The NIE Escapades

NIE is short for Numero de Identidad de Extrajero or in the common tongue, Identification Number for Expatriates or Foreigners.  A much easier way to think about it is residency. There are two core requirements for getting your NIE.

1.  A valid reason for living in Spain
2.  Good current standing with your home country

If you've read this blog before, you know that the process is significantly more complex than this.  The simplicity of the above requirements would make the process appear a cakewalk in any country, most of all Spain.  But Annie and I are now smarter than that.  We are hunkering in for a battle and possibly the war that we know will ensue.

Now that Annie and I are married, this is the first step to get her the proper documents to be able to start and own and business here as well as get health care.  By the way, marrying a national is a valid reason for getting your residency in Spain as it is in most countries.  It should be a simple matter.

This post is the start of our process, not the end.  My goal is to track it here so that I don't forget anything and I can use this forum as a type of release valve for our inevitable frustrations.  I'd first like to introduce you to two SAG Laws...named appropriately enough after the two authors.

The first SAG Law (SL1) relates to getting something from the government.

The first office you are sent, either (and especially) by talking to officials or by searching the Internet, is not the correct and final place to get what you're looking for.  Neither is the second, third, or fourth.  If you're lucky, it'll be the fifth.  If you're not, who knows.

The second SAG Law (SL2) is...

If you think you have finally reached the correct office, apply SL2, which is...when you make your appointment, and the date you get back is within the next 6 months (i.e., you have to wait less than 6 months), you are not at the correct office.  Keep searching.

In Spain, like in the US, there is a general phone number for things government-related.  In the US is is 311 I think.  In Spain, it is 010...and this is where our journey takes flight.

We opted to get married in Spain before the US to start Annie's NIE paper process.  We paid 250 euros to do it a month sooner than the free option just for the possibility of getting the nasty paperwork going sooner.  A funny side story is that when we went to pickup our marriage certificate, they pulled out this HUGE book, like something out of Middle-Earth, for us to sign.  I would not be surprised if there were 5,000 pages in it with hundreds of lines per page for couples to sign.  It seems archaic yet romantic in certain ways.  I digress though.

After getting married, we did the obligatory Internet searches and asking people we knew that had gone through this.  We found a ton of stuff.  And I mean a lot of information.  All very inconclusive with most being merely editorials like this one.  No links to official government websites, at least none that worked.  We did end up at a process sent to us by an American friend of ours that seemed the most legit.  It was dated in 2010 which is a pretty good sign.  The last step in the process was to call 010 to get the information for the office where we needed to get an appointment at.

The lady answering the phone listened to our story and confidently told us the name and address of the office we needed.  She even told us that no appointment would be needed.  BOOM!  Red flag.  No appointment?  Was it our lucky day?  Would SL1 and SL2 both be broken on the same day?

It didn't take us long to get to the office...about 45 minutes and two metro rides.  It was a huge complex.  It could have been a palace in a past life easily taking up 10-15 football fields.  We make it to the front desk and talk to officer on duty.  After explaining our story to him, he gave us a look that instantly told us that the two laws were safe and there was absolutely no threat to either one.  One of the things he said was "I cannot imagine why anyone sent you here".  I'd need to ask Annie, but I don't think we were phased much.  We're learning.  After about a 5 minute conversation, the officer told us where we needed to go, and it happened to be across the street.  To his credit, he told us that he wasn't 100% sure it was the correct office but that they would probably know where we needed to go.  In a scene from Frogger, Annie and I sprinted across a 4-lane street with cars zooming by, somehow making it over without incident.

We sign in at the security kiosk of the new building and are sent up to a 3rd floor office.  The office contains a large room with 8 or so desks and no dividers or cubicles.  It is your run-of-the-mill corporate environment not meant to take visitors or guests.  The lights are turned off and it's empty save for one gentleman in the corner at his desk eating his lunch.  He sees us walk in, calls us over, and puts his lunch away.  We're feeling pretty awkward at this point as he talks to us with his face stuffed with some potato concoction.  We explain to him what we're looking for and that we were sent here from across the street.  Another "who in God's name sent you here" expression followed.  He shuffled through a stack of papers on his desk, produced a form that looked promising, and started writing notes.  He mumbled through, mostly incoherently, other possible offices we could go to.  We quickly realized that this guy had no idea what he was talking about nor that he had any chance of helping us.  We took the scribbled piece of paper he produced and got out of there.  Damn these laws are strong.

We're rapidly approaching our wedding in the US and decide that we're not going to progress the NIE much.  We table it until after we get back in early March.

Fast-forward three weeks.  We're back in Spain

I do a bunch more on the Internet as we've made so little progress up to this point.  We're basically at step 1.  Searches, emails, blogs.  I do make progress though.  I keep ending up at an office outside of Madrid called Brigada Provincial de Extranjería y Fronteras de Madrid (Provincial Brigade of Aliens and Borders).  All government websites that list this office show, as one of its duties, Asignación de NIE, or NIE Allocation.  Plus, a number of blogs talk about getting their NIE this way by standing around at this office for hours on end.  This was very promising...albeit a little depressing...we thought.  It was a hike to get out there but we ended up finding it.  Another good sign was that we saw people of all ethnicities, folks selling international calling cards, and simply a very big todo that looked governmental with lots of shate going on.  We make our way to the security desk at the outside gate.  We opt to ask one of the policemen instead of entering [As an aside, the police in Spain are much more involved and pervasive than in the US.  They are much more than about keeping the peace.  Asking a police if we're at the correct office or where to go normally produces a decent result].  After all, there is a small chance we're not in the right place.

Strike three.  We were immediately told that we were not in the right place.  This office was only for renewals of the NIE, not getting a new one.  Why on God's green Earth are renewals and new NIE requests not handled at the same office is beyond me.  He told us that we needed to go to another office and gave us the address...and told us we didn't need an appointment.

We're quickly turning into bureaucracy savvy veterans.  We know full well that this new office is not our final stop and that we're about to prove that both SAG Laws are stone tablet worthy.

The next day (today in fact), we make our way to this new office.  It's a gorgeous day in Madrid so we're in high spirits.  As in all other times, we go packing books, our Kindle Fire, and plenty to keep us occupied in case we need to sit and wait hours if not all day.  On a positive note, we did not have to wait all day and the trip was rather short.  The downside was that we were yet again at the wrong office.  None of this is a joke by the way.  Annie and I are both smart and well-traveled.  We both speak, read, and write quite well in Spanish.  We've been through similar processes in both Spain and the US.  I wish I were making all this up, I really do.  After we were told we were at the wrong place, we were given a slip of paper with an Internet address on it and instructions for setting up an appointment.

When I went into the site to setup the appointment, the first available spot was in September.  The bad news is that we now need to wait 6 months to get Annie's NIE.

The good news is that we're nearly certain we've finally found the right office.