Help with registration of EU citizen in Barcelona

Just turn up?!

Ah... @MELANIA VALERI... That is not a phrase used by Spanish immigration unfortunately. :-) Even in Spanish. :-)

I am pretty sure you will need to use the cita previa online booking system.

Usually there are different offices you can go to if your preferred one is not available. Or if no appointments showing you sometimes check back in a few days and they will have opened up.

For the initial citizen registration (for you), I don't think you need the padron (I didn't), so this widens the net considerably. I did mine In Madrid (big city, lots of immigration staff, lots of appointments), even though our apartment is near Alicante (I gave the address of our hotel, but I didn't say it was a hotel).

I would say you will have more luck if you just keep trying on the website (and choose to travel to somewhere that has appointments next week), rather than trekking round the immigration offices hoping one of them takes pity on you. In other words, there is a "chance", but I am guessing that it's the famous "slim to none". :-)

I appreciate that it is very frustrating, but there is a whole bureaucracy (and associated requirements for both you and your partner, and separate appointments for both you and your partner) that exists, and requires that you to navigate it in the proscribed manner.

This means that even as an EU citizen (where registration is supposedly a formality) you need to read the requirements carefully and make sure you show up with exactly the documentation they ask for.

I have done a ton of immigration related paperwork in lots of countries, and I am now quite good at reading the boring list of requirements and then doing exactly what they tell me to do. Even so, I found Spain quite taxing, and it took me 3 visits to sort out my registration, and then 2 more to do family reunification for my partner! Plus they are (in general, with some kind exceptions) completely intolerant of a foreigner's ropey Spanish (mine's actually not too bad, but they were still massively rude and refused to slow down or make any accomodation).

Thanks for your response