Volante de Empadronamiento in Valencia: Certificate Types and Where to Get Them

Volante, certificado, hoja padronal: what each word means

A volante de empadronamiento is, in the cities that use the term, a simple printout confirming your registration, and a certificado is the formal document signed by the municipal secretary. Valencia only issues certificates. Their legal weight is the same or higher, so a request for a volante from an administration elsewhere in Spain is satisfied by the Valencia certificate.

The hoja padronal is the registration sheet itself: the record of the people at one address that the council keeps and updates at each alta or change. You supply its data when you register, and the familiar certificate is essentially a certified extract of it. It is not something you carry to an appointment.

One more phrase turns up on forms: certificado de convivencia, the proof that several people live together. In Valencia that need is met by the familiar certificate for people on the same registration sheet, or by the vivienda certificate when the question is how many people the address holds.

Photo: Francesc Fort, CC BY-SA 4.0

Which procedure asks for which

Start from what the receiving office wants to check. The NIE, TIE and residence procedures at Extranjería check where you live, so the individual certificate is the usual ask, and our NIE guide and TIE guide list it among the documents. The SIP health card from the Conselleria de Sanitat also works from your individual registration, see healthcare in Valencia.

School enrolment and anything involving a child is where the familiar certificate earns its place: it shows the child registered with you at the address, which is what the catchment rules check. Family reunification and an invitation letter for a visitor take the vivienda certificate by the council's own label, because Extranjería wants to know how many people already live in the home.

Marriage at the Registro Civil and a licence exchange at the DGT are proof-of-residence checks, and the individual certificate is normally enough; where a date of arrival matters, the histórico version answers it. Whatever the form says, the type is the receiving office's call: read its document list, and when in doubt the histórico covers everything the individual does.

How to get one: online, by phone, at the counter

Online with a certificate or DNIe: open procedure PA.CE.10 on the Sede, press Iniciar trámite and download the certificate. It carries a verification code, so the PDF is the original. The familiar certificate is requested from its own link on the same page. Electronic DNI, ACCV and FNMT certificates and Cl@ve Firma all work, as on every Sede procedure.

Online without a certificate: the certificado de padrón form on valencia.es takes your name, date of birth and ID number and sends the certificate by post to your registered address or by email. The council checks the data first, so this one is not instant; give a mobile number so a mismatch can be sorted. The 010 line, free from within Valencia, does the same by phone.

At the counter: any of the eleven padrón offices issues the certificate at the moment, and the Casa Consistorial handles certificates without appointment through its Arquebisbe Mayoral entrance. The single exception is the familiar histórico certificate, which only the central office at Plaça de l'Ajuntament issues.

Photo: Artvill, CC BY-SA 4.0

Validity, cost and the special cases

Cost is zero: the Ajuntament states that every padrón procedure is free, certificates included. Validity is set by whoever receives the document, not by the council, which prints no expiry date. Most administrations ask for a certificate issued within the last three months, which is why we suggest requesting it close to the appointment rather than at registration.

Certificates that the automated route cannot produce, for someone removed from the padrón, for a deceased person, a history of one address over a period or a historical certificate for a minor, go through procedure PA.CE.15 with a specific application and supporting documents: the death certificate and proof of the family link, an authorisation from the adult concerned, or the family book for a child.

Someone else can collect for you, with a written authorisation and copies of both IDs, and public bodies can request the certificate directly in the course of their work. If you have moved and the certificate shows the old address, the fix is a change of address on the padrón first, not a new certificate.