If you’re a UK national who is a resident in Spain and you’re planning on travelling soon, what happens if you haven’t renewed your TIE residency card yet and it’s due to expire or has done already?
Those Brits who were protected under the Withdrawal Agreement after Brexit and received their temporary five-year TIE residency cards will soon have to renew them (or already need to) for the permanent ten-year TIE cards.
Because the first TIE cards were issued to Brits in July 2020, from now up until the end of the year, most people with the temporary five-year cards will have to renew them.
As The Local Spain has been reporting though, getting an appointment or cita in order to renew your TIE can be very difficult, particularly in big cities. This may mean that you’re unable to renew your card when you want to.
Appointments are foreigners’ offices particularly difficult to get, firstly because the system is often hijacked by criminal gangs who book up all the appointments using bots so that they can later sell them. Technically this should be free.
READ ALSO: €90 for a ‘cita previa’ – Spain’s residency appointment scams worsen
Secondly, it is also more difficult recently because of the extra work staff at these offices have had to undertake since the new immigration law came into effect in May of this year.
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According to Spain’s Ministry of Inclusion and Migration, you can renew your TIE from 30 days before it expires and until 90 days after its expiration date.
There have however been several reports of Brits being turned away for renewal in advance and have been told to wait until after they expire instead. This seems to particularly be the case in certain areas of Spain, including in Valencia and Alicante, according to readers.
READ ALSO: Can Brits in Spain renew their TIE residency cards before they expire?
So, what happens when you need to travel out of Spain temporarily while your TIE is expired, either because you can’t get an appointment or because it’s in the process of being renewed?
Technically, if you have an expired residency document in Spain and you want to travel, you have to apply for an autorización de regreso or re-entry permit.
The autorización de regreso is a document authorising foreign residents to be able to exit and return to Spain during a period of renewal or extension of their residence card such as a TIE.
READ ALSO: How to travel to Spain if your residency document has expired
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In order to be eligible to apply for the autorización de regreso you must:
- Be the holder of a residence document and have initiated the renewal or extension process of the authorisation that enables you to remain in Spain within the legal term.
- Be the holder of a valid foreign identity card and have submitted a request for a duplicate card due to theft, loss, destruction or expiry.
- Prove that the trip responds to a situation of need and there are exceptional reasons why you need to travel during this time.
- Have your initial residence or authorisation favourably resolved.
As you can see, however, not being able to get an appointment isn’t one of these reasons, it must already be in the process of renewal.
One of the biggest issues, however, is that in order to apply for an autorización de regreso you also need to get an appointment at an extranjería or foreigners’ office.
This means that you’re stuck in the same situation trying to get an appointment, when there aren’t any available.
If you could get an appointment, then you would simply renew your card first instead.
READ ALSO: How Brits in Spain can renew their temporary residency TIE card
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So, what happens if you need to leave Spain and return when your residency card has expired?
Many readers on Facebook groups have reported that this isn’t an issue because you can simply re-enter Spain with just your passport. You may temporarily be considered a tourist, but that shouldn’t be a problem if you renew your residency card when you return.
As the law states, you have 90 days or three months in which to renew your TIE after it expires, so as long as you’ve returned within those three months, this shouldn’t be an issue.
You may face problems if your return to Spain past the 3-month expiry deadline though, if your passport shows that you’ve spent more than 90 days in Spain within a six month period.
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According to Spanish immigration law firm Para Inmigrantes, failure to renew within this time frame doesn’t mean you will automatically lose your right to legally reside in Spain though.
As long as you can prove that the reason you haven’t renewed isn’t your fault, then you should be okay.
The firm recommends that when you attempt to request an appointment for the card, you should take a screenshot to prove that it was impossible to get one. This way, you can record each and every failed attempt during the process of requesting an appointment for the card and can prove it wasn’t your fault.
