How to get a Spanish NIE without going to Spain

If you are buying, inheriting, selling or setting up anything in Spain, sooner or later somebody will tell you that you need an NIE. Usually at the point where it becomes urgent. Here is what it is, and how to get one without booking a flight.

What the NIE is — and what it is not

The NIE, Número de Identidad de Extranjero, is the identification number Spain assigns to foreign nationals for dealings with the Spanish administration and for transactions with financial consequences in Spain.

You need it to buy or sell property, open a bank account, inherit with any normality, set up a company, obtain a digital certificate or file most tax returns.

What it is not: a residence permit, a work permit, or any entitlement to live in Spain. Having an NIE gives you a number, nothing more. Residence is an entirely separate procedure. This confusion is extremely common and occasionally expensive.

Three ways to get one

At the Spanish consulate in your country. No travel required. You apply at the consulate covering your area of residence. The timing depends almost entirely on appointment availability, which varies enormously between consulates.

Through a representative in Spain. You grant a power of attorney and somebody applies on your behalf. Also no travel required, and often faster than waiting for a consular slot.

In person in Spain. By appointment at a police station or immigration office. Fastest if you happen to be in the country, useless if you are not.

You have to say why you want one

This trips people up. Spain does not issue NIEs on request: you have to establish an economic, professional or social reason for needing one.

Buying a property, accepting an inheritance, becoming a company director or opening a business are all valid grounds — but they have to be evidenced. A purchase contract, a death certificate, a notarial appointment: something showing the transaction is real.

An application submitted without that evidence gets rejected, and you go back to the queue.

The paperwork

• Form EX-15, completed and signed
• Your passport, valid, plus a copy of the relevant pages
• Proof of payment of the fee (form 790, code 012), which is modest
• Evidence of the reason for the application
• Where a representative applies, the power of attorney

The power of attorney is where the money is saved

If you go through a representative, the power can be granted two ways.

Before a notary in your own country, in which case it needs an apostille under the Hague Convention and a sworn translation into Spanish. Two extra procedures, several hundred euros, and weeks.

Or before the Spanish consul, in which case it is already a Spanish public document, already in Spanish, and needs neither.

Unless the consulate is impossibly far or booked solid, the consular route wins on cost and on time.

One thing worth getting right first time

A power of attorney that is drafted too narrowly stops the process halfway. If it authorises the NIE application but not, say, opening a bank account or signing at the notary, you find out at the worst possible moment and have to go back to the consulate for a second one.

Drafting it with exactly the scope the matter requires costs nothing extra at the time and saves a month later.

Does it expire?

The number itself is permanent and personal — it does not change. The document evidencing it may have limited validity depending on how it was issued, so keep the original safe. If you lose it, obtaining a fresh certificate of the same number is straightforward.