Since we moved to the island, we mostly had good experience with the government. We were lucky to run into friendly civil servants that helped us along the way. But sometimes… we ran into the infamous Spanish bureaucracy. For example, we are already waiting 3 years for our building permit. We already had to convince government officials twice that we really run a business. And we have to do all we can to persuade the customs office for an import license.
But our attempts to obtain our residence card or better said residencia was a very unwelcoming process. As Europeans, it should be easy to move to another EU country. And at first it looks like that. Obtaining a NIE number, that is a personal identification number, is easy. You need this number to open a bank account, buy a house, register a car etc.
But when you want to stay in Spain longer (Rule of thumb: Longer than 183 days without interruptions) or even permanently, you need to a apply for the residencia. In Holland this is automatically done when registering at city hall. It’s as simple as that. But not in Spain. Here you need to go to the immigration office (with an not that easy to get appointment). The criteria for the application are not clear and differ between provinces and even offices.
The first time we made an appointment with the immigration office in Las Palmas. Packed with a stack of papers to proof our stay on the island, we went to the appointment with our lawyer. Within 5 minutes we were outside again. Without a residencia, because we could not fulfill an endless list of requirements. For instance, At that time we still mostly used a Dutch bank account. That account was not accepted as evidence and therefore we could not provide proof of income.
While changing all our finances to a Spanish account, we heard that applying for a residencia at the immigration office at Maspalomas was much easier. We made an appointment and the next morning we drove around the island to Maspalomas. at the entrance we were asked about our situation, they provided uswith a list of 3 documents we needed to provide and they arranged a new appointment three days later.
We made the documents in order, revisited the immigration offices, waited for 15 minutes and left with our resident cards. That’s how easy i it could be. A shout out to the friendly immigration officers in Maspalomas.
Afterwards, we celebrated our new resident status with a stay at our favorite resort with a glass of cava and an overnight stay.
With the resident card, Winfred was finally able to apply for a Spanish drivers licenses. Applying was easy, but a few month later, we still haven’t received it. Probably some more Spanish red tape along the way!