Getting Your NIE When You Buy in Moraira: The Real Process

If you are buying a house in Moraira, the first number anyone will ask you for is your NIE, the foreigner identity number, and you need it well before the day you sign at the notary. The fee is 9.84 euros and the number itself is the easy part. The catch is where the paperwork happens, because it does not happen in Moraira.

Teulada-Moraira has no National Police station. No comisaria, no counter in the village where you walk in and ask. The nearest police office that deals with foreigner matters is in Denia, about twenty-five minutes up the coast, and the provincial fallback is the Oficina de Extranjeria in Alicante. You live in Moraira, but you do the NIE somewhere else. My father Juan handles the legal side of these files from the office in the village, and I will point out where having someone a few streets away saves you a wasted trip.

A number, not a residence permit

The NIE is your personal tax and identification number in Spain. Every official act you carry out here hangs off it. Signing the escritura at the notary, paying your property taxes, opening a bank account, inheriting a home, even putting the electricity in your own name.

What it is not is a residence permit. A British couple with a villa in El Portet who come over six weeks a year need an NIE, and they stay non-residents, which is completely fine. You can own here for twenty years on nothing more than that number.

That is as much theory as you need. The full picture of how it all fits together across Spain is in our NIE, TIE and residency paperwork guide on Expat Abogados. Here I stick to what a Moraira buyer actually does.

Why you need it before you buy, not after

You cannot complete the purchase without it. The notary needs it, the registry needs it, and the purchase taxes are filed against it. It sits near the front of the sequence, not the end.

In practice: you find the house, you sign the reservation and the private contract, and around then you get the NIE moving, so the number is done by the time you are at the notary a few weeks later. Leave it too late and you push completion back, which is a miserable way to lose a good price on a house.

Step by step: getting your NIE from Moraira

Two broad routes. You apply in Spain at a police office, for us Denia or Alicante, or through the Spanish consulate in your home country before you travel. Most of our buyers do it in Spain, because they are coming over to see the house anyway. So here is the Spanish route.

The EX-15 form

The application goes on form EX-15, the one for assignment of the NIE. Only the Spanish form is valid, so skip the English versions floating around online. Fill it in carefully. A small error on the form is one of the most common reasons an appointment goes wrong on the day, and a wasted appointment in this province is not easy to rebook.

Book the cita previa

You cannot just walk in. You need a prior appointment, the cita previa, booked through the official portal at icp.administracionelectronica.gob.es. Select the province of Alicante, the police NIE procedure, and look at the Denia office or Alicante as the alternative.

Now the honest warning. Slots in this province are in heavy demand, especially in spring and summer, and it is normal to refresh the portal for days before one appears. Whether Denia is taking NIE appointments at any given moment can also change. That is the sort of dull friction we take off clients, because we are watching it anyway.

Pay the 9.84 euro fee

Before you attend, you pay. The amount for the assignment of an NIE at your own request is 9.84 euros, set out in the official police fee schedule. Not a vague ten to sixteen, 9.84.

You pay it on tax form Modelo 790, code 012. Generate the form on the police electronic office, print it, pay at a Spanish bank, and keep the stamped proof of payment. No stamped receipt, no NIE. First timers trip on this constantly.

The appointment itself

You attend in person, or your representative does, with the completed EX-15, your original passport and a photocopy, the stamped Modelo 790 receipt, and something showing why you need the number. For a buyer that is usually the private purchase contract or a document from the notary. If everything is in order the number comes through, sometimes there and then, sometimes a few days later. It varies by office, so I will not promise you a fixed turnaround.

Can someone get the NIE for you without you travelling?

Yes, in principle. Plenty of buyers do not want to burn a day of their trip queuing in Denia.

Someone can apply on your behalf with a notarised power of attorney, a poder notarial especial that authorises the act. Granted before a notary here in Spain, straightforward. Granted back home, in the UK say, the document also needs a Hague Apostille, the stamp that confirms the foreign notary's signature is genuine.

One caveat, though. Individual police offices apply their own criteria to third-party NIE applications, and some are stricter than others. So confirm what the Denia office is currently accepting before you rely on it. That is one of the checks we make first, so nobody turns up with a power of attorney the counter will not take that week.

Does buying in Moraira give me residency? No

I have to be firm here, because I still see websites getting it wrong. The Golden Visa, the old route where a 500,000 euro property could open a residence permit, was abolished by Organic Law 1/2025, effective 3 April 2025. Visas granted before that date remain valid and renewable, but for anyone buying now, the purchase gives no residency right at all. Be wary of any adviser still selling it in 2026.

If what you actually want is to live here, you are looking at a proper residence visa instead. The two that come up most are the Non-Lucrative Visa, for a retiree living on a pension or savings, and the Digital Nomad Visa, for someone working remotely for a company outside Spain. Both have income thresholds tied to public indices that move each year, and consulates do not always apply them identically, so get the current figure confirmed for your specific consulate before building plans around it. This is legal territory, and it is where Juan takes over.

One last thing. The lawyer on these files is my father Juan, registered with the Ilustre Colegio de Abogados de Alicante, number 4643, with the office in the village on Calle Dr. Calatayud. The Denia counter, the Denia notaries and the Denia registry are our ordinary week, because that is where your Moraira purchase runs through. The NIE is the easy first step, but it is the gate to everything after it, so start it early and start it right.