Getting the form
The 790-012 is completed on sede.policia.gob.es, the Policía Nacional’s online office, then printed. The online route spares you any arithmetic, since the amount fills itself in once the procedure is chosen. Each form bears its own reference number, so it covers a single procedure for a single person.
The boxes that matter
The top part takes your details: name, NIE if you have one or else your passport number, and address. Further down comes the list of procedures. Mark only the one you have booked: assignment of a NIE, the green certificate of a European, fingerprints for the TIE (a first card or a renewal), and so on. A box that does not match your appointment can mean paying a second time.
Paying it
There are two ways. In cash at a bank acting as a collaborating entity (entidad colaboradora), which stamps your copies, or online by card or through electronic banking, which gives you a receipt to print. Not every branch takes these payments at the counter, so ask before you queue, or pay online.
On the day
Once printed, the 790 comes in three parts: the administration’s, yours and the bank’s. Hand over the administration’s part, stamped or with the online receipt, clipped to your EX form, and keep yours until the document is in your hands.
One fee among several
Código 012 is for police work: numbers, certificates, cards, return authorisations. The authorisations decided at the Oficina de Extranjería on Calle Arzobispo José Delicado use other codes of the same Modelo 790, and the Delegación del Gobierno links to paying them online. None of these State charges has anything to do with what private help costs, ours included, and the cita previa for Valladolid costs nothing.