Making a checklist

When you are moving to a different country there is a lot you need to think about. A lot of things that need to be arranged. In my head it can become a bit chaotic and what helps me is to write everything down, to make a checklist. When we were arranging everything for our move to Spain I put all the ‘to dos’ in a spreadsheet. I had a column of all the ‘to dos’ and next to every ‘to do’ I kept the status of that specific ‘to do’ up to date.

During the process of moving abroad there is also a lot of decision making too. Where are you going to live? Are you going to rent or buy? When are you going to move? But when the plans are more concrete, you can start making a checklist. I hope the checklist below can help you in organizing your move to a new country.

The checklist when moving to another country

– Selling your current house / terminating your lease agreement

– Terminating other contracts in your current country (electricity / water / insurances / gym / magazines)

– Changing your address (bank / insurance / telephone subscription)

– Request for a visa / residency / NIE / Tax number (For this you’ll probably need to do some due diligence)

I can tell you that if you are planning to move to Spain one of the first things you need to apply for is a NIE number, this is a personal tax number. When you are buying or renting a house, you need your NIE number. When you are buying a car, you need your NIE number. When you apply for insurance, you need your NIE number. You can request this through the embassy, but it might take 3 months more or less for you to receive your NIE number. There are also companies in Spain who can arrange a NIE number for you in a few weeks and you don’t need to visit Spain for that. They can do it remotely for you.
When you have moved to Spain you can also apply for a padron (empadronamiento) at the town hall (ayuntamiento). This is a specific certificate of where you live in Spain. This certificate is needed for several procedures (applying for health insurance / subscribing kids to a school / applying for your residency)

– Planning your goodbyes with family and friends

– Decluttering all your stuff / packing

– Arranging to move your furnishings by a moving truck or by shipping

– Apply for the necessary insurances in your new country

– Opening a bank account in your new country

– Unsubscribe from you current city / country at town hall

– Vaccinate your cat and/or dog. Your cat and/or dog will need a rabies vaccination when traveling abroad.
Keep in mind that they have to be vaccinated for at least 21 days before traveling to another country.

For every ‘to do’ there can be ‘sub’ ‘to dos’. Like if you are applying for a visa, you need to request for several documents that you need to attach to your application. But I hope all the things above have outlined the process in general. 

“It saved us a lot of stress and time”

Moving to another country can be quite overwhelming. It would be good to think about turning to someone who can do some of the administrative things for you. In Spain you call it a gestor, or gestoría, or asesoría. For us the gestor has been very helpful. They speak the language, they know the procedures and they have the experience. It saved us a lot of stress and time. It’s worth paying money for it as it saves a lot of time and energy.

Moving to a new country is very intense and stressful. If you can eliminate the stress on certain aspects, I would definitely do that!

Good luck!