First Month in Spain

📌 FIRST MONTH IN SPAIN — The Exact Sequence ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ BEFORE YOU ARRIVE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ □ Book 1 month on Spotahome or Airbnb (no NIE needed) → Use this address for all registrations → Don't sign a long-term lease until you have NIE □ Get travel/health insurance for the first weeks □ Verify your Wise account (takes 1-3 days) □ Download Revolut and add funds □ Book NIE appointment at Spanish consulate in your country → Or plan to book at police station once in Spain □ Apostille your documents (criminal record + degree) → US: your Secretary of State office → UK: FCDO Legalisation Office → Takes 1-4 weeks — do this BEFORE you go □ Get health insurance (Sanitas or AXA recommended) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WEEK 1 — IMMEDIATE SETUP ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ □ Buy a local SIM card (Orange or Vodafone prepaid — €10-15) → You need a Spanish number for banking and apps □ Register at the Padrón (Ayuntamiento / town hall) → Bring: passport + proof of address (rental contract or Airbnb booking) → This is free and usually same-day → You'll get a "Certificado de Empadronamiento" → Keep 3+ copies — you'll need it everywhere □ Open BBVA online account (can do without NIE) → Or wait until you have NIE for Sabadell ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WEEK 2-3 — NIE AND VISA APPLICATION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ □ Book NIE appointment at local Extranjería / police station → Or use your pre-booked consulate appointment □ Gather all visa documents (see #visa-questions checklist) □ Submit Digital Nomad Visa application to UGE portal → Online: sede.administracionespublicas.gob.es → Keep your receipt — this proves you applied legally □ Start 20 working day UGE countdown ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WEEK 4-6 — WHILE YOU WAIT FOR UGE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ □ Open Sabadell bank account (with padrón + passport) □ Get Spanish phone contract (Movistar or Vodafone) □ Register with a local GP (médico de cabecera) → Need: padrón + passport + health insurance □ Explore your city, find your coworking, meet people here ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AFTER APPROVAL ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ □ Book biometric appointment (fingerprints + photo) → Available at Extranjería offices → Book immediately — appointments fill up fast □ Wait 30-45 days for TIE card production □ Collect TIE at police station (bring appointment + passport) □ Register with Agencia Tributaria (modelo 030) → ⚠️ Your Beckham Law 6-month clock starts HERE □ Submit modelo 149 for Beckham Law before 6-month deadline ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ COMMON MISTAKES THAT CAUSE DELAYS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✗ Signing a long-term lease before you have NIE → Landlords can't cancel but you're stuck if visa is rejected ✗ Apostilling documents after you arrive in Spain → Takes weeks, everything else waits ✗ Missing the Beckham Law deadline after TIE → Set a calendar alert the day you register at Agencia Tributaria ✗ Using your home bank for rent transfers → 2-3% fees. Use Wise instead ✗ Not booking biometric appointment immediately after approval → Appointments in Madrid and Barcelona take 4-6 weeks Questions below 👇

📋 Your first month in Spain will either be smooth or chaotic. The difference is knowing the right order. Most people do things in the wrong sequence and create delays for themselves. The padrón needs to come before most other things. The NIE appointment needs to be booked before you arrive. Banking is easier if you have a Spanish SIM. None of it is hard. It's just a sequence — and when you know the sequence, it takes about 3 weeks instead of 3 months. The full checklist is pinned below. Print it out.