Shorouk Express
The digital certificate or certificado electrónico is a piece of software in Spain that you can download on your computer or mobile, allowing you to officially identify yourself online and therefore carry out a lot of official business.
The certificate can be used for many different administrative processes with various Spanish institutions, including Hacienda (Tax Office), the DGT (Traffic Office), your regional health system, the INSS social security system, your bank, or your Ayuntamiento (Town Hall).
READ MORE: How to get a digital certificate in Spain to aid online processes
Basically, Spain’s digital certificate allows you to skip a lot of Spain’s convoluted in-person bureaucracy, which usually entails booking appointments, waiting in queues and dealing with civil servants.
However, what’s rather ironic is that in order to avoid these time-consuming affairs through the digital certificate, you have to first get an appointment (the dreaded cita previa), wait several days/weeks and then go in person to your local administrative office to have you digital certificate approved.
Luckily, this Kafkaesque situation can now be avoided and the whole process can be done entirely online.
In other words, you can directly apply for the digital certificate app on your phone, without needing to have it on your computer first, and without having to make this appointment and go into an office.
For the last year, it has been possible to apply for the digital certificate for your computer completely online with the option of a video call instead of having to make an appointment to get yourself identified in person, which reduced the waiting time dramatically, instead of waiting weeks looking for appointments available at local offices.
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Now this video call option is also available for those who want to apply directly for the digital certificate on their mobile phones, whereas before, they’d have to make appointments and go into offices twice before they could do this.
The video identification service costs €2.99 plus taxes (it’s free for those affected by the floods in Valencia and surrounding areas).
Applying for the digital certificate itself is completely free.
To get it on your phone via the video call method, you can download the app here for Android and here for iOS. It’s the app from Spain’s Royal Mint – the FNMT.
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When you have downloaded it you can select ‘Solicitar el Certificado’ with ‘vídeo identificación’ (video identification).
Next you need to validate your e-mail address. Once this is done, you will get a message sent to your phone with a code that you must enter.
From here, you can click on ‘Comenzar vídeo identificación’ (start video identification). You will do this by showing your ID card like a TIE and then turning your head in different directions so they can capture all angles. Finally, you will have to say your name out loud while holding your ID.
If everything has been done correctly, it will say ‘Enhorabuena, has solicitado tu Certificado Digital con éxito’ (Congratulations you have successfully requested your Digital Certificate).
Wait a total of between 24 to 48 hours for everything to be processed and then you download and install your certificate on your phone.
