moreland

Hi,

I´m not sure if this was an April fools joke or not. I heard on the radio that all UK expats living in Spain had to now carry their passports at all times (even if yu have a residencia) and there is a penalty if you dont. I also heard that there is a new Natioanlistic passport that we should all already have. Any ideas? Or have Í been framed?´

valenciatim

Well, by law you are required to carry photo ID when driving, for some people, a passport is all that they can produce. The new residencia certificate for foreigners has no photo on it, although the old ones do, so I would say that it is correct. Don't forget that you also need photo id when making card purchases.
Tim

moreland

Hi, It must have been a wind up. It apparently supercedes all of the above. Maybe its just a plan to weed out the more faint hearted of us who cant face queueing at 5 am, so we´ll give up and go back to blighty. Who knows! I´ll just wait til I get pulled up and see what happens.

Graham G

This is no April Fool. We carry a laminated photo copy of our passport (picture page) rather than carry the passport itself. As I have been told you can be fined up to €200 if you cannot provide id to the civil guard.

moreland

Hi,

I have a residencia card which has my passport number, NIE number, photo and fingerprint. I used to carry a notarised copy of my passport but was told the the residencia card did away with having to carry that. Now I have been told that this new passport thing supercedes the lot, and that we should have one now. Confused!

snikpoh

If you notice, on the new residencia sheet, thingie, it very clearly states that this can NOT be used as proof of ID or nationality.

Therefore, when stopped and asked to prove who you are, the (new) residencia is useless. I always carry my driving licence for card purchases and my passport for the police (should they choose to stop me).

What a chore though ...

bchapl

Hi All,
I've recently booked flights from the UK to Alicante, through Ryanair. Most of you will know about the APIS system (Advanced Passenger Information System) which is information required by the Spanish government on all visitors to Spain. This info requirement includes Passport No., Full name, DOB, Nationality. You also have to tick on what type of identitification document you are travelling on: ID Card, Passport and something called 'Common Passport'. What is a 'Common Passport' when it's at home? Not knowing what the hell this is, I ticked Passport as I thought, 'well, I'm not common, so I'm damned if I'm going to tick 'Common Passport'.
Does anyone know what this ID document is? Just wondering...
bchapl

moreland

I bet its this thing I´ve been harping on about. This Nationalistic passport, apaprently you have to state if you are English, Welsh or Scottish. Honestly if this does turn out to be an April folls joke - heads will roll!!

lcortez

This is not a joke all residents in Spain are req to carry id.For citizens and foreigners with national id cards,its that,for foreigeners from countries w/o a national id card its their passport.
Surprised you didnt know this.

moreland

Hi I do know this. I have lived here for five years and had a business for two. I am trying to get to the bottom of whether or not I need to apply for this brand new thing called a nationalistic passport. I have a residencia card, an Nie number and a Cif number for my business.

Ali in jaen

I hope that our residence cards are still valid ID I've never had any probs.

However, a few months ago I went to get a new residencia card because I changed address and can you believe they told me they would not renew it as it expires in 2009 and they'd change it then.:curse: That doesn't make sense at all thinking that you get fined a fortune if you're caught by a civil guard with wrong details on the card!

Does this happen elsewhere or just Jaen?

Mitzyboy

Ive never been asked for ID in the time I've been here other than my driving licence

jdr

That is the rule in most countries I have been to, except for the UK.

flood

OK, this is the story. Spain used to issue foreign residents with an ID card or "Residencia", a nice plastic card with your photo, 'prints etc, which was jolly useful, especially in cases of taxes on property sales, buying, or death, as residents are treated more favourably than non-residents.

One day those dumb (deleted) up in Brussels decided it was descriminatory of Spain to require EU citizens living in Spain to carry a Residencia. So Spain stopped issueing Residencias to EU citizens in Spain, and instead you have to register at the local police stattion. So now we have nothing to identify ourselves as legally resident*.

Since Spain like most other countries still requires you to be able to identify yourself, you now have to carry ALL THE TIME your own country's ID card or passport.

*However: an expired "Residencia" is still accepted by everyone I encounter, so if you have one, hang onto it !

*And you should anyway be "empadroniomento'd" (registered) at your local Town Hall, so make a copy of that certificate - maybe reduced in size - and carry it with you.

Just one more way in which the EU makes life more complicated by screwing up a perfectly good working system......

Robin

Rosemary

We changed our driving licences to Spanish ones and use these for ID purposes such as debit card ID at the supermarkets etc. Only carry our passports when going to places further than 20 kms away.

Rosemary