An Alien in Spain: NIE Number and the Catch-22

The WorldWalk-Peacetour project started on July 15, 2007. The only sponsorship they had then was the promise of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians: one pair of shoes for both of them every month, or—for usability reasons—the price of those shoes. To receive the transfers they had a Serbian bank account and an international debit card. Everything was set, the walking tour began.

In a few months it became apparent that the Serbian account wasn’t an ideal solution. Support from Hungary, for example, had to arrive through international bank-to-bank wire transfers, which have a high cost and are incredibly slow. Some monetary help traveled even for a week (who knows how many miles on those wires...).

Months passed, countries had been left behind, the boys were walking somewhere in Africa when another problem came: the bank card expired. Even though there was some money on the account, the ATM’s were unconcerned about the WorldWalkers’ trouble. However, the boys noticed the Western Union offices in the cities, thus discovered the way for the support to arrive on the African stage of the tour. A quick transfer to the current city, a text with the necessary info, and they had access to the donation they needed to survive. But it was a clumsy and expensive way to send money.


So, when Ferenc and István finally decided to come back to Europe and to use it as a springboard towards America, one of the points they considered was that they needed a new bank account, a new debit card. The task seemed simple enough, walk into a bank office, open an account, claim a card, let’s say, a MasterCard, and done. So, right after they “settled down” in Málaga, Ferenc went into a bank. But with some obscure excuse they declined his request. And the same thing happened in the second and the third bank as well. The explanations always contained a strange expression, the NIE number.

After a full day of tilting at windmills Ferenc knew that there was no chance to open a bank account without this NIE number. With the help of the Embassies we found out that a week before, in 2008, it was enough to have a passport to open an account, but not in 2009. Shoot.


So then, Foreign Affairs Office, Local Police, queues, nerves, application forms; with a result: they needed a permanent address to apply for a NIE number, the Police mails the documents to the given address once the approval process ends. They were quite sure that the “we have two tents in the hills, now a bit farther up, since some kids threw stones at us” kind of explanation wouldn’t satisfy the authorities. But, how to get an address? “Excuse me, my name is Ferenc Ivanics. Would you be so kind as to let me use you address in my application for a NIE number? I’d like to use it to open a bank account and to be gone in a month or two.” Anyone? I don’t think so... :)


They tried to find someone, talked about the issue to many strangers and less strangers, but when they changed the conversation topic to the NIE number and the bank account, everyone remembered that they had something very important to attend to. So, the boys entered a cyber-café day-by-day to tell the bad news to the background team. And finally they met the lovely “Amaranta” there, who had no bad thoughts about the story and helped them with the address.


All’s well that ends well, nothing could stop Ferenc from having a NIE number now. Except that he had to pay an administration fee for the application. And he had to deposit that fee on a bank account of whichever office it’s due to. But guess what’s needed to make a deposit: a NIE number. Catch 22 :D On the third try a bank accepted his passport number instead of the NIE, so the green light was on. Ferenc had a wash, a shave, put on his brightest smile and entered the vaults of a bank to open that bank account. Then after the rejection he entered another one, then another one. Finally, he managed to open an account at Sabadell Atlántico.