In early May I submitted my paperwork to renew my tarjeta de residencia, which you need much like a driver's license in the U.S. for all sorts of basic identification - giving a credit card at stores, presenting a police report when your office has been robbed (another story), in banks, etc. While a passport will do, it's not a good idea to take it with you every day, especially because it doesn't fit in your wallet! While it takes three months for the renewal process you can only submit the paperwork to renew it 1 month in advance! Of course this makes little sense, and while they gave me a paper certifying I was in the process of renewal, that expired on 1 September. And of course it is now in month 4 and the status is still "pending". As with any of these types of tramites it is good to be prepared. A few points of advice:
- Show up early enough at the Plaza de España to get a number. This means around 8 or 9 am. They do run out of numbers for the day.
- Be prepared to wait at least 2 hours. At times maybe more.
- Be prepared for the requisites to change. In fact you may want to visit the actual office before you renew to get a full list. Relying on information published on a web site is not a good idea, as we learned of 2 - 3 items which were not indicated on the official web site. We also learned that the application form had changed slightly from the form we printed off from the web site. For this reason (and for laziness) I don't publish a link here.
- Be prepared for it to take longer than 3 months, and that there is no way to reach anyone by phone except for an automated system which will likely tell you there is an error. Expect the same on the web site where you can check the status of your renewal. Finally I was able to get the automated telephone system to accept my information and tell me it was still pending. I think maybe it was my error the first three times I tried, but who knows.
- Make sure you don't have travel plans outside the country which go beyond the validity of your 3 month certified letter. Actually, I think they may still let you back in the country, but I didn't want to find out.
The good news is the person who attended us couldn't have been nicer. Maybe that we just our luck.
