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If you’re thinking of purchasing a property, a car or relocating to live in Lanzarote, you’re going to need an NIE. This will be your tax and identification number on the island. For those of you starting a new life, you’ll need help applying for residency in Lanzarote or a TIE.
If you’re thinking of purchasing a property, a car or relocating to live in Lanzarote, you’re going to need an NIE. This will be your tax and identification number on the island. For those of you starting a new life, you’ll need help applying for residency in Lanzarote or a TIE.
NIE is short for Número de Identidad de Extranjero, which translates as an identification number for foreigners. It’s the number used to process your tax and much like a national insurance number in the UK, it stays with you for life.
There are a few reasons you will need one:
• You’re buying a car
• You’re purchasing a holiday home or forever home here
• You plan on starting a business.
If you’re European (excluding British) and planning to live and work here, you can do so for the first 90 days using your EU passport. The only thing you’ll need is a social security number, which we can help you with. After 90 days you’ll need to have your residencia (which comes with NIE). You’ll need to start the process ASAP to give us time to make the application.
If you are a non-European passport holder (including UK) and wish to become resident in Lanzarote, you’ll need to register for a TIE card (Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero) once you have the visas in place.
If you’re planning on living and working here this is a legal requirement. The TIE itself is a biometric photo ID card which proves you are a resident. You’ll need to carry with you and use it for many official procedures on the island.
If you’re already a resident and have the original green paper residencia or the small wallet size green card, we advise you to change it for a TIE as soon as possible.
We can also arrange TIE cards for non-European visa holders.
If you’re a European passport holder, or a family member of one, and you’re planning on starting a new life in Lanzarote, there’s some paperwork to complete to live here on a permanent basis.
The main part of this is registering as a foreigner on the island, commonly known as a residencia.
The aim of this is to prove you’re self-sufficient, whether you plan to work here or to start enjoying your retirement.
If you aren’t sure whether this is what you need or what the whole process entails, you can book a residency consultation (in the section below) with us to make sure you’re on the right track.
If your passport’s due to expire, we can take care of the renewal process online, on your behalf. We advise making the application a minimum of 3 months in advance, as we have to send your old passport off in the post and you’ll have a bit of a wait for the new one to be delivered.
If you’re a UK citizen, please bear in mind you should have a minimum of 6 months left on your passport at any time to allow you to travel.
We can also help if your passport is lost, stolen or damaged. This is a different process but we can still make it a lot more straightforward for you.
Our fee of 50€ does not include the passport service fee or postal fee, these will be charged separately.
We’re here to help make your life simple, pop in what you need and let’s get you sorted.
