Moving to Spain: the complete admin guide, step by step

Nobody tells you the order. That is the real problem with moving to Spain. Every step is documented somewhere, usually badly, usually only in Spanish, and almost always in isolation, so you find out that the flat needs a NIE after you have already lost the flat, and that the health card needs an empadronamiento after you have already booked the wrong appointment.

The steps are not independent. They are a chain, and the chain has a fixed order: you need a number before you can sign a lease, you need a lease before you can register at the town hall, you need the town hall before you can get a health card, and you need a digital identity before you can do any of it from your sofa instead of a queue. Get the order right and the whole thing takes a few months of patience. Get it wrong and you spend a year going in circles.

We moved to Barcelona and did every step of this the hard way, in the wrong order, paying people to do things we could have done ourselves. This guide is the map we wish someone had handed us: the full path, in the sequence it actually happens, with the traps marked.

1. Before you arrive: visa, papers, budget

The single highest-leverage thing you can do about Spanish bureaucracy is done from your kitchen table, months before you fly. Documents that take a week to certify in your home country take two months and a courier from Spain, and half of them cannot be obtained from abroad at all.

Do you need a visa?

If you hold an EU, EEA or Swiss passport, no. You may enter, live and work in Spain, and after three months you register rather than ask permission. That distinction matters: the paperwork you will do later is a declaration, not an application, and nobody can refuse it if your file is in order.

If you hold any other passport, you need a visa, and you need to pick the right one before you fly. Tourist entry gives you 90 days in any 180, does not allow you to work, and in the general case cannot be converted into a residence permit from inside Spain. The main routes:

• Work visa (cuenta ajena). An employer sponsors you. They start the process in Spain, you collect the visa at the consulate. Slow, but the strongest position to arrive in.
• Self-employment (cuenta propia, autónomo). You present a business plan, proof of qualifications and proof of funds. It is more paperwork than the work visa and there is more discretion in the decision.
• Non-lucrative visa. Passive income or savings, and explicitly no work in Spain. It is the classic retirement or sabbatical route. The income requirement is a multiple of the IPREM, Spain's reference income indicator, and it moves every year, so ask your consulate for the current figure rather than trusting a blog.
• Student visa. Enrolment at a recognised institution, plus funds and health cover. It allows limited work and it does count towards later residence routes, but it is not a residence permit in the ordinary sense.
• Digital nomad visa (teletrabajo internacional). Created by the 2022 startups law, for people employed or contracted by companies outside Spain. There is a cap on how much of your income may come from Spanish clients, and you must show the relationship predates the application. It is the route that has changed most often since it launched, so verify the current conditions directly with the consulate.

One correction to guides that are still online: the investor visa, the golden visa, was abolished in April 2025. If a relocation agency is still selling it to you, close the tab.

The documents to prepare before you leave

This is the part people skip, and it is the part that costs them three months.

• Apostilles. Your birth certificate, criminal record certificate, marriage certificate and degrees usually need a Hague apostille from the authority in the country that issued them. You cannot apostille a foreign document from Spain.
• Sworn translations. Spain does not accept an ordinary translation. It accepts a traducción jurada from a translator officially appointed by the Spanish foreign ministry. Some documents can be translated in Spain more cheaply than at home, but the apostille must exist first.
• Freshness. Criminal record certificates and civil registry documents are usually only accepted if issued within the last three to six months. Getting them too early is as bad as getting them too late.
• ID photos, Spanish format. 32 by 26 mm, white background, face straight on. The passport photos taken in most countries are the wrong size and get rejected at the counter. Get them here, in a photo booth or a photo shop, and buy more than you think you need: the TIE alone eats three.

A realistic budget for the first months

The paperwork itself is cheap. The flat is what empties the account. Expect to hand over, on the day you sign, one month of rent in advance plus a deposit of one month, and quite often an additional guarantee on top. On a typical Barcelona flat that is several thousand euros leaving your account in one afternoon, before you have bought a single chair.

