Once you get accepted: The horrible, awful, no good visa process of the San Francisco consulate

Consulate General of Spain in San Francisco

Even though the Language Assistants program recommends waiting to make an appointment with your consulate until you have received your acceptance letter from the school you will be appointed to, set up a future appointment with your respected consulate as soon as possible! While I waited for my acceptance letter—which ended up coming a bit later than usual—I had the hardest time finding an appointment with my consulate before I was to start working in Spain (October 1st). After only finding appointments into late October and though November, I was forced to check their appointment booker every fifteen minutes for days to find a last minute appointment. Additionally, DO NOT EXPECT ANY HELP FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO CONSULATE. Even though I was told by program officials and the Honorary Consulate in Bellevue, WA, I would be able to make an earlier emergency appointment with the consulate in San Francisco, staff at the consulate offered no further assistance beyond the sassy comment advising me to “call the Spanish government and tell them to hire more people.” Not to mention it took me two months of me calling the Consulate multiple times daily for someone to pick up the phone…and that’s bureaucracy ladies and gentlemen.

Once you have made your early appointment with the consulate—I would suggest three to four weeks prior to your flight date—start getting those documents together! According to the General Consulate of Spain in San Francisco you will need to submit the following documents:

• National Visa Application Form (Original and Copy) with 2 passport photos--I was able to find a couple websites (look specifically for Universities) that detailed exactly how to fill this out. **You will need your acceptance letter from your school to complete this document

• Passport and ID (make copies of both)--When you apply for your visa, you will need to turn over your passport to the consulate so make sure to have extra copies on hand!

• Acceptance letter fro the corresponding Regional Education Authority--This is what you will receive from the school you will be working for. Use this information to fill out the National Visa Application Form.

• Police Criminal Record Certificate Legalized with the Apostle of The Hague Convention--I was able to get my fingerprinting done at a local police station and was then able to send those to my state police to get a background check done. Once you receive your criminal record back with your fingerprints, will need to take these to your Secretary of State get them legalized (this is what the Apostille of The Hague Convention entails). In reality it is just a big stamp that you pay another ten dollars for.

• Medical Certificate--On the consulate’s website they have a PDF of an example letter. HOWEVER, this MUST be signed by an M.D.! Make sure when you go to your provider that the it is either signed or co-signed by an M.D. I spent a couple hours running around San Francisco trying to find an M.D. when they told me I had it signed by a Physician’s Assistant.

• Proof of Intended Flight Itinerary--This must include your intended date of departure and route. Although they do not recommend purchasing flight tickets until your visa has been approved, I have been told—and experienced—that visas usually take a week to ten days to be approved. However there are always other circumstances!

• Visa Payment--$160 in exact cash or money orders made payable to “Consulate General of Spain in San Francisco”.

After confirming my appointment with the consulate I was sent an email detailing more documents to bring including proof of funds and proof of insurance. After going out of the way to attain these documents I was told during my visa appointment that they were not needed. Better safe then sorry I guess.

Nevertheless, the red tape doesn’t stop there! A new policy by the consulate of San Francisco mandates that you must attend your appointment in person to both apply for and pick-up your visa. The San Francisco consulate attends to visa applicants in the states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Guam, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. That being said, prepare to spend time and money traveling! Albeit I had to make the trip to San Francisco twice to apply for and pick-up my visa, I met a young lady from Las Vegas who told me it was her FOURTH TRIP due to incorrect documents…details, details, details.

One last thing. While the consulate states that it will not take any walk-in appointments…they’re lying. Eventhough I went by the book—which caused many a headache and almost having to cancel my flights and miss my first month of work in Spain—you CAN walk in if you need to! While at the consulate applying for my visa, I arrived to my appointment early and they attended to me in right away. Additionally, during this same time, I met another girl applying for a National visa who had made an appointment in late November. She showed up on the same day as me, in mid September, claiming she got the dates wrong. You guessed it, they let her right in. What I learned from these experiences is that if you’re in a time pinch, fake it ‘till you make it.

My Recommendations:

• Make your appointment early!

• Pay attention to the details

• Prepare to travel a bit

• Lying is never okay…except about your appointment date