Scores of UK nationals attempting to renew their Brexit-proof TIE Spanish residency cards before they expire continue to be told by Spanish police to wait until after the expiration date even though the law states they can renew before then.
An increasing number of UK nationals in Spain who are attempting to renew their Withdrawal Agreement (WA) TIE residency cards are being turned away at Spanish police stations and told to wait until these biometric documents have expired.
This affects temporary WA TIE residency cards that expire after five years. They started to be issued in July 2020 and have been up for renewal to permanent WA TIE cards for nearly the past year.
READ ALSO: How Brits in Spain can renew their temporary residency TIE card
The card holders are UK nationals and their non-EU family members who proved they were living in Spain before Brexit and get to enjoy the same rights as they did before the UK’s exit from the EU thanks to the Withdrawal Agreement.
The Spanish government’s own Q&A on the Acuerdo de Retirada (Withdrawal Agreement) states that renewal to a permanent WA TIE card can be carried out up to 30 days before the card expires, but in practice this is not happening.
Facebook groups and internet forums have many comments from Brits who have had their cita previa appointments cancelled or who have been turned away when at the police station to complete the process.
Disgruntled applicants are always told the same: to apply for the new residency card in the three months after its expiry.
This problem has been happening since July 2025 when the first WA TIEs were issued, but it doesn’t appear to have been solved.
“Just FYI I went to the police station today to renew my TIE, however it was rejected because it doesn’t expire until later in October,” one UK national living in Ibiza wrote.
“I was refused my new TIE and only had 5 days left on it. I had to make a new cita, now waiting till June 4th to renew,” another Brit said.
“It took me 4 weeks to even get an appointment. When they eventually popped up this week all dates were after our expiry date anyway,” one other person lamented.
READ ALSO: ‘It took three appointments to get my TIE card renewed in Spain’
This last point is what is worrying many Brits in this situation.
Aside from wanting to complete the administrative process as soon as possible to put their mind at ease, difficulties in landing a cita previa is what makes the rejection of early renewals particularly nerve racking.
In areas with high volumes of foreigners such as Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga or Alicante, it can be an arduous and drawn out process to actually secure an appointment, even with legal help.
There is also the problem of illegal appointment selling, which sees criminal groups use bots to block out new appointments the moment they become available to then sell for over €100 in some cases.
Many Brits are therefore ending up with expired residency documents despite many attempts to follow the rules.
Their WA rights should still be guaranteed even if they do have an expired residency document, but unfamiliarity with this fact by officials could undeniably lead to more questions being asked when crossing borders or needing to prove Spanish residency, especially following the introduction of the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES).
“If your renewal application has been refused because your document had not yet expired, you are not alone and you are not wrong to have expected better,” Myra Cecilia Azzopardi of Citizens Advice Bureau wrote on the group’s Facebook page in late April.
“Citizens Advice Spain has been monitoring this situation and has now drafted a lengthy formal legal instrument setting out the full legal basis for this challenge, drawing on the Withdrawal Agreement, the Ministerial Resolution of 2 July 2020, and the relevant EU legislation. This instrument is now being sent as a formal challenge directly to the Ministry.”
As for the reason why Spanish police officers do not appear to be following the legislation their government provided, there are several theories but none confirmed yet.
Some have said it’s the different interpretations of the laws by Spanish migration officials and police at individual offices and stations, something that is fairly common in Spain.
Others have put it down to a computer glitch which prevents those tasked with carrying out the card renewals online from completing the process before expiry, a ‘computer says no’ situation.
There are also suggestions that it has more to do with the special legal framework in which those protected under the Withdrawal Agreement find themselves in.
Unlike Brits in Spain who have a standard Spanish visa for non-EU nationals (like the Digital Nomad Visa or the Non-Lucrative Visa), WA Brits’ residency status is not “renewed” as their rights are guaranteed. It’s only their physical card that is being replaced.
Could it be that Spanish police view it as purely an administrative task and that if the card is still valid, they figure it’s better to just wait for there to be something to replace?
The Local Spain has contacted Spain’s national police for comment.
According to the Spanish Immigration observatory, from July 2020 to December 2025, more than 250,700 Withdrawal Agreement residency documents have been granted to British people and their families in Spain.
READ ALSO: How many Brits live legally in Spain and how many are ‘under the radar’?