The medians we measure, from the listings we analyse every day: Barcelona €1,496 a month, Madrid €1,500, Valencia €1,450, Málaga €1,300. Budget three to four months of rent as your entry cost and you will not be caught out.

2. The white NIE: your first number

The NIE, Número de Identidad de Extranjero, is the number Spain uses to know who you are. It is a letter, seven digits and a check letter, it is permanent, it never expires, and it does not change if you leave the country for a decade and come back.

What surprises everyone is the physical object. The NIE is not a card. It is a sheet of A4 paper, white, with no photo, that you fold into your passport and try not to lose. It proves that a number was assigned to you. It proves nothing at all about your right to live here. People call it the "white NIE" precisely to distinguish it from the cards that come later.

Who needs it, and why you cannot dodge it

Anyone with economic, professional or social interests in Spain, which in practice means everyone reading this. You will be asked for it:

• to open a bank account in your own name,
• to sign a rental contract, or buy anything larger than a bicycle,
• to be put on a payroll, or to register as autónomo,
• to pay tax: your NIE is your tax number, so when a form asks for a NIF, you write your NIE,
• to set up utilities, from electricity to a phone contract.

This is why it comes first. Almost every other step in this guide has the NIE as a prerequisite, and the NIE is the step with the least predictable timing, so starting anything else before it is planning to be blocked.

Getting an appointment: the cita previa problem

The application is free and the procedure is fifteen minutes. The appointment is the wall. You book on the electronic office of the public administration, sede.administracionespublicas.gob.es, through the system everyone calls ICPPlus, and in the big provinces you will regularly find a calendar with nothing in it at all.

That empty calendar is the normal state of the system, not bad luck. Slots are released in batches rather than continuously, they are taken within minutes, and refreshing at random is how most people lose a fortnight. What actually helps: checking at different times of day rather than hammering one hour, accepting any office in the province instead of the one near your flat, and remembering that a NIE issued anywhere in Spain is valid everywhere in Spain, so a train to a quieter province can beat waiting for Barcelona.

And if you have not yet moved: apply at the Spanish consulate in your own country. It is by far the easiest path and almost nobody knows about it.

EX-15 or EX-18, and the tasa

Two forms, and mixing them up means being turned away at the counter.

• EX-15 is the application for the NIE itself. This is what you file if you need the number and nothing more, whatever your nationality.
• EX-18 is the application for the certificado de registro de ciudadano de la Unión, the EU citizen's registration certificate. An EU citizen settling here files the EX-18 and gets both the registration and a number in one go.

Both are filled in in Spanish, in capitals, whatever your nationality. Both require a stated reason: "I am moving to Spain" is not one. A job offer, a rental contract, a property purchase or a school enrolment is, and you bring the document that proves it.

Then there is the tasa: modelo 790, código 012, a small fee in the region of ten euros. Check the current amount on the official site, because it changes.

The detail on all of it, including what to do when there are no slots at all, is in our guide to booking a NIE appointment. If you want the wider picture of what the number is and how it fits with the card, read the NIE number in Spain, step by step, or the Barcelona-specific how to get your NIE in Barcelona.

3. Finding a flat

Everything above this line was administration, which is slow but fair: if your file is correct, you win eventually. Housing is the opposite. It is fast and it is unfair, and it is the step where most people lose the most money and the most sleep.

The platforms, and what each is for

• Idealista is the market. If a flat is being let by an agency or a serious private landlord, it is on Idealista, and if it is not on Idealista it usually does not exist. This is where the competition is, and where the speed problem lives.
• Fotocasa is the second portal. Substantial overlap with Idealista, some listings that appear there first, and generally a slightly older and more provincial supply.
• Badi is rooms and flatshares. If you are arriving alone, on a budget, or before you have a work contract to show, this is the realistic entry point into a city like Barcelona.

The comparison in detail, with what each one is actually good for, is in Idealista vs Fotocasa vs Badi.

