Before you open the booking page
Be sure of the procedure first. The form gives it away: EX-15 for a NIE by itself, EX-18 for the green certificate, EX-17 for a TIE, EX-19 for the card for a European’s relative. Keep your passport, or your NIE document if you have one, beside the keyboard: the system wants the document number and your name precisely as printed.
Province, procedure, office, hour
The first choice is the province: Valladolid, wherever in it you live, from the Centro to Medina del Campo. Next, the procedure (trámite), picked from a drop-down list. When more than one office offers it, the system asks you to pick one, or simply shows the only one available. After your details come the dates on offer.
Book the step in front of you, not the one you hope to reach. Fingerprints for the TIE are one procedure, a return authorisation (autorización de regreso) is another, and each takes its own booking. Paying the 790-012 fee form is a separate step again: the booking itself costs nothing.
Police procedures and Oficina procedures
Two different offices see foreigners in Valladolid, and both work by appointment. The police brigade on C/ Gerona s/n deals with the number, Europeans’ registration, TIE cards, return authorisations, students and extensions. The Oficina de Extranjería at Calle Arzobispo José Delicado 7 belongs to the Delegación del Gobierno en Castilla y León, the central government’s administration in the region. Its page lists permits to work and to reside, family reunification, arraigo (residence earned through roots in Spain) and the residence card for EU citizens’ relatives; the office opens between 9:00 and 14:00, Monday to Friday, and accepts no application without an appointment.
A few matters sit on both lists, return authorisations among them. In those cases the procedure you book settles it, and you go to whichever office your confirmation prints.
What the justificante should say
Once the booking goes through, a page comes up with a reference number, the justificante. Save it, print it, or both, then read it line by line:
- The procedure: is it the one your form calls for?
- The office and its street: C/ Gerona, Arzobispo José Delicado, or another
- The date and the hour
- Your name and document number, letter for letter
- The reference, which you need to cancel or to find the booking again
When no dates appear
The screen may tell you that no appointments are free. Fresh dates appear now and then, so try another day, or another hour. Steer clear of anyone who sells appointments: booking is free, it is made in your own name, and the only confirmation that counts comes from the official system.