Extranjería Torrevieja: four offices, and what each one lists

The Policía Nacional’s list of foreigners’ offices places the Torrevieja comisaría (police station) at Calle Arquitecto Larramendi 3, 03180 Torrevieja, phone 966 130 362. For foreigners it lists a single heading, régimen comunitario y no comunitario: residence for citizens of the EU and for everyone else. That is where the green certificate for Europeans belongs.

It does not list NIE certificates or NIE assignment, the number on its own. No official page we read says whether the station accepts a stand-alone NIE request, so we make no claim either way. No opening hours are published.

The station in Orihuela, Calle El Sol 34, 03300 Orihuela, phone 966 737 278, has the longer list: certificados y asignación de NIE (NIE certificates and the number itself, asked for on form EX-15), residence for EU and non-EU citizens, nationality reports and letters of invitation (cartas de invitación). Of the stations whose listing includes the stand-alone NIE, it is the closest to Torrevieja. No opening hours are published here either.

On policia.es, the Orihuela station also shows a switchboard number, 965 300 082, and is marked as accessible, which older visitors may value: no steps for wheelchair users, sign-language interpretation by video, and hearing loops.

Alicante’s Brigada Provincial de Extranjería y Fronteras, the national police’s foreigners and borders squad, appears on policia.es at three addresses:

• Calle Ebanistería 6 (03008): the NIE, plus certificates for EU citizens and residents; phone 965 019 393
• Calle Campo de Mirra 6 (03005): cards for residents, on the same phone
• Calle Isabel la Católica 25 (03007): extensions of stay, asylum, travel documents, nationality reports and invitation letters; phone 965 148 888 (sede.policia.gob.es calls this address the Comisaría Provincial de Alicante)

The Oficina de Extranjería is not a police office. It belongs to the Subdelegación del Gobierno en Alicante, the State’s representation in the province, and its sede 1 (main office) is at Calle Ebanistería 4 y 6, Polígono de Babel, 03071 Alicante. The government’s page gives 965 019 300 for information in person and by phone, from 9:00 to 14:00. It decides on the following, from non-lucrative residence to the return authorisation:

• Authorisations to live and to work
• Non-lucrative residence, long-term residence and stays for study
• Return authorisations (regreso)
• Family reunification (reagrupación familiar)
• Arraigo, residence earned through roots put down in Spain
• The residence card for a relative of an EU citizen
• Appeals against its decisions (recursos)

The same government page says the EU registration certificate, the TIE, the NIE and certificates of residence or non-residence are dealt with at police premises, the comisaría or the brigada, not at the Oficina de Extranjería; it does not name them. It also lists a sede 2 in Altea, Calle San Isidro Labrador 1, without saying which towns each sede serves. Elsewhere in the province, policia.es also lists NIE assignment at the comisarías of Elche (Calle Abeto 1), Alcoy and Benidorm, and residence without the NIE at Dénia and Elda-Petrer. The booking system can offer any office that takes your procedure; your cita previa slip decides.

None of the official pages we read describes the bus or train to these offices, so we give no line or stop. In Torrevieja itself, the town hall’s notices about the urban buses never mention the comisaría or Calle Arquitecto Larramendi. Start from the address on your slip, allow for parking or a walk at the far end, and come a little early.