The real market: prices and speed

Two numbers govern your search. The first is the price, and the honest version of it is a median rather than a headline. Based on our analysis of the listings we process every day:

The second number is speed, and it is the one nobody prepares for. A well-priced flat in Gràcia or Malasaña is not on the market for a week. It is on the market for an afternoon. By the time a listing reaches you through a portal's own daily digest, thirty people have already written to the landlord, and landlords answer the first credible file, not the best one.

This is the whole reason Prio exists. We watch the portals continuously and send you each new Idealista and Badi listing that matches your search at least 2 minutes ahead of Idealista's own push notifications. Two minutes sounds like nothing. In a market where the first five messages get the viewing, it is the entire game.

The scams, and the one rule that stops all of them

Rental fraud in Spain is not creative. It is the same handful of scripts, aimed at people who have just arrived and are getting desperate:

• The flat priced well below the neighbourhood. In a market this tight, sustainable bargains do not exist. A price 40% under the median is not a lucky find, it is bait.
• The landlord who is abroad. He has moved to London, the keys are with an agency, he will courier them as soon as you transfer the deposit. There is no flat.
• The pressure. Ten other people want it, you must pay today to hold it. Real landlords in Spain do not take deposits from strangers who have not seen the property.
• The stolen photos. Beautiful pictures, lifted from a sale listing or a hotel. A reverse image search takes ten seconds.
• The conversation that leaves the platform immediately. The first message pushes you to WhatsApp or email, where the portal can no longer see what is being promised.

One rule defeats every one of them: never pay anything, to anyone, before you have stood inside the flat. No deposit, no reservation fee, no "proof of solvency" transfer, no cryptocurrency, ever. If you want a second opinion on a specific listing, our free Idealista scam checker compares its price against real neighbourhood data and tells you what is off. The catalogue of scripts, with real examples, is in how to spot fake Idealista listings.

What you need to sign

Have this in one PDF, on your phone, before you view anything. The applicant who can send a complete file in the ten minutes after the viewing gets the flat.

• Your NIE and your passport.
• Proof of income: usually the last three payslips, or a work contract, or your last tax return if you are self-employed. Landlords look for income around three times the rent.
• Bank statements, recent, usually the last two or three months.
• The fianza: the legal deposit, one month's rent for a residential lease, which the landlord must lodge with the regional housing body rather than keep in a drawer.
• Additional guarantees: for a standard long-term residential lease, anything asked for on top of the fianza is capped at two months' rent, whether it is called a bank guarantee, an aval or extra deposit.

Two things worth knowing because they save you money. Since the 2023 housing law, the estate agency's fee is paid by the landlord, not by you, on residential lettings: if an agency asks you for a month's rent as commission, they are asking for something the law no longer allows. And your deposit is not the landlord's money, it is a regulated deposit. The detail is in what is the fianza, and your rights once you have signed are in Barcelona rental law and tenant rights. The full document checklist is in the documents you need to rent in Spain.

Not sure which neighbourhood you actually want? Our neighbourhood finder matches you across 73 Barcelona neighbourhoods in six questions, and the best neighbourhoods in Barcelona for expats gives you the human version.

4. The empadronamiento: registering at the town hall

You have keys. The clock now starts, and the first thing to do with those keys is walk them into the town hall.

The empadronamiento is your registration on the padrón municipal, the town hall's register of everyone who lives in the municipality. It is free. It takes one appointment. And it is the single document that the rest of Spanish administration keeps asking you for.

Why it is urgent, not just obligatory

Two separate reasons, and the second is the one people miss.

The first is practical: you cannot get a public health card without it, you often cannot get a school place without it, the TIE asks for it, exchanging a driving licence asks for it, and every regional benefit asks for it. It is the plumbing under everything.

The second is legal. The padrón is the main way you prove how long you have been living in Spain. Every route that depends on continuous residence, arraigo among them, and eventually nationality, is evidenced through the padrón. Which means the clock does not start when you land, and it does not start when your lease begins. It starts the day you register. Every week you delay is a week you will not be able to count later, and there is no way to backdate it.

