A gentle, practical walk-through for newcomers to the the Costa Blanca: the documents, the fee, the appointment, and the slips that trip people up.
Getting a NIE in Alicante runs on the same national rulebook as anywhere in Spain, but it is the local appointment situation that decides whether your timeline is a fortnight or a frustrating few months.
The path itself is straightforward enough: confirm your grounds for the request, fill in the EX-15, pay the Modelo 790-012, then secure a cita previa and turn up with both originals and copies in hand.
In our experience, files come unstuck for three small reasons — an EX-15 filled in wrongly, the wrong code on the fee, or weak proof of why you need the number. We check every one of those before you ever set foot in the office.