Can Brits in Spain renew their TIEs in another town or immigration office?

If you are UK national and are residing legally in Spain under the Withdrawal Agreement you may have to renew your TIE card soon. This is your Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero (TIE) or Foreign Identity Card, which proves you are legally resident in Spain.

British residents in Spain used to be issued the same green residency certificates as other EU nationals, but since Brexit became a reality, UK nationals residing in Spain are now issued the residency document of non-EU nationals, the biometric TIE card.

If you'd been living in Spain for less than five years when you applied for the Withdrawal Agreement TIE, you were issued with a temporary card which has to be renewed after five years, while those that had lived here more than five years were given a permanent TIE, which only has to be renewed after 10 years.

Because it is now five years since the first temporary WA TIEs were issued to Brits, the expiry date has or will soon be reached for all those that have a temporary cards.

READ ALSO: Brits in Spain face appointment nightmare for residency card renewals

In order to be able to renew your TIE you need to meet the following criteria:

• Have no criminal records in Spain
• Not be a citizen of the European Union, Switzerland, or the European Economic Area.
• You must not be prohibited from entering the country.
• Have a valid and passport
• You must have a residence permit
• Have either private medical insurance or be covered by social security
• If you have dependent children, they must be enrolled in school while they are in Spain.
• Not be outside of Spain for prolonged periods of absences

READ ALSO: How to get a 'cita previa' (appointment) in Spain when it seems impossible

The main problem when trying to renew your TIE, however, is that you need to get a cita previa or appointment to be able to visit your local police station or extranjería office first and there are hardly any appointments available.

We have written previously about the problems readers face in trying to get these appointments.

Two major factors are causing this cita previa crisis.

Firstly, there's the fact that appointments are quickly booked by bots run by criminal gangs who then charge people for the citas previas.

Secondly, Spain's understaffed immigration offices are overwhelmed by their increased workload following reforms to the country's Immigration Law, which came into force in May of this year.

There are many tips for getting around the cita previa issue, but one of the most common is to try and book an appointment at an office in another smaller town where there might be more spaces available.

Is this actually possible though? Can you get a cita previa at an office which doesn't correspond to your address in Spain?

If you live in a busy city with a large foreign population such as Barcelona, Málaga or Alicante, you may be able to find appointments more easily in a nearby town, where civil servants are more likely to pick up the phone or have spaces available.

'Never been this bad': Your problems booking residency appointments in Spain

Many lawyers and experts in fact say that when trying to get an appointment, you should select your province but leave the exact city blank and as cualquier oficina. That way you can make sure you can get any available one in your province.

That's one one Facebook user suggested on the UK Embassy's social media group Brits in Spain, where he wrote "Those having trouble getting appointments, just pick a different extranjeria. Yeah it might be annoying having to travel and stay overnight somewhere but at least you'll get the appointment. e.g. Velez-Malaga (usually impossible to get an appointment for anything) -> just use Malaga."

President Expat Support in Spain (Brexpats) Richard T Hill wrote on Facebook: "You can do the process at any national police station within your province", confirming that this is likely possible.

One reader told The Local Spain “To book our initial (fingerprint) TIE appointment in Madrid, we had to wait 6 weeks, and the only police station offering citas previas was in Aranjuez, at the very southern edge of the region. It took us 90 minutes by metro and bus to get there". She successfully managed to book an appointment in another town, even though she didn't live there.

However, immigration lawyer María L. De Castro from CostaLuz Lawyers told The Local Spain that "TIE renewals must be done in the town/city where the person is registered (empadronado)".

She confirms that only "for a first TIE, the appointment can be booked in any office within the province".

This is perhaps where a lot of the confusion comes in and why some offices will let you and some won't.

One reader on the Brexpats Facebook group said: "I live in Jávea but went to Orihuela for my TIE renewal (opposite ends of Alicante province) as there were no appointments closer to home.

This doesn't always work out, unfortunately. Some police stations may turn you away if you go to one in a different area to where you live.

One reader wrote: "It's IMPOSSIBLE to get a 'cita previa' in the whole Barcelona province and starting to worry about time running out on me". Another confirmed that he couldn't get one in the whole of the Murcia province either and another also said this about Valencia.

As is so often the case with official matters in Spain, it can depend on the rules of the specific immigration office or police station, or even the interpretation or knowledge of the rules by the individual civil servant or police officer you're dealing with.

If in doubt, the best option is to call up extranjería offices in other towns and see if you're able to renew your TIE there, even if you live somewhere else. But there's no guarantee that they'll pick up the phone.

READ ALSO: The vocab you'll need when applying for Spanish residency