What to bring

• Your passport (and NIE, if you have it already: many town halls will register you on the passport alone, which is useful when the NIE appointment is still weeks away).
• Proof of address: your rental contract, usually with a recent utility bill in your name or the landlord's.
• If you are living in someone else's flat, which covers most flatshares and every sublet: an autorización de empadronamiento signed by the person on the lease or the owner, plus a copy of their ID and their contract or deed. This is the situation that most often goes wrong, so ask your flatmate or landlord for it before you book the appointment.

The appointment is booked with your own town hall, not with the state, and the systems are all different: Barcelona books through the Oficines d'Atenció Ciutadana and also allows an online registration if you already hold a digital certificate, Madrid runs its own line and portal, and smaller municipalities sometimes take walk-ins. Our empadronamiento appointment guide covers the booking in Barcelona in detail, and what is the empadronamiento explains the document itself, including the difference between the volante, which is the everyday proof, and the certificado, which is the formal one that courts and consulates want.

5. Social security and the health card

Two different things, in two different offices, and confusing them costs an appointment. The social security number is your identifier in the contributions system. The health card is what gets you seen by a doctor. You need the first to get the second.

The social security number (NUSS)

Your número de la seguridad social is issued once and belongs to you for life. You need it before you can be legally employed, because an employer cannot register you (dar de alta) without it, and you need it before you can register as autónomo. It is also the key that unlocks the health system.

You request it from the Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social, on form TA.1, either at an office or through the Import@ss portal, which will accept a video identity check in some cases and a digital certificate in others. Bring your passport, your NIE and your empadronamiento. If you have a job offer, bring it: it makes the whole conversation shorter.

The appointment side of it, and how to get one in Barcelona, is in our social security appointment guide.

The health card, and why it has a different name in every region

Healthcare in Spain is run by the seventeen autonomous communities, not by the central state. The system is national, the card is regional, and the acronyms are local: TSI with CatSalut in Catalonia, SIP in Valencia, TSA in Andalusia, and so on. This is why an expat forum answer from Madrid may be useless to you in Barcelona.

The mechanism, though, is the same everywhere. Once you are contributing to social security, or you qualify through another route, you take your social security number, your padrón and your ID to the health centre for your address, not to a central office, and they assign you a GP and issue the card. Specialists are reached by referral from that GP, not directly.

Public or private, honestly

Public healthcare in Spain is genuinely good and free at the point of use. Its weakness is the waiting list, particularly for non-urgent specialists, and the language: your GP may well speak English, and the appointment system almost certainly will not.

Private insurance is not a replacement, it is a shortcut. It buys speed, English-speaking doctors and direct access to specialists, and it typically costs less than most newcomers expect. Two situations where it is not optional at all: if you are here on a non-lucrative visa or a digital nomad visa, you will be required to hold full private cover from a Spanish-authorised insurer with no copayments, and if you are not contributing to social security and do not qualify another way, private cover is your only route until you do.

6. The TIE and the green certificate: the residence card

Here is the distinction that costs people an appointment, and it is worth reading twice.

The NIE is a number. The TIE is a card. The white sheet you got in step 2 identifies you in the system and says nothing about whether you are allowed to be here. The TIE, Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero, is the physical residence card, credit card sized, with your photo, your fingerprints and your NIE printed on it, and it is the document that proves your right to stay. Every TIE contains a NIE. Not everyone with a NIE has a TIE.

Who applies for what

• Non-EU nationals with a residence authorisation apply for the TIE. This is not optional and it is not slow-walked: you generally have one month from entering Spain, or from the decision approving your permit, to request the fingerprints appointment.
• EU, EEA and Swiss nationals do not get a TIE at all. Staying beyond three months, you apply instead for the certificado de registro de ciudadano de la Unión on form EX-18. What you get is famously anticlimactic: a small green paper certificate, or in some offices a green card the size of a credit card, carrying your name and your NIE. It is not an identity document, so you still carry your passport, and everyone still calls it "the green NIE".

