Five sections behind one door in Buztintxuri

Ask anyone in Pamplona where extranjería is and you will be sent to the same place: Avenida de Guipúzcoa 40, on the ground floor, in Buztintxuri. That answer is right, and it is only half the answer. Behind that address work two parts of the State, and inside one of them, five sections with their own lists and their own e-mail addresses.

The first part is the Policía Nacional. policia.es lists its unit as a Brigada Provincial de Extranjería y Fronteras, while the Delegación del Gobierno’s page calls it the Unidad de Documentación de Extranjeros (Pamplona/Iruña). Its work is identity: it gives you a number, certifies your registration, makes your card, lets you come back. The second part is the Oficina Única de Extranjería de Navarra, an office of the Delegación del Gobierno, open from 9:00 to 14:00 on weekdays. It decides whether you may study, live, work or bring your family here.

Inside the police unit, the Delegación’s page lists five sections. Personal comunitarios y regresos assigns NIE numbers, issues EU citizens’ certificates and grants return authorisations. Recogida de tarjetas takes the fingerprints for a TIE and hands the card over. The section that shares the unit’s own name, Unidad de Documentación de Extranjeros, deals with extensions of stay, address changes, refunds of fees and information. The last two handle letters of invitation and international protection.

Why does it matter, when the address is the same? Because the procedure you choose on the booking system decides which section expects you, and the folder each one wants is different. A European arriving for a green certificate and a Peruvian student arriving for fingerprints may walk through the same door on the same morning, but they are not going to the same desk. If you cannot tell which one is yours, write to us before you book.

Some files touch both parts of the building. The non-EU husband of a Portuguese engineer files his EX-19 card application with the Oficina Única, then books fingerprints at Recogida de tarjetas once it is granted. A worker recruited abroad waits on the Oficina Única for the permit, then on the police for the card once in Navarra. Think of two stamps on the same page of the credential, from two different hands.

For students the lists overlap: policia.es names students and extensions at the police unit, the Delegación places extensions with one police section, and the Oficina Única lists study stays. There, rather than guess, book that procedure in the cita previa for Navarra and follow the office on the confirmation. The same applies in the south, where the Comisaría de Tudela on Plaza Padre Lasa covers the NIE, EU certificates and the TIE.

A last practical word. The police sections publish no hours; the one printed on your booking is all you have. The villavesas have a stop named after the building, stop 306, “Avda. Gipuzkoa, nº 40”; check the lines that call there before setting off, and keep a few minutes to find your section’s entrance.