The Embarrassing Ordeal of Getting a Criminal Record in Spain

Note: Three years ago, my co-founder Miguel went through the exact same ordeal trying to get his criminal record in Spain. I wrote about it back then, incredulous that something so simple —a five-minute online process in Estonia— could turn into a €200, two-day nightmare here. You can read that story here.

You’d think I’d learned my lesson. But here I am, three years later, needing my own certificate for the international expansion of Companio. I knew what was coming. I braced myself. Maybe, just maybe, the system had improved. Spoiler alert: it hasn’t.

But wait... A Criminal Records certificate? That should be easy, right? In a normal country, maybe. In Spain, it’s an Olympic-level bureaucratic decathlon.

First Plot Twist: You Can’t Sit With Us (Unless You Bank Spanish)

Spain technically lets you get your criminal record online. That is, if you have a bank account in one of a very select list of “trusted financial institutions” that the government seems to have hand-picked from the 2003 Yellow Pages.

So… no Spanish bank account? No criminal record for you. Apparently, nobody in the Ministry of Justice ever imagined that expats, digital nomads, Spaniards banking with foreign fintechs, or literal Spaniards living abroad might ever need to get this done without a Santander account.

Luckily, I was in Madrid at the time. So I decided to take advantage of this extremely rare alignment of bureaucratic planets and do it the old-school way: physically, in person. How quaint.

Day 1: Chaos at the Ministry of Justice and Form 790 (aka Time Travel to 1998)

I show up at the Ministry of Justice office on Calle Bolsa 8, Madrid. It’s Wednesday the 13th (how poetic). I arrive at 12:30 PM—apparently too close to lunchtime (14:00-15:00) to expect anyone to be working.

There’s no reception, just a couple of security guards who silently judge you unless you have an appointment. The catch? You need to get an appointment online before entering. There’s a QR code stuck on a wall for that. Very 2025.

So I scan the code, and I’m immediately served a delicious buffet of broken links, unusable forms, and JavaScript errors. The link to the list of compatible banks? 404. The “Schedule appointment” button? Doesn’t work. I try Chrome. I try Brave. I try Firefox. Nothing. Welcome to Spanish eGovernment: proudly designed to repel citizens.

So I wait. The line keeps growing. Nobody seems to be able to get through. I help a few confused people—one foreigner who doesn’t speak Spanish and can’t use the machines that will give you an access ticket if you already have an appointment (which, of course, are only in Spanish), and a sweet old lady who’s even more lost than I am.

Finally, a clearly exhausted public servant appears and saves the day. She somehow unlocks a secret screen on my phone (which I couldn’t reach with 20+ years of coding experience) and helps me book an appointment. Victory! Or so I think.

On my way back, I fill out the appointment request form. The system, naturally, demands a Spanish phone number. Because of course, everyone in Spain—digital nomads included—must have a Spanish mobile, right? Thankfully, I borrow my father’s.

Enter: Form 790 — The Bureaucratic Crypt

Now, here comes the real treat: Form 790. This is the payment form you must bring to the bank—yes, a real physical bank—to pay your €3.86 fee.

I open the form. It’s like a relic from a forgotten century. Fields are limited to a certain number of characters (including email addresses—so modern, right?), and you must manually input all kinds of details: ID, name, birth city, parents’ names… I’m surprised it didn’t ask for my blood type and favorite color.

I manage to fill it out using my shortest email address (note to myself: get a new email address that doesn’t include my full name), and get ready for Phase 2 of the quest:

Level 2: Print, Pay, Pray

Here’s what comes next in my epic journey to prove I’m not a criminal:

• Find a printing shop that still exists in 2025
• Print the ancient Form 790
• Walk into a traditional Spanish bank and beg them to accept my €3.86 in cash
• Bring the paid & stamped (yes, stamped) form back to the Ministry of Justice
• Hope they’ll issue the certificate in English, with an apostille
• Cross my fingers for a digital version so I can send it to my Irish lawyer

All of this, mind you, for a document that should take 30 seconds and a click in any civilized country (like Estonia). But who needs efficiency when you can relive the glory of analog systems and Kafkaesque bureaucracy?

(CNN style voice-over: “This is a developing story and we will update it soon, stay tuned!”)