Am I Legally Resident?

¿Why is it so hard to get a TIE appointment in Spain?

The pandemic has left many negative consequences in Spain. So you can understand that one of the most drastic effects has been the current situation when trying to get an appointment with the immigration office.

Even for professionals finding a free slot to obtain your TIE (foreigner’s identification card) is difficult and we do have more than a few late nights, it no longer matters what time of the day you try to search, or what day of the week, waiting times seem to be eternal, and the probability of finding a free spot seems nonexistent.

In short: the system is collapsed and the immigration office cannot attend to all the requests it receives.

I know that this is something a lot of you are worrying about and after you have obtained a positive resolution you want to be able to get the next stage over and done with so you can have the Card in your hand in order to be able to do all the things being a resident allows, has there are many procedures in Spain (both with the administration and with companies or third parties) that require the TIE.

This is why the government has been forced to act, and has acted in the most coherent way possible: converting any resolution issued by the Immigration Offices into a document that is comparable to the TIE for legal purposes.

Your immigration resolution (the one you receive after being approved with a favorable resolucion) has now the same legal validity as the TIE.

The objective is clear: to protect the legal security of foreigners who lives in Spain or who is about to start doing so.

And to achieve this commitment, the Ministry of the Interior, together with the Secretariat of State for Migration, have issued a statement by which from now on the foreigner will not need the TIE (the physical document containing the NIE and its type of residence) to be able to carry out any of the procedures that require it.

From now on, the same resolution issued by the immigration department (which must be favorable) will be sufficient and totally valid when interacting with the Spanish administration and any other third party.

Legally, from the moment you receive your favorable resolution for your residency application until you are able to obtain the residence card in physical format (which with the current situation can take several weeks), you can use this same resolution for any procedure that requires the TIE. I do say this with a little apprehension as we know that some officials like to interpret their own rules and in all honesty I would much prefer to have the stamped letter after the fingerprint stage, however it is all legal and true.

This is an insert from the bottom of one such Approved resolución

"La autorización concedida mediante la presente resolución produce plenos efectos frente a la administración y frente a terceros y su eficacia no se encuentra condicionada a la obtención de la Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero, sin perjuicio de que, deba ser solicitada en el plazo de un mes desde su concesión".( The month is waived at the moment)

"The authorization granted by this resolution produces full effects against the administration and against third parties and its effectiveness is not

It is conditional on obtaining the Foreigner Identity Card, without prejudice to the fact that it must be requested within a month from

your grant."

I need to add after seeing the wrong information posted on various Facebook post from other "professionals" is the mention of the start date of the TIE Residency, they say it starts from the fingerprint stage, this is not true while it may only be a few weeks, months in some cases, be aware the start date is from the date of the first EX20 submission.