Huellas: the fingerprints appointment

The TIE is collected in two visits, and the first one is the toma de huellas. You book a cita previa for "toma de huellas" at the police station or the Oficina de Extranjería, and you bring:

• form EX-17, completed and signed,
• the tasa 790-012, paid at a bank beforehand, with the stamped receipt,
• three ID photos in Spanish format, 32 by 26 mm on a white background,
• your passport and a photocopy,
• the resolution approving your residence, or your visa,
• your empadronamiento, which is why step 4 comes before this one.

The appointment itself is short. They check the file, they take prints of both index fingers, they hand you a resguardo, a receipt, and they tell you to come back. Keep that receipt somewhere safer than your pocket: it is your only proof of a legal application while the card is being made, and you will need it to collect the card.

Recogida: collecting the card

The card is typically ready in about four to six weeks, and it is not posted to you. You book a second appointment, for recogida de tarjeta, and you go back in person with the resguardo and your passport. That is it. You walk out with a card that finally makes the previous six months feel real.

The booking side of both appointments, including what to do when Barcelona shows no slots, is in our extranjería appointment guide. The whole Barcelona appointment system, procedure by procedure, is mapped in cita previa in Barcelona.

7. Cl@ve: your digital identity

At some point, usually around month four, you notice that everyone who lives here does their paperwork from a laptop while you are still queuing at eight in the morning. The difference is a digital identity, and it is the highest-return afternoon of the entire process.

What Cl@ve actually is

Cl@ve is the Spanish state's shared login. One identity, accepted across the tax agency, social security, extranjería, the DGT and most regional administrations. It comes in two forms:

• Cl@ve PIN, for occasional use. You request a temporary PIN when you need it, it arrives on your phone, it expires shortly after. Fine for filing one thing once a year.
• Cl@ve Permanente, for repeated use. A username and password you keep, reinforced with a one-time code by SMS for the sensitive operations. This is the one you want.

Why you need it

Because without it, every one of the following requires a queue: filing your tax return on Renta Web, downloading your vida laboral, requesting a padrón certificate, managing your social security details, checking an extranjería file, dealing with traffic fines, requesting most certificates that other procedures demand. With it, all of them take minutes.

How to activate it

The registration is where the newcomers get stuck, because it deliberately requires proving you are you.

• In person, and this is the route that works: go to a Cl@ve registration office, which in practice means an AEAT tax office or a social security office, with your passport and your NIE. It takes minutes and no appointment system will make it harder than it needs to be. Do it the same week you do anything else at one of those offices.
• By letter: you can request an invitation code sent by post to your registered address, which is another reason the empadronamiento comes first. It only enables the basic registration.
• Online, if you already hold a digital certificate. Which raises the obvious question.

The certificado digital, the more powerful alternative

The certificado digital from the FNMT is a file you install in your browser that identifies you cryptographically. It is more robust than Cl@ve, it opens doors Cl@ve sometimes does not, and it is what every gestor in Spain actually uses.

You request a code online, you go once to an accredited office with your passport and NIE to prove your identity, and then you download and install the certificate. Export a backup copy the day you install it, because it is tied to the browser it was installed in, and reinstalling your laptop without a backup means doing the whole thing again.

Our advice, from having done both: get the certificado digital, and get Cl@ve as well. They cost you two office visits between them and they save you years of queuing. Both are managed through the state's sede electrónica, at clave.gob.es and sede.fnmt.gob.es.

8. The tax return: modelo 100 and the renta

The rule is simple and it catches people every year: if you spend more than 183 days of a calendar year in Spain, you are a Spanish tax resident. Not for the days you were here. For the whole year. And a Spanish tax resident declares worldwide income, not just the money earned in Spain.

Residence can also be established if your main economic interests are here, or if your spouse and minor children live here. It is a fact, not a choice, and you cannot avoid it by keeping your salary in a foreign account.

