Morning all - Can anyone tell me how to go about cancelling your
Residencia and Health care before returning to the UK?
TIA

If you are returning to the UK suggest you look here

http://ukinspain.fco.gov.uk/en/help-...turning-to-uk/

which suggests that you should - but doesn't tell you how...


surely you just do the rounds of the various offices & tell them you are leaving the country on such & such a date?

You cancel your residency (I assume you have the green certificate) by filling in an normal application form and ticking the Baja box at the bottom.

You can cancel your health card at the local INSS office.

Thank you all. Just wanted to make sure.

Prompted me to think how many have returned without cancelling residencia. Some (many?) must have done so. What are the consequences if any? I don't mean theoretical - what in practice would/could happen?

I doubt that anything would happen. It just means you are still on a list which in itself is pretty meaningless. It just confirms that you have the right to stay for more than 90 days - it doesn't say you have to.

Cancelling the padron is more important as that is effectively the national census and it's obviously important that it's as accurate as possible.

Telling the tax office is important as you could get a fine for not submitting a tax declaration on time.

I have read somewhere that it can have implications re your Bank account
not being changed to a non resident one. Which is why we need to do it
properly. Also as pensioners on return to UK they ask if you have cancelled
with INSS. As usual in Spain there are 50 ways to do things and you just have
to hope you choose the right one.

I suppose the bank account thing is only of any relevance if you wish to retain a Spanish bank account for some reason. If you wish to keep a Spanish bank account and there are financial benefits in having a 'resident's account', then I can see a good argument for keeping such status and not cancelling residencia. Who would know?
The whole residencia thing always seemed to me to a bit irrelevant. Yes I know it's a requirement and I've had one for years, but I honestly don't know what I get or got out of it. All I recall is the cost and the inconvenience in getting it!
It's a piece of paper (and card prior to that) that is filed away and has never seen the light of day.

Is it possible to be resident in two countries at the same time? If you forget to cancel your residencia and return to the UK, are you still entitled to everything there? (NHS etc)

For tax declarations, do they only apply to the self employed? If you're paying tax each month via your employer, you don't have to fill anything in, do you?

Some people hold 2 or more passports for different countries. Surely in order to do so, you have to prove some form of residence in those countries?
It's quite common for journalists and some businessmen to hold different passports so that if they travel to Israel they have one passport stamped and if they travel to Arab countries they have the other stamped. And never the twain shall meet!

I think you may be confusing 'residence' (tax or otherwise) with 'domicile' and even with 'citizenship' - all subtly different.

Perhaps so, but as a definition for domicile is:-
1. a dwelling place
2. (Law) a permanent legal residence, then maybe my confusion is not so surprising as regards the difference between residencia and domicile.
Citizenship is defined as:-
The link between a person and a state or an association of states. It is normally synonymous with the term nationality although the latter term is sometimes understood to have ethnic connotations. Possession of citizenship is normally associated with the right to work and live in a country and to participate in political life. A person who does not have citizenship in any state is said to be stateless.
Again. not surprising that they are somewhat confusing to the layman in their subtle differences.

I hold two passports. Citizenship generally has nothing to do with residence. You can get an Irish passport, for example, without ever having set foot in Ireland if your one of your grandparents was born there.

As I understand it, the British NHS and benefits system is residence-based. It doesn't matter what your nationality is, but you have to have lived in Britain for X amount of time to be entitled to it.

In the UK domicile is something completely different. You can have lived outside the UK for 50 years and still have UK domicile.

It's important because if you have UK domicile you are liable for UK IHT on your worldwide assets, irrespective of tax residency.

In Spain fiscal domicile means tax residency.