Hi yes that's the one that we are using. Thank you again

argh right get you now i didnt get my First TIE that route as i had the old green card to exchange but my wife had to go via the extranjaria office and as you say had 30 days to attend the National Police station to continue the process. To be honest i dont know the answer re bank holidays and delays getting appointments. I would guess they mean little to them so you may be better asking that question to the extranjaria office given its two different organisations . I would guess that so long as appointment is made within the 30 days that should be acceptable even if the actual appointment is some time after as that is in their control not yours. Good luck with it all I found when we did it everyone i dealt with extranjaria office and National Police very helpful and it was relatively straight forward , i hope all goes well for you

I agree, Bob. Like yourself, when we wanted to exchange our permanent green cards for TIEs, after a few weeks of looking for appointments at our nearest Extranjeria office in Torre del Mar (when they were being advertised for sale from a photography studio directly opposite the Comisaria de Policia Nacional, but we would have nothing to do with a scam like that) I found appointments available at the main Provincial Comisaria in Málaga so we went there. Checking every morning before 9 am was key.

I've always regarded learning how to deal with official administrative matters myself as an essential part of the integration process having moved to a new country, and have no wish to feel like a helpless infant having to rely on someone else to be able to handle the simplest of things - and most of them have been simple provided you research what is needed and make sure you have it all available when you go to the relevant office. I will no more employ someone to do these things for me than I would employ someone to clean my house whilst I'm still capable of doing it myself. And I've never used a translation app on a phone or asked anybody in a public office to speak English to me, either.

One thing i remember at Malaga was while queueing there was a young police woman who was very good. She made sure no one pushed in etc she ran the queue like clockwork. First time we went for my wife's TIE was a little daunting as all new to us but we had prepared had everything we needed and all went well. I too later went to Malaga to exchange the green card second time i knew the process and all went smoothly. We are now approaching renewals whether we end up doing that at Velez Malaga or Malaga makes no difference to us anywhere will do so long as we get the renewal.

We found them very helpful at Málaga, too. Our first appointments there to submit the applications for the TIE were 45 minutes apart, but to save us hanging about the young female police officer on the door (maybe it was the same one you saw!) let us go in together.

We did our renewal at Velez Malaga and was supper efficient and great team there. When collecting our new cards we were both out of the building before the time of the first appointment.


Alexander56
The 30 day rule is sometimes exceeded due to lack of appointments. Our first TIE at Marbella was 38 days after arriving in Spain on Non Lucrative Visa. Benidorm was our hit list later this year for our next renewal so maybe we’ll need to look further away in Alicante which I’ve heard positive feedback about.

Thats good to hear thanks . I did get my original green card from the Torre Del Mar Police Station before they moved to the new one. Hopefully we can get appointments at Velez Malaga for renewal . Malaga is next easiest option for us as we can use the bus. A friend used eirher Torremolinos or Fuengirola and said that was fine so we have options and are prepared to go wherever gets the job done

Keep trying at random times.

I managed to find a whole batch of citas released late one Sunday afternoon for Valencia.

thank you

I tried every morning between 8am and 9am which was when the police station I was interested in said they updated the website (yours may be different). Sometimes if someone cancels in the middle of the day you'll find a free slot too. In the end it took me about two weeks.

thank you, we have been trying at all different times early morning onwards

Given the time and effort you have put into this wouldn't it simply be worth contacting a local gestor and simple asking if they could obtain an appointment for you and then you could decide whether the price is worth it compared to trying to do it yourself? You could quite easily find yourself going to an appointment only to discover you need some document you didn't have etc then you need to start all over again. A gestor avoids all this and just gets you your card and then you can relax.

we looked last week for appointments for my wife's renewal in July . There were appointments showing but non suitable as although you are supposed to be able to renew 30 days before expiry they wont in fact renew the card until expired. My wife followed what had worked for us previously and checked this morning and has an appointment at our local National Police Station in August. So the plan worked

We know this has happened in the past but do you have verifiable evidence that it's still going on?

If so kindly please provide it.

It certainly was, but I have no idea or interest in whether it still is. Its almost certainly different in all areas.