The calendar and the tool

The declaración de la renta, the personal income tax return, is modelo 100, and the campaign runs roughly from April to June, for the year that ended in December. You can pay a gestor to do it, and in a complicated first year that may be sensible, but for a straightforward employment income it is genuinely doable yourself through Renta Web, the tax agency's own tool, which pre-fills most of it from data it already holds. To log into Renta Web you need Cl@ve or a digital certificate, which is why step 7 comes before this one.

The three traps

• Double taxation. Spain has treaties with most countries, so you will not usually pay twice on the same income, but the treaty does not exempt you from declaring it. Declaring and being taxed are different verbs, and people who confuse them get letters.
• Modelo 720. If you hold assets abroad, accounts, securities or property, above €50,000 in any of those categories, you have an obligation to declare them on an informative return. It raises no tax by itself. The penalty regime was rebuilt after a European court ruling in 2022, but the obligation itself is very much alive, and it is the single most common thing new arrivals do not know about.
• The special regime for inbound workers, the one everyone calls the Beckham law. If you moved to Spain for work and you qualify, you can be taxed at a flat 24% on Spanish employment income up to €600,000, for the year of the move and the five that follow, instead of the progressive rates. The window to apply is short and it starts when you register with social security, so this is worth one conversation with an adviser in your first months, not in your first April.

9. Opening a bank account

Last on the list, and often first in panic, because you cannot pay a deposit from an account you do not have. The good news is that this is the only step here that competes for your business.

With a NIE, and without one

With a NIE, you open an ordinary resident account at any bank, and the whole thing takes an appointment and an afternoon. The high street names are BBVA, Santander, CaixaBank and Sabadell, and their online applications for foreigners have improved considerably.

Without a NIE, you can still open a non-resident account (cuenta de no residente). Some banks will ask you for a certificado de no residencia issued by the police, which is itself a small procedure with its own fee, and some will handle it for you for a charge. Non-resident accounts often carry maintenance fees that resident accounts do not, so treat it as a bridge and convert it once your NIE arrives.

What to bring

• Your passport.
• Your NIE, if you have it.
• Proof of address: the padrón, or a utility bill, or your rental contract.
• Proof of income or employment: a work contract or recent payslips. Banks ask because of anti-money-laundering rules, not because they are being difficult.
• A tax residency declaration, which they will hand you at the desk.

Neobank or traditional bank

A digital bank will let you open an account from your phone before you own a single Spanish document, which makes it a genuinely good first move, and its transfer fees will be a fraction of the high street's. The friction shows up later, in two places: some landlords, employers and utilities still resist a non-Spanish IBAN, and some Spanish procedures assume a branch you can walk into.

Worth knowing: refusing a valid SEPA IBAN because it was issued in another EU country is not legal. It is called IBAN discrimination and the European rules prohibit it. It also happens constantly, and arguing the point with a letting agent while a queue of other applicants forms behind you is not the moment to be right on principle. The pragmatic answer most expats land on is the one we would suggest: keep the digital account for moving money and open a Spanish one for the salary, the rent and the direct debits.

The checklist, with timings

The whole path, in the order it happens. The time estimate is what it realistically takes, appointment hunting included, not what the procedure takes at the counter.

If you take one thing from the table, take the ordering. Steps 2, 4 and 7 are the ones that unblock everything downstream, and they are the three that people postpone.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to get a NIE?

The appointment itself takes fifteen minutes, and in many offices you walk out with the paper in your hand the same day. Getting the appointment is the slow part. Slots are released in batches and taken within minutes, so people routinely spend weeks trying. Plan for the wait, not for the procedure: book from your consulate before you fly if you still can, and accept any office in the province rather than the one nearest your future flat.

Can I rent a flat without a NIE?

Legally, nothing stops a landlord signing a lease with a passport. In practice, most landlords and every agency will ask for a NIE, because they need it for the contract, the deposit registration and their own tax reporting. You can view flats, be first through the door and negotiate without a NIE. Getting the keys without one is possible but rare, and it narrows your options exactly when you need them widest.

