TIE Card Processing Times in Spain: Real Data from 97 Offices

Everyone asks the same question after fingerprinting: how long until my TIE card is ready? The official answer — “30 to 45 days” — is an average that hides enormous variation. The real answer depends on which office is processing your card.

We’ve been tracking lote numbers at 97 police stations across 31 provinces since May 2026 — over 2,000 daily snapshots. This is what the data actually shows.

Province Rankings: Fastest to Slowest

Not all provinces process TIE cards at the same speed. The table below shows average processing speed measured in lotes per day, based on 43 days of continuous tracking.

Province	Offices tracked	Avg speed (lotes/day)	Fastest office	Estimated wait
Valencia	5	1.49	2.69	2–3 weeks
Bizkaia	1	1.28	—	3 weeks
Castellón	1	1.26	—	3 weeks
Islas Baleares	1	1.24	—	3 weeks
Guadalajara	1	1.24	—	3 weeks
Zaragoza	1	1.09	—	3–4 weeks
Barcelona	11	0.84	1.98	4–6 weeks
Madrid	19	0.80	2.35	4–8 weeks
Tarragona	4	0.82	0.95	4–5 weeks
Alicante	5	0.79	1.58	4–6 weeks
Málaga	5	0.78	1.36	4–6 weeks
A Coruña	3	0.76	0.79	5–6 weeks
León	3	0.73	0.79	5–6 weeks
Murcia	8	0.67	1.80	5–7 weeks
Girona	3	0.57	0.66	6–8 weeks
Badajoz	5	0.53	0.83	7–9 weeks
Cádiz	5	0.46	0.85	8–10 weeks
Ávila	1	0.20	—	3+ months
Jaén	1	0.15	—	4+ months

What this means: If you’re in Valencia, your card will likely arrive in under a month. If you’re in Jaén or Ávila, you might wait three months or more — for the exact same card, manufactured in the same facility.

This is why choosing your office before booking your fingerprinting appointment is one of the highest-impact decisions in the entire TIE process.

The 15 Fastest Offices in Spain

These offices consistently process the most lotes per day. If any of them are in your province, try to book your fingerprinting appointment there.

Office	Province	Lotes processed	Speed (lotes/day)
CNP Patraix	Valencia	110	2.69
CNP Marítimo	Valencia	110	2.63
CNP Poblados	Madrid	99	2.35
CNP Rambla Guipúscoa	Barcelona	84	1.98
CNP Murcia	Murcia	27	1.80
CNP Torrejón de Ardoz	Madrid	64	1.73
CNP Pozuelo de Alarcón	Madrid	61	1.65
CNP Alicante	Alicante	65	1.58
CNP Alcobendas	Madrid	64	1.52
CNP Fuengirola	Málaga	55	1.36
CNP Bilbao	Bizkaia	54	1.28
CNP Castellón	Castellón	44	1.26
CNP Guadalajara	Guadalajara	51	1.24
CNP Mahón	Islas Baleares	42	1.24
CNP Zaragoza	Zaragoza	37	1.09

Valencia dominates. Both Patraix and Marítimo are the fastest offices in Spain — nearly 3 lotes processed per day. Madrid has the widest range: Poblados runs at 2.35/day while Getafe has been completely frozen.

See current speeds for your province: Madrid · Barcelona · Valencia · All provinces →

Stalled Offices: Zero Movement

These offices have shown zero or near-zero lote progression over our entire 43-day tracking period. If your card is being processed at one of these locations, the wait is indefinite.

Office	Province	Progress	Days tracked
CNP Hellín	Albacete	0 lotes	43 days
CNP Sant Boi	Barcelona	0 lotes	43 days
CNP Terrassa	Barcelona	0 lotes	43 days
CNP Valdepeñas	Ciudad Real	0 lotes	16 days
CNP Ciutadella	Islas Baleares	0 lotes	35 days
CNP Les	Lleida	0 lotes	43 days
CNP Getafe	Madrid	0 lotes	35 days

7 offices completely frozen. This is not a data gap — we have 8 to 22 snapshots for each of these offices confirming zero movement. If you haven’t been fingerprinted yet and one of these is in your province, avoid it. If your card is already there, the only option is to wait — there is no mechanism to transfer your application to a different office.

