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Since January 1, 2018, the General Secretariat for Emigration and Immigration has been requiring the legal representatives of non-resident citizens who wish to obtain a provisional Foreign Identification Number (NIE) in Spanish territory to comply with the following requirements. According to the authorities, this does not involve new regulations but rather a tightening of compliance with the existing regulations, together with a limitation on the number of assignments per day and per office. The limitation per day and office results in a processing period of 15–30 calendar days to obtain each NIE, which may be extended depending on the case. An online appointment booking option has been enabled, but we have been warned that in the near future appointments will already be subject to the aforementioned delays.
For the assignment of the aforementioned NIE through a representative, the following documents must be submitted:
Notarial testimony of the copy of the complete passport (all pages of the passport must be included, even blank ones).
Proof of the economic, professional, or social reasons justifying the application, by means of a letter signed by the applicant.
Sufficient power of attorney expressly authorizing the representative to submit such an application.
Standard application form (EX-15), duly completed and signed (to be completed through Gestiona-t).
Form 790 duly completed and paid at one of the collaborating banking entities (to be completed and processed through Gestiona-t).
At the same time, please take into account the following instructions in order to avoid, as far as possible, issues during the processing of the aforementioned NIE:
We inform you of the obligation to keep all official apostilled documents (powers of attorney, passports, etc.) intact. They must not be unfastened/manipulated even once, not even for photocopying/scanning purposes.
All documents issued by foreign authorities must be apostilled/legalized, and if they are written in a foreign language, the corresponding sworn translations into Spanish must be provided.
Please note that for the correct processing of applications, we will need to be expressly granted power of attorney; otherwise, we cannot guarantee the proper obtainment of the NIE. Therefore, it is essential that, before filling in the details of the representatives, prior consultation with us is carried out.
We also emphasize the need to include substitution powers in the power of attorney, and to provide us in advance with the names of the applicants for the NIE.
Notwithstanding the above, in order to guarantee the availability of our team to carry out the process, it is advisable that you consult us beforehand, prior to sending the documentation to clients for notarization.
Although the requirements described are mandatory, the feasibility of each procedure will ultimately depend on the discretion of the assigned officer.
Below, we detail the basic supporting regulations:
Law 30/92, of November 26, on the Legal Regime of Public Administrations and Common Administrative Procedure (Article 36).
Hague Convention of October 5, 1961, abolishing the requirement of legalization of foreign public documents.
Instruction DGI/SGRJ/06/2008, on the submission of foreign public documents for the processing of procedures in the field of immigration and aliens.