How much does it cost to live in Barcelona or Madrid?

Rent is the number that decides everything else. Based on our analysis of 6,172 Idealista listings in Barcelona, the median rent is €1,496 a month, around 22.2€/m². In Madrid, based on 9,922 listings, the median is €1,500 a month, around 24.6€/m². Valencia sits at a median of €1,450 and Málaga at €1,300. Everything beyond rent depends too much on how you live for us to invent a single figure, so we publish the number we actually measure and leave the rest to you.

Do I need a visa to move to Spain?

If you hold an EU, EEA or Swiss passport, no. You have the right to live and work in Spain, and after three months you register with the authorities rather than apply for permission. If you hold any other passport, yes: tourist entry gives you 90 days in any 180, it does not allow you to work, and it cannot be converted into residence from inside Spain in the general case. Pick the visa that matches your situation before you fly, because changing category from within Spain is much harder than arriving with the right one.

What is the empadronamiento?

The empadronamiento is your registration on the padrón municipal, the town hall's register of everyone living in the municipality. It is free, it takes one appointment, and it is the document that proves where you live. Almost everything downstream asks for it: the public health card, school places, the residence card, the driving licence exchange, and eventually residency or nationality applications. Non-EU residents without a permanent card must renew it every two years or the town hall removes them from the register without telling them.

Do I have to file a tax return in Spain?

If you spend more than 183 days of the calendar year in Spain, you are a tax resident, and a Spanish tax resident declares worldwide income, not just Spanish income. The renta campaign runs from April to June for the previous year. There are thresholds below which you do not have to file, but they are low and they have exceptions, and the first year of a move is exactly when the exceptions bite. If you kept assets in your old country, check whether you also owe the modelo 720 informative declaration.

How does public healthcare work in Spain?

Public healthcare is free at the point of use and is run by the regions, not by Madrid, so the card has a different name in each one: TSI in Catalonia, SIP in Valencia, TSA in Andalusia. You get in through the system, not through a payment: once you contribute to social security, or qualify another way, you take your social security number and your padrón to your local health centre and they issue the card. You are assigned a GP, and specialists are reached by referral. Waiting lists are the real weakness, which is why many expats keep a private policy on top.

What is the difference between the NIE and the TIE?

The NIE is a number and the TIE is a card. The NIE identifies you in every Spanish procedure and it is printed on a white A4 sheet that proves nothing about your right to stay. The TIE, Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero, is the physical residence card issued to non-EU residents, with your photo, your fingerprints and your NIE on it, and it does prove your right to stay. Every TIE contains a NIE. Not everyone with a NIE has a TIE, and EU citizens never get one: they get a green registration certificate instead.

Where this leaves you

Nine steps, and only two of them are genuinely hard: getting an appointment, and getting a flat. Everything else is a queue with a form at the end of it.

The flat is the one where being early is worth more than being right. Good listings in Barcelona and Madrid are answered within hours of appearing, and the applicant with a complete file who writes first is the applicant who views first. Prio sends you every new Idealista and Badi listing that matches your search, at least 2 minutes ahead of Idealista's own push notifications, so that when you finally have the number, the contract and the card, you also have the keys.

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Keep reading

• Cita previa in Barcelona: every appointment explained
• Booking your NIE appointment
• Booking your extranjería appointment (TIE)
• Booking your empadronamiento appointment
• Booking your social security appointment
• Barcelona rental market, neighbourhood by neighbourhood
• Madrid rental market
• Valencia rental market
• Málaga rental market
• Free Idealista scam checker
• All our guides for expats in Spain
• Ce guide en français
• Esta guía en español

General information, not legal, tax or immigration advice. Procedures, fees, forms and thresholds are set by the Spanish administration and change regularly. Always confirm on the official site, or with a professional, before you pay anything or miss a deadline. Rental figures are calculated from the Idealista listings we analyse every day and describe the market as it is now.