My wife and I are buying a flat in Spain. We're not going to be residents, though, because we'll just be there in the summer.

As part of the process, I went to the local police station to get my NIE. For some reason, I was expecting to get a little ID card (the application asked for a passport-type photo). But all I got was a certificate, which expires in 3 months. The nice woman did tell me that the number was permanent, though. And that if I needed another certificate in the future, I had to go to the police station again and pay the fee, etc.

My question is, am I ever going to need to get another certificate? Or is just having the number good enough for most things?

Thanks.
Eric S.

I was never asked for my NIE certificate in 7 years, apart from by official offices. You will be having to pay non residents tax on your property though, but for the short time we did that the number was sufficient.

In theory you could be asked to show your certificate if stopped by the police. In our area it was generally advised to carry your NIE with you at all times, but as I said ... we were never asked for it. We WERE asked sometimes for our NIE number sometimes when buying stuff in shops, but that was generally big purchases such as furniture suites, building materials etc etc

A lot of things in Spain revolve around your NIE but mostly they just want you to quote it. When having a parcel or signed for letter the post office may ask for proof but the vast majority of times that I have been asked for it I have either written it down for them or told them without any proof.

Rosemary

Sorry, Mitzy, I have to disagree with that.

You are obliged to be able to prove your identity and an NIE certificate on its own does not do that. The UK passport is the only official form of ID for Brits in the absence of a UK ID card.

A UK or Spanish photo licence is often adequate, even a very old out of date "residencia" card, but a simple NIE certificate would be at the bottom of the list of acceptable IDs. The new green foreigners registration certificate might carry more weight but in the absence of a photo on it, even that is pretty useless for ID purposes.

You need a NIE number to buy things in Spain, but it doesn't serve any useful purpose in identifying yourself to the authorities on the rare occasions a respectable expat has to.

I watched a Guardia Civil road block just the other day, right outside the cafe I was sitting in. They're a grumpy lot and nobody likes them, but you wonder how they react to the myriad of documents in all different languages presented to them on a daily basis.

Unless there is a recognisable photograph among the documents presented to them, how can they possibly understand the writing, a lot of the stuff is upside down and back to front to western eyes.

You can understand them getting the hump.

My Spanish neighbour always carried his NIE with him because he knew it was a possibility that the Police could ask for it. I didn't actually say that it was a form of identity because thats not the subject I was referring to, I just said that the Police can actually ask for it ... and have done in our area (not me)

We only have our original NIE's. Now around 5/6 years old. Never needed a new one in that time.. Our Spanish lawyer set everything up for us when we purchased including arranging our NIE's, bank account, direct debits etc. The first time we saw the certificates was when we completed the purchase. I only recall using them once since and that was around 18 months ago to set up an account with council to pay the new recycling tax and they accepted our original certificates.

Surely, if he's a SPANISH neighbour then he doesn't have an NIE but has a DNI?

Don't Spanish DNI's have photos on and ARE a form of ID?

I thought that at first but then I realised that Mitzy meant his neighbour in Spain i.e another expat

<Sigh>

If you want the details

Born in Galicia and lived there throughout most of his early life.
Moved to Italy, then Belgium where he took Belgian citizenship to get married (don't ask me why) and then moved back to Spain where of course he then needed to take NIE etc as a foreigner even though his culture, language, history etc etc is all Spanish. OK?

... <sigh>

Having a bad day are you?

Yes

Thanks, all! I won't worry too much about renewing the certificate then.

- Eric S.