What’s Changing: Recent Trends

Comparing the last two weeks against the two weeks before that reveals which provinces are speeding up and which are slowing down.

Accelerating

Province	Recent avg	Prior avg	Change
Islas Baleares	9.0 lotes	2.5	+260%
Girona	8.7	3.3	+160%
Murcia	6.7	2.7	+150%
Alicante	12.6	5.4	+133%
Madrid	13.4	7.3	+84%
Málaga	8.6	5.2	+65%
Barcelona	12.0	8.9	+34%
Valencia	17.4	14.4	+21%

Slowing

Province	Recent avg	Prior avg	Change
Tarragona	9.3	12.0	−23%
Cádiz	6.0	7.2	−17%

The national trend is positive. Most provinces accelerated in the last two weeks, with Islas Baleares and Girona showing the sharpest improvement. Only Tarragona and Cádiz slowed down.

Three Patterns That Explain Everything

Our data reveals that offices don’t just differ in speed — they differ in how they process cards:

Synchronized provinces. In Málaga, three offices (Benalmádena, Fuengirola, Torremolinos) move in perfect lockstep — when one advances, all three advance on the same day. This confirms cards are distributed in provincial batches, not manufactured per-office. We’ve observed similar synchronization in Barcelona (5 core offices) and Valencia (Patraix/Marítimo).

Burst processors. Some offices — most notably Poblados in Madrid — stay quiet for days, then jump +20 or +50 lotes at once. The average speed is good, but the pattern makes daily checking stressful. If your office is a burst processor, check weekly rather than daily.

One-at-a-time offices. Ávila advances a single lote at a time. The card is coming — just slowly. These offices often serve smaller immigrant populations and may receive less frequent shipments.

How to Estimate Your Personal Wait

If you already have your lote number:

(Your lote − office’s current lote) ÷ office speed per day = estimated days

Example: Your lote is 300. The office currently shows lote 240. The office processes 1.5 lotes/day.

→ (300 − 240) ÷ 1.5 = 40 days

For a more precise estimate with a confidence range tailored to your specific office’s volatility, use our ETA calculator — it uses the full history of each office to calculate upper and lower bounds rather than a single point estimate.

When the formula breaks:

• Stagnant offices → speed = 0, formula gives infinity. There is no estimate — wait for the office to resume.
• Burst-pattern offices → daily speed is misleading. Use weekly averages.
• Year transitions → if your lote is low (e.g., 5) and the office shows a high number (e.g., 980), you may actually be ahead — lote numbering can reset in January.

What This Data Can’t Tell You

Our tracking covers lote 4036 (card pickup notification). It does not cover:

• Application processing time before fingerprinting — that depends on your immigration office (Oficina de Extranjería), not the police station.
• Appointments availability — how quickly you can get a fingerprinting slot is a separate problem. In Madrid and Barcelona, slots are extremely scarce.
• Why an office is stalled — we can detect that Getafe has zero movement, but we cannot determine if it’s a staffing issue, a delivery backlog, or a system problem.

For the full picture of the TIE application process from start to finish, see our step-by-step application guide.

Track Your Office in Real Time

This page is a snapshot. For live data updated daily:

• TIE Tracker → — All provinces, all offices, updated daily
• Check your lote → — Enter your lote number and office to get a personalized ETA
• Subscribe for updates → — Get notified when your office’s lote advances

We track 97 offices across 31 provinces — over 2,000 data points and growing. No government website, no forum, and no immigration lawyer publishes this data. It exists here because we built it.

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Data current as of July 2026 · Based on 2,002 snapshots across 97 offices · Updated monthly

Related: What Is a Lote? · Choose Your Office · Card Pickup · How to Apply · Live Tracker →