Getting Started with a Spanish Mobile

Once you arrive in Spain one of the first things you'll want to do is get your phone sorted. If you don't have a Spanish SIM card giving your number out to new friends or getting started on a flat search is so much more difficult and expensive. There are plenty of networks operating in Spain; the largest of which are Movistar, Vodafone, Orange and Yoigo. I have friends that use these networks but the service I chose is a much smaller one called Tuenti which is provided by Movistar.

In my first week I spent so much precious time faffing about because I didn't really know what I was doing. I honestly went to at least 7 different Movistar stores and failed at getting a SIM at each of them for various reasons. I don't want this to happen to you so just follow these steps to take the stress out of getting a spanish SIM.

1. Have a phone ready for your new SIM. Some people buy a really cheap brick phone in England to take abroad as their posh smartphones are tied into English contracts. Whatever you want to do make sure that the phone you take is unlocked meaning it will accept a new SIM card. Being the technophobe I am I had only just joined the 21st century before I set off so had a new unlocked smartphone all ready and waiting.

Something to bear in mind is that EVERYONE in Madrid uses WhatsApp so you may want a phone with internet access.

2. Go to the Flagship Movistar store on Gran Vía. I faffed about for days going to small stores that told me they'd run out of the SIM I wanted, didn't stock SIMs as they were inside the Corte Inglés or that I needed to create an account online beforehand (absolute rubbish). Go to the main store where they'll have everything to hand - if your Spanish is rusty there'll also be someone ready to help you in English.
 
Things you will need:

- Your Passport
- 25 Euros (in cash or card it's up to you)

3. Ask for a prepaid Tuenti SIM (Una tarjeta prepago de Tuenti). In Spain you can't get a phone contract for any less than 18 months. As the majority of us are going to be abroad for around 9 months a prepaid plan is the best option.

For 7 Euros a month Tuenti offers:

- 1 GB of data
- 50 minute of Vozdigital (Vozdigital is essentially a way in which people who have a Tuenti SIM can talk to each other over the internet via the Tuenti App)
- It costs 18.15 cents to establish a call (within Spain) but then the first 30mins are free. You could hang up at 29 mins and redial meaning that an hours phone call has only cost about 37 cents (sneaky!)

You pay 25 euros to get the SIM card and the first month's payment is taken away leaving you with the excess as credit. So for the first month you would have 18 euros worth of credit to make phone calls with etc. The next month's 7 euros is automatically taken from your remaining credit. Once this is all gone you can top up at any ATM or inside Movistar stores.

Once you've put the SIM in your phone I'd wait 10-15 minutes inside the store to check that it's working. Make sure you have WIFI disabled when you try to access the internet or you may think it works when it doesn't...this definitely didn't happen to me... In the end I had to get the settings on my phone changed by one of the engineers so it would accept a foreign SIM.

In Movