If you are coming to Madrid, as an erasmus, do an internship, exchange student, au pair or planning to study a degree, you really need to know how to get your “Padrón” in Madrid.

 

What is an Empadronamiento?

This piece of paper, that may sound complicated at the beginning, also known as “Padrón“, means that you will be registered in the census of habitants in the city, information that helps the government to distribute public resources and community services; police, medical attention, maintenance of the area, etc.

 

Once you complete the process that we will explain on this post you will be “Empadronado” and you will officially become a member of the community of Madrid.

 

Important: on this post we will show you the steps, process and links to get your “Padrón” in the community of Madrid. However, each process is handled by the Municipal Government of each city in Spain, so, the process and requirements may vary depending of the community.

 

 

Why do I need a “Certificado de Empadronamiento”?

If you are coming to Madrid, probably you have been looking for a flat for several weeks, choosing the best place to live, contacting your future flat mates, selecting a place close to your university or near to the metro station, etc., so you will have a Spanish Residency, reason why, you must be register in the  “Padrón Municipal de Habitantes.

Still, you are probably thinking “But, ¿Why do I want to be register as a member of the community?”

First of all, it is mandatory to “Empadronarse” in Madrid if you are staying more than 6 months, also, you will need it for several things, like

 

• Applying for the TIE (Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero) or to renew your residence permission
• Apply for a public health insurance
• Buying or selling a car
• Getting a Spanish Driver`s license
• And, ¿Why not? getting Married or “Pareja de Hecho”

 

Furthermore, in case you are planning to stay for a long time in Madrid, “El Padrón” is a prove that you have been living in Spain, and this a requirement for many other processes that we will check in the next posts.

 

Important: if you are coming to Madrid only for tourism (no more than 90 days), visit a friend or a relative staying in Spain for 6 months or less, you don’t need to “Empadronarse” in Madrid.

 

How to get your “Padrón”

 

First of all, you need to get your apartment or place of living in Madrid, because, in order to start the process of “Empadronarse” and fill the form that we will show you down, you need to already have important information like

• A formal housing contract
• your landlord`s name and signature
• Proof of address, if you own the property, bring your “Escritura”. Renters can give a copy of their lease or a recent bill (energy, internet, telephone, etc)

Once you have this, we can start with the process

 

Geeting your “Cita Previa”

To register on the Community of Madrid you need to make an appointment or “Cita Previa” in order to present the documents.

You can do this process in any “Oficinas de Atencion al Ciudadano” (OAC) or office for citizen services. There are different offices located in Madrid, try to look the one that is near to your place or apartment. This is not mandatory, but is easier if you are new in town or for make any changes in the future and also provides more accurate information to the City Hall of Madrid.

1 –  To make the “Cita Previa” we need to go Madrid City Hall Website.

 

2-  Once you arrived on the website, click on “Pedir Cita Previa”

 

3-  On “Tipo de Servicio” you need to select “Padrón”, then on “Gestion”, and if is your firs time that you are going to do the process you need to select again “Padron”.

The other options “Certificado de Empadronamiento” is in case you are renewing your “Padron” or you want to change the address.

Then select “Oficina” for choose the one that is close to your place

For this example, we put “OAC Centro” that means the one in Madrid Central, the website will show you the address of the office and the available days and hour to make an appointment

Important: the days with the cross line are the ones that are no available, you can try choosing another OAC office instead.

 

Click on the white arrow to see the Next Setp

 

 

4-  After clicking on the hour that you prefer, you will be automatically redirect to the next step, that is filling a form with personal information like complete name, Spanish phone number (don’t type the  +34) and an email. If is your firs time doing this process in Spain you will need to use your passport or national ID (if you are form the EU), make sure you are typing all the information according to your  documents.

When you finish filing the information, click on continue

 

5-  You will redirect to a confirmation page, be careful, and event they put on red text down, this page doesn’t mean that you have the appointment yet, is a window to verify that everything is correct and you can click on “Crear Cita”

In case you want to modify something, you can go back by clicking on “Atras”, if not you can finish the process

 

6-  Your final window is where your appointment is confirmed and you get your appointment code. You will also receive this information by email, but we recommend you to do a Print Screen too and save the page.

Click on the white arrow to see the Next Setp

 

I have my “Cita Previa”, so, ¿What’s next?

Once you get your appointment, you need to gather some documents that you must present the date of your “Cita Previa”. These documents are

 

• Download and fill the “Hoja Padronal” (Empadronamiento form)
• Passport, National ID Card (EU Citizens) or NIE/TIE if you already have on.
• The formal contract of your flat with your name and signature as well as the landlord’s name and signature

 

 

Important: don’t forget that your contract must bet at least for a period of 6 months or longer. Also, and really important, Airbnb contracts are known to be rejected for City Hall because they are not supposed to be for long term stays.

 

 

We hope that this information may be really useful to help you with arrival to Madrid. We going to keep posting more articles like this; immigration, Metro Card, Phone Card, Legal Procedures, etc.

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any question regarding this article or any other doubt about the different processes in Madrid.