The green registration certificate: what you bring to the appointment

The certificado de registro de ciudadano de la Unión is the document with which Spain records that you live here. Colloquially the "green slip", because for a long time that's literally what it was — nowadays you often get a green card the size of a credit card.

It isn't a residence permit. As an EU citizen you don't need one; your right of residence comes from European free movement. What this certificate does is register that right, and Spain obliges you to do so as soon as you stay longer than three months.

The deadline: three months, counted from entry

You have to submit the application in person within three months of your arrival in Spain. That's the deadline from Real Decreto 240/2007, and it runs from the date you entered the country — not from the moment you found a home.

In practice it's rarely enforced straight away. That's no reason to wait: without the certificate you'll later get stuck at the bank, the tax office and the traffic authority, and then you have to arrange it anyway while something else is on hold.

Where you need to go

At the Oficina de Extranjería or the police station (Comisaría de Policía) of the province where you're going to live. Not at the municipality — that's the empadronamiento, a different procedure at a different body.

The form is called EX-18. You pay the fee in advance with modelo 790, código 012: € 12.00 per person according to the fee list of Orden PJC/617/2025. Each family member needs their own certificate, so for a family of four that's four times € 12 and four appointments.

What's asked of you

Article 7 of the Real Decreto names four situations in which you may reside here. Which applies to you determines what you bring.

Do you work in Spain, employed or self-employed? Then it's simple. You show your employment contract or your registration as an autónomo, and with that both your income and your health cover are settled — you fall under Spanish social security.

Don't you work in Spain? Then you have to demonstrate two things, and this is where the homework sits:

1. Sufficient means for yourself and the family members who come with you. What "sufficient" is gets assessed individually on the basis of your personal and family situation, and tested against an amount that's set every year in the Spanish budget act. Accepted evidence includes a title deed, a bank statement, certified cheques or proof of income from assets.
2. Health insurance that covers all risks in Spain. Public or private, taken out in Spain or elsewhere — as long as the cover applies in Spain.

What "sufficient means" is exactly isn't in this article — and that's deliberate. The amount is set annually and the assessment is individual. Naming a figure that's no longer right next year is worse than naming no figure. You'll find the current threshold through the sources at the bottom.

Two exceptions are worth knowing:

• Are you retired? Then it's enough to demonstrate that you're entitled to healthcare at the expense of the country that pays your pension. For Dutch citizens that runs through the S1 form.
• Are you a student? Then a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) may suffice, provided it covers your whole period of stay.

What's on the certificate

Don't expect an impressive document. Five things are on it: your name, your nationality, your address, your NIE number and the date of registration.

That address is the reason you first need your empadronamiento. It's also the reason you have to have the certificate amended when you move house.

And that NIE number is the same number that you can already apply for from the Netherlands. If you don't have it yet, it gets assigned here anyway — but then you're standing in a queue in Spain for something you could have arranged in the Netherlands in two weeks.

The order that saves time

Every document here is the key to the next, and one missing paper means a new appointment. This is the route that produces the least back-and-forth:

1. NIE, preferably already from the Netherlands
2. Rent a home, with the question asked beforehand whether you may register there
3. Empadronamiento at the municipality
4. Gather proof of means and health cover — bank statement, S1, policy
5. Pay modelo 790/012 and make the appointment
6. Submit EX-18, in person

Step 4 is the one people skip. A bank statement on your phone isn't a bank certificate, and a Dutch health policy that ends on emigration isn't cover in Spain. Arrange those two before you make the appointment.

Where this sits in your process

This is the final piece of the registration phase and the moment you go from "staying here" to "living here". After that the practical things remain: health card, GP, school, and the question of where you'll soon pay tax — the last one deserves more attention than it usually gets.