The Guiri Guide to Getting Your Child’s First DNI

How do you get a DNI for your Spanish child born outside of Spain?

 

In every family, there is the paperwork person and the “I’ll sign whatever” person.  Although I am a Total Guiri, I am the paperwork person, so it fell to me the task of figuring out how to get Don Loco his first DNI. 

Many trámites (passport, birth registration, driver’s license renewal) can be completed at Spanish consulates abroad. But for a DNI (Documento nacional de identidad) you need to do it in Spain. 

Disclaimer: this is just my personal experience, muddling through the official websites which are all written en español (obviously). I did my best, and this info is current as of May 2023.

We had all the right papers, but the internet was broken at the first office  

 

What you will need to get a DNI for your Spanish child born outside of Spain:

 

1.         “Certificado literal de nacimiento” issued within 6 months 

2.         “Certificado de residencia para DNI” issued by consulate within last 3 months

3.         Foto carnet

4.         Appointment via Cita Previa website

5.         12 euros (cash)

6.   Parent's IDs (not sure this is strictly necessary but they did ask for them at the appointment--DNI for Spanish parent, Passport for non-Spanish parent) 

<---Más detalles--->

1. For the “Certificado literal de Nacimiento” 

It comes from the Registro Civil where your kid’s birth was registered. If your little Spaniard was born in the United States, the consulate where the birth is registered corresponds to the consulate covering the state where s/he was born. So if you live in South Dakota, but your child was born across the state border in Wyoming...their birth certificate is registered with the San Francisco consulate instead of the consulate of Chicago where you are empadronado.

How did I get the Certificado Literal de Nacimiento?* I emailed the consulate where Don Loco was born and they emailed me the certificate. They also sent a copy to the Oficina de DNI where we had a Cita Previa. Very easy!

2. For the Certificado de residencia para DNI

I emailed the consulate where we are “empadronado” in the United States and they emailed me a certificate I printed out. It could not have been simpler! (You do have to be empadronado in the consulate first, though.) 

The certificado de residencia has two purposes: to give you a home address for your DNI, and (possibly?) to allow you to bypass the Cita previa system and do a walk-in appointment as a Spaniard resident abroad.

3. For the foto carnet.

The websites seemed to have conflicting information on this topic—did I need to bring a photo or would they take his photo in the moment, like when you get a driver’s license at the DMV in the US? One website said if you get a passport and a DNI on the same day, you don't need a photo??

To play it safe, we took Don Loco to a local photo studio and got some fotos made and printed.

I didn’t see any infrastructure for taking ID photos at the office so I am glad I brought a foto (which they returned). (Although there are foto carnet studios next to a lot of DNI offices so it’s not too much of a hassle.)

Foto carnets cost a nominal fee (3.50 euros for 8 photos, and the DNI folks do return the photo after they scan it). 

Pro tip: photo studio may allow you to snap your own photo with their background with a phone and print it for a fee...we ended up doing this because Don Loco has never seen a giant camera with a flashbulb before and it was all just a little too much.

 

4. Appointment via Cita Previa website:

To get a DNI, you make an appointment at an Oficina DNI y Pasaporte. Supposedly—as a Spaniard residing abroad, you can do a walk-in at any comisaría as long as you have the Certificado de Residencia that shows you live abroad. I got an appointment anyway online at: https://www.citapreviadnie.es/citaPreviaDni/

The Cita Previa system for a first DNI is a bit of a catch-22, because you need to put in a DNI (or pasaporte number or NIE) to make an appointment to get a DNI. The work-around we used was making an appointment with the Spanish parent's DNI. 

5. Paying the DNI fee:

They accept cash. And they make change. I believe you can also pay by credit card, but to be safe, just bring 12 euros in cash.

At the appointment:

At the appointment, you check in at a place that looks like the DMV and get a printed ticket number from an automated kiosk (make sure you have the DNI number of the parent to check in), then wait for your number to be called on the screen. It was not long to wait at all. You present your documents, the funcionario scans the photo, they take two fingerprints (so adorable/challenging with a preschooler), they double check parents' names for the back of the DNI, then they print the DNI. (If the DNI printer is working...but that's a story for another day! We had to go back the next day to a different office because the DNI printer was down..lol omg)

Conclusions:

Obtaining my kid’s first DNI was relatively easy, and worthwhile. Now he can travel throughout Europe with his DNI and won’t have to carry around his passport. It is also a moving experience, emotionally speaking, because his DNI number is the same one he will have forever, and there's something really beautiful about that.

Sidebar: How do you get a Spanish birth certificate if your kid was born in the United States? You register the birth at your local consulate (this all happened in quite the blur of the newborn period, but I think we brought the US birth certificate, and our identity documents, proof of residency in the US, plus our Libro de Familia along with some form we filled out. The consulate registered the birth and inscribed in their Registro Civil forever and ever. As an interesting note, every time that Don Loco needs a birth certificate in the future, he will need to contact that consulate, just as in the United States you would contact Vital Statistics office of the state in which your child was born.)

*Supposedly all Spaniards born abroad also have their birth certificates registered in Madrid at the office on the C/Montera but it was impossible to get a cita previa there. There is also an online service through the Ministerio de Justicia where you can request a birth certificate but I never heard back from them. Maybe they knew the consulate had already emailed me a copy?

UPDATE August 2023: 

Back in May I ordered don Loco's official Spanish birth certificate through the Ministerio de Justicia online. I never heard back from them and so I assumed my email had just gotten lost or something... You'll never believe it but today a PDF of don Loco's birth certificate just arrived in my email inbox from the ministerio de justicia! (In August, no less... It's an August miracle!)