I had to open a bank account today. I chose La Caixa – a very popular bank here in Barcelona. Mainly because it’s not a bank but a “caixa“. I don’t know any translation for this word in English, but it’s something like a non-profit bank ran by non-greedy bankers, which for me is a contradiction in terms. So I will stop thinking about what a caixa is, because if I don’t, my brain will explode. If you’re still curious about it, have a look at its Wikipedia entry.

Fortunately Meri – one of my flat mates – agreed to come with me to the bank’s office and act as a translator, so things went pretty smooth. I’ve opened a bank account, all the terms were pretty straight forward, no hidden taxes or fine prints. Not that I would be able to read Spanish fine prints. La Caixa offers self-services (ATMs / online) on a large variety of languages, that includes English and Romanian, which, for me, translates as “usable”.

Much to my surprise, the online service is based on a very distant relative of today’s Digipass. The system is like this: they hand out a card with some numbers on it, and when you login, the site asks for something like “please type in the number that is located on your card on line 4, column 5″. Kind of lame, less secure than the Digipass, but, no doubt, cheaper.

After getting the empadronamiento, the next logical step in order to live in Spain legally is to get a NIE or Numero de Identificación de Estranjeros. This number is required for just about anything in Spain: opening a bank account, working (legally ), renting a flat, a bike, or anything else that requires a legal contract.

Numero de Indentificación de Estranjeros

The most important thing you need in order to get the NIE is patience. And lots of it. There’s only one place where you can get the NIE in Barcelona and, as you can easily imagine, it’s always crowded. The office is located on Calle Balmes 192 (near the Diagonal subway station) and it opens at 9:00 am. I got there at 8:30 am and people were already queued, because the office closes at 2:00 pm sharp, and if you don’t get the NIE by then, you’ll have to come back another day.

In order to get the NIE you must bring your your passport / EU ID card and fill in a form they hand out there or you can download from the Spanish Minister of the Interior’s website here (note: the downloaded form is slightly different than the one they hand out there), so I think it’s better to use theirs and not print your own.

Although the empadronamiento is not officially required, I know that some people weren’t able to get a NIE without getting empadronado first. I think they sometimes ask for it because the empadroniamento is regarded as proof that one lives where he says he lives, and since that address also appears on the NIE, the need for the empadronamiento becomes somewhat obvious. Sometimes they ask for it, sometimes they don’t. I think it relies on the planets’ alignment or whether the clerk got laid or not the night before. Just play it safe and bring the empadronamiento with you. That’s what I did.

I took a number and sat on a chair, waiting to be called by the clerk. Queues are quite civilised in Spain, you just pick a number and wait to be called – unlike their Romanian counterparts that look like American Football matches. Although I was number 18, I had to wait about one hour until I was called by the clerk. After some formalities and some conversation in Spanglish I was handed some papers and told that I have to pay a fee for the NIE.

Paying the fee for the NIE

I went to the banks to pay a €10.10 fee. Why do I say banks? Well, unlike usual banks, the Spanish ones are not in a hurry to take one’s money. First I went to “La Caixa” (reads something like “la casha”) – which is a very popular bank in Barcelona. They only had an automatic machine that only works Visas issued by La Caixa. I thought this is quite stupid, but since I had an ING issued Visa card – thus being unable to use their machine – I had to move along. I went to another bank, called “Caixa Girona” this time, but I couldn’t pay the damned fee there either, because they said they only take those kind of payments in the morning, between 8 and 10 am. Or at least that’s what I understood, since the bank employee was speaking in Catalan. After trying 2 more banks in the vicinity, I finally ended up to Barclays where I could pay the fee. Note for the future: always go directly to Barclay’s when you need to pay government fees.

With proof of paying, I went back and stood in another line and finally got the NIE. I left the office at 11 something am. So it took me about 3h 30′. But, so far the score is me vs. Spanish bureaucracy 2 – 0.