Tarjeta de estudiante:
Once you obtain a student visa at the Spanish embassy in your own country, you should apply for Tarjeta de Estudiante or NIE (Número de Identificación de Extranjeros). Within a month after you arrive to Spain, foreign students must apply for this NIE card. It is an identification card for foreign residents in Spain and it is just like DNI (Documento Nacional de Identidad) that Spanish residents own. If you have this, there is no need to carry your passport with you, because NIE will be your new identification. It is also necessary when you want to open a bank account (although I was able to open my bank account with my passport), and for official documents like tax records, establishing business etc.
Applying for Tarjeta de Estudiante (NIE):
Once you obtain a student visa at the Spanish embassy in your own country, you should apply for Tarjeta de Estudiante or NIE (Número de Identificación de Extranjeros). Within a month after you arrive to Spain, foreign students must apply for this NIE card. It is an identification card for foreign residents in Spain and it is just like DNI (Documento Nacional de Identidad) that Spanish residents own. If you have this, there is no need to carry your passport with you, because NIE will be your new identification. It is also necessary when you want to open a bank account (although I was able to open my bank account with my passport), and for official documents like tax records, establishing business etc.
Applying for Tarjeta de Estudiante (NIE):
Casa de Estudiante (http://casaestudiante.ucm.es/) is the place where
students go to regarding their visa status. It is located in front of the metro station Ciudad Universitaria, across from the metro exit. It is inside the Vicerrectorado (Vice Chancellor) building of the Compultense University. On the Casa de Estudiante website, there is an explanation of the application of Tarjeta de Estudiante (http://casaestudiante.ucm.es/tramitacion-nie).
*Secretaría of the Centro Compultense para la Enseñanza del Español does not help you with your legal documents.
After entering Spain, students with
a student visa need to make an appointment (cita previa ) at the Extranjería in
order to apply for the Tarjeta de Estudiante. Applying for a cita previa, while in other
cities in Madrid it is not hard to get, in Madrid it is pretty chaotic.
My experience:
I called to make a reservation for cita previa in October 2011, and I was given the cita previa for September 2012!! (A little bit less than a YEAR wait to get a foreign identification card). I was enrolled in the annual program at Centro Compultense para la Enseñanza del Español, so I explained on the phone that it will not not make sense to have cita previa in September of 2012 when all my classes will be over by June of 2012, but it was not possible to argue. They simply told me that the next available cita previa will be in 2012.
So in order to avoid this problem of long queue for a cita previa, at Casa de Estudiante in Compultense University, they try to make a group appointment for foreign students who study at Compultense. I was able to get a cita previa in December of 2011. Below I made a timeline of the application of my tarjeta de estudiante.
*Secretaría of the Centro Compultense para la Enseñanza del Español does not help you with your legal documents.
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My experience:
I called to make a reservation for cita previa in October 2011, and I was given the cita previa for September 2012!! (A little bit less than a YEAR wait to get a foreign identification card). I was enrolled in the annual program at Centro Compultense para la Enseñanza del Español, so I explained on the phone that it will not not make sense to have cita previa in September of 2012 when all my classes will be over by June of 2012, but it was not possible to argue. They simply told me that the next available cita previa will be in 2012.
So in order to avoid this problem of long queue for a cita previa, at Casa de Estudiante in Compultense University, they try to make a group appointment for foreign students who study at Compultense. I was able to get a cita previa in December of 2011. Below I made a timeline of the application of my tarjeta de estudiante.
Timeline:
Sep.28
Arriving in Madrid
Oct. 3 Fall semester starts
Oct. 6 Obtained the phone number for cita
previa for Tarjeta de estudiante and was told my appointment will be in
September
Oct. 10 The cita previa system changed and
removed the phone reservation system. Now all had to be done on the internet.
Oct. 11 On the cita previa appointmaking
website, no appointments in Madrid were available. The situation continued.
Oct. 24 Found Casa de Estudiante and got information about necessary documents I need to prepare.
Oct. 25 Submitted all the documents that
Casa de Estudiante asked for. I was told in a month they will write an email to
me regarding the appointment date
Nov. 15 Casa de Estudiante submitted my
documents to the Spanish government
Nov. 28 Went to
Casa de Estudiante since it had been a month since I submitted my documents to them. No news about my appointment date
Dec. 16 End of the final exams of the fall
semester. Received an email from Casa de Estudiante that the appointment
process is delayed so that I needed to wait more.
Dec. 20 Received the appointment date for
the cita previa
Dec. 27 Went to
la Brigada de Extranjería y Documentación de Madrid (Aluche). I was told to wait 40 days to receive Tarjeta de Estudiante.
Feb. 21 Went to the Extranjería to get my Tarjeta de Estudiante.
Note: This is my personal experience at the time of the application of tarjeta de estudiante in the fall of 2011, so things might have changed by now.
Note: This is my personal experience at the time of the application of tarjeta de estudiante in the fall of 2011, so things might have changed by now.
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