Your first weeks in Spain: the order that shapes the year after

The first weeks in Spain aren't a matter of working hard but of the right order. Almost every counter asks for another counter's paper: the bank wants your NIE, the municipality your rental contract, the immigration office your municipal registration, the health centre that registration plus your entitlement to care. Whoever knows the chain is through the basics in a few weeks; whoever starts at random loses appointments that took weeks.

What do you arrange in the very first days?

Two things that hang on nothing: a Spanish phone number and the bank account. With your NIE and passport you can get one; whoever lives legally in an EU country moreover has the right to a basic payment account, and a bank may not refuse it merely because you've only just moved there. What you need and what such an account may cost is in the article on banking and paying.

Why the padrón comes before everything else

Registration with the municipality, the empadronamiento, is the hinge of the whole chain. The national government says it literally: to be able to register as a resident, you have to be in your municipality's padrón. And the health centre, the school and the traffic authority ask for it just the same. For that you need an address you can prove, so a rental contract in your name. That's the reason renting comes before registration in the step-by-step plan, and not after it.

Then comes the registration itself: the green registration certificate at the immigration office or the police of your province, by appointment. The application should be made within three months of your entry into Spain, and whoever registers is immediately issued a certificate with name, nationality, address, NIE and date of registration; whoever has no NIE yet is assigned one here. That appointment is scarce in popular regions; read how to get one anyway.

Which numbers and cards come after that?

What	Where	What they want to see	Deadline or processing time
Registration certificate EU citizen	Oficina de Extranjería or police, by appointment	passport, padrón, proof of work or of means and health cover	apply within 3 months of entry
Número de la Seguridad Social	Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social	modelo TA.1, passport or NIE; with a job the employer applies	decision within at most 45 days, after which the application counts as granted
Health card (tarjeta sanitaria)	the centro de salud of your address	empadronamiento and the entitlement to care via the INSS; Madrid charges no fee	per region; Madrid wants a volante younger than 90 days for changes
Car onto Spanish plates	DGT, after ITV and the tax return	NIE, padrón, car documents	30 days after settling; temporary plates possible

The Número de la Seguridad Social is the number that healthcare and work hang on. Every citizen or worker without one can apply for it with modelo TA.1 and an identity document; if you take a job, your employer applies for you. The Seguridad Social has at most 45 days to decide, and if it stays silent longer, the application counts as granted. How you then get into the healthcare system, through work, the S1 or universal access, is in the article on Spanish healthcare.

The health card you get at the health centre of your home address. Madrid shows how regions do it: you're in the region's padrón, the INSS has recognised your entitlement to care, and as a foreigner you have a valid residence document; the card carries no fee, and its validity follows that of your registration certificate.

The clock everyone forgets: the car

Whoever came with their own car has the shortest deadline of all. The Spanish tax agency is clear: residents of Spain may not drive on foreign plates, and you have 30 days to register the car, with temporary plates from the DGT possible while the procedure runs. What the conversion costs and which exemption a mover gets is in the article on your car.

Don't start on the car "once the boxes are unpacked". Thirty days are gone before you've had your registration appointment, and the exemption from the registration tax hangs on its own deadline. Put the ITV inspection in the same week as your padrón.

Arrange your digital key now

Everything that has to be done with the Spanish government after the first weeks goes online: your tax return, a fresh padrón certificate, your healthcare registration. Two keys exist for that. Cl@ve has four registration routes on two levels: basic (online with automatic video identification, or with an invitation letter) and advanced (video identification checked by a civil servant, with an electronic certificate, or at a counter); the basic level opens many but not all services. The certificado electrónico of the FNMT is free for everyone with a DNI or NIE, obtained with video identification or at a counter, and works at the tax agency, the municipality and social security alike.

The smart moment is the week in which you're standing at counters anyway. With address, padrón, certificate, number, health card and key the basics are done; the school for the children runs through the same registration, and the rest of the first year is in the journey at /spanje.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 5 of 5 of the journey, step 5.1: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Spain or go straight to step 5.1 in the open plan.