This is a First-hand experience of Spain Non Lucrative Visa Application at the Houston Consulate by a Spainguru community member. “We ran into two issues while trying to book appointments in Houston via the BLS website:
- No family appointments were available on the website, despite checking every day for weeks.
- One of our new-generation US passports contained a letter instead of all numeric digits, and the site simply wouldn’t accept this passport number.
After multiple failed attempts online, we called the BLS help center and were advised to email our issues to their help desk. We did so with screenshots of the errors, but after waiting 10 days, we received no response.
We called the help center again and spoke with two representatives who simply advised us to email the help desk again.
However, after persistent follow-ups, we were eventually connected with a third representative who was extremely helpful.
She manually booked two separate appointments for us in Houston. Unfortunately, the system still wouldn’t allow family appointments to be scheduled, and we couldn’t get appointments on the same day, so we settled for consecutive days.
Upon arrival in Houston, we both showed up to the first appointment with all of our paperwork. The staff acknowledged that their system couldn’t book family appointments but agreed to process our applications together. However, we had to pay an extra “walk-in” fee of $70 to apply as a family.
We chose to pay the fee for convenience and submitted our applications together. We arrived on time, well-prepared with all documents organized in accordion folders. The entire process took about an hour for both of us.
Although there was an option to mail our documents to the Houston consulate, we opted for an in-person submission.
The BLS representatives mentioned that in-person applications tend to process more smoothly and efficiently compared to mailed applications. While we cannot confirm this, we felt more comfortable applying in person.
Questions and Answers
These are the questions and answers from Spainguru’s Facebook group members:
Q1: “Great info, thanks, and good luck. Any other form issues or translation/apostille issues? Who did you use?”
A1: “No issues, we did all the paperwork ourselves.”
Q2: “Did you apply in person? How long did it take to receive your visa?”
A2: “Yes, we did ours in person, and it took about five weeks to receive the visa.”
Comments
“We did our application in person as well, for two people, and were well-prepared. Our visas were approved in about five weeks.”
“We also applied through the Houston consulate and had a similar experience with the appointment scheduling system. Being persistent with BLS representatives is key.”
Conclusion
Applying for the Spain Non Lucrative Visa at the Houston BLS office presented challenges, particularly with booking family appointments and dealing with the online system errors.
However, persistence and direct contact with BLS representatives proved to be successful in securing an appointment.
In-person applications are recommended by this Spainguru community member, as they tend to be processed more efficiently compared to mailing the documents.
Being well-prepared, organized, and willing to pay additional fees when necessary can help streamline the process and ensure a smooth experience.
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Make sure to join our dedicated Spanish Non Lucrative Visa group here!
