Empadronamiento (Padrón) in Spain 2026: How to Register

The padrón is the register of everyone who lives in a Spanish municipality, and the law says you must be in it. You sign up at your town hall (ayuntamiento) with your passport or residence card and proof of where you live. It costs nothing, and most other paperwork in Spain assumes you have done it.

What the law says

Article 15 of the Ley 7/1985 (Bases de Régimen Local) is short: “Toda persona que viva en España está obligada a inscribirse en el Padrón del municipio en el que resida habitualmente.” If you live in more than one municipality, you register in the one where you spend most of the year.

Article 16 makes the padrón the administrative record of residence and habitual address. Certificates issued from it are public documents with evidentiary force (“documento público y fehaciente”). The register holds your name, sex, address, nationality, place and date of birth, and identity document number. It also provides the one rule that catches foreigners out: non-EU citizens without a long-term residence authorization must renew their registration every two years.

The obligation does not depend on your visa. The padrón is a record of where you live, not an immigration status, and it is separate from your NIE.

Why you need it

The padrón is the document other offices ask for first. Three uses are confirmed in primary sources:

• Healthcare. Madrid’s regional health service lists registration in the region as the first requirement for a first tarjeta sanitaria, and asks for a registration certificate issued within the last 90 days. The national convenio especial also requires padrón registration (see healthcare in Spain).
• Proof of address for the town hall itself. Alicante describes the padrón as the proof of residence for municipal services and benefits.
• Family and invitation paperwork. Valencia issues a housing certificate that shows how many people are registered at an address, which it says is used for family reunification and invitation letters.

Schools and traffic offices set their own document rules, so ask them directly what they want to see.

Documents town halls ask for

There is no single national list. Each ayuntamiento publishes its own, but they follow the same pattern: proof of identity, proof you can live at the address, and a form. These two lists are from Valencia and Alicante.

	Valencia (sede.valencia.es)	Alicante (alicante.es)
EU/EEA citizen	Residence card, passport or national ID	Passport or national ID, plus the NIE from the EU registration certificate
Non-EU citizen	Residence card or passport	TIE or passport
Cost	Free	Free
How to apply	In person with an appointment (010) or online with a digital signature	In person with an appointment (010 or 900 153 862) or online with a digital certificate

Proof of housing depends on your situation:

• You own the home. Valencia asks for the deed or a property registry note (nota simple) no more than 3 months old. Alicante asks for the deed or nota simple if you bought within the last year, and otherwise the latest IBI (property tax) receipt or a recent utility bill.
• You rent. Valencia requires a lease in force for more than six months, signed by everyone named in it, showing the cadastral reference, plus the last rent receipt from the previous two months. Alicante asks for the active lease in your name, the latest rent payment proof and copies of the owners’ IDs.
• You live in someone else’s home. Both ask for written authorization from the owner or tenant plus a copy of their ID.

Valencia says to bring originals for in-person applications and gives itself up to three months to resolve. Every other town has its own checklist, so read the one for your town before booking the appointment.

Volante vs certificado

Both documents say you are registered. They differ in format and weight:

• Volante (called “informe” in Alicante). A quick statement of your registration. Alicante says it is available on demand or by post. Many offices accept it when they only need to confirm your address.
• Certificado. The formal document, signed and issued by the ayuntamiento, with the evidentiary value the law gives it in art. 16. Valencia offers individual, historical (shows the registration date and later changes), family and housing versions. Valencia notes that it is not issued on the spot unless you use the electronic office with a digital certificate.

When an office asks for a “certificado de empadronamiento”, a volante may be refused. When it asks only for proof of address, a volante usually works. If an agency demands a recent one, as Madrid’s health service does with its 90 days, ask for a new one rather than reusing an old copy.

Renewing and leaving

If you are a non-EU citizen without long-term residence, Valencia’s renewal procedure says to renew every two years from the first registration or the last renewal. If you miss the date, the register removes you automatically. You need your residence permit or passport and, for the electronic route, proof of housing again. Valencia gives itself up to three months to decide and treats silence as approval.

When you move to another municipality, register at the new town hall. Alicante and Valencia both publish a separate procedure for changes of address, so look for it on your town’s site.

Once you are registered, the next steps are usually a bank account and the healthcare card. The moving checklist puts them in order.