The NIE (Número de Identificación de Extranjeros) is an ID number issued by the Spanish authorities, which is assigned to foreigners who need to be identified within Spain for either personal, tax or economic reasons. You do not need to be a resident of Spain to obtain it, though you need to have a purpose for doing so (e.g. you are buying a house on the sunny Costa del Sol!) and provide related evidence.
You will need your NIE number for a variety of transactions, such as to pay taxes in Spain, to purchase property, to open a bank account, to receive an inheritance, or even to incorporate a company. If you have already started any of these, you may experience delays on their completion if you do not hold your NIE number yet.
You can request the NIE number directly in Spain at any police station, or you can approach your local Spanish consulate. The process is quite straightforward; it involves completing a form and presenting your passport, though personal attendance is required. The Spanish authorities then take a couple of weeks to issue the NIE number, and once ready, will send you a certificate with the number on it.
However, if you are not able to attend in person, you may grant a power of attorney for a representative to act on your behalf. At Vanner Perez Notaries, we have helped hundreds of clients to grant powers of attorney to apply for the NIE number in Spain. We have considerable experience in preparing this type of document, and know the requirements that need to be met for it to be valid and fully operative.
We can draft and notarise the power of attorney for you, though if your lawyers have already prepared it, we can still help with its execution and legalisation by means of the Hague Apostille, which will be necessary for the document to be valid in Spain. Our team can prepare an execution version within a couple of days, and then have it legalised with the apostille in about 48 hours, meaning the process can be completed rather quickly.
You will need to attend an appointment at our offices to sign the power of attorney. We will also need to certify a copy of your passport to be attached to the document. If you are a holder of an EU passport, a copy of the ID page is sufficient. However, if you hold a non-EU passport, we will need to make copies of all the pages. We will prepare these copies on the day of the appointment, meaning you just need to worry about bringing the original with you.
If you would like to obtain your NIE number by granting a power of attorney, or you would like more information about the process, feel free to give us a call on 020 3668 6626 or to send an email to info@vpnotaries.co.uk.