the place and the date, but the officer just said “
Hurra!
With NIE in hands and smiles on the faces, we went back to the car. Just to remind you, we drove 100 km to get there. We couldn’t miss the opportunity to explore the neighborhood. But more about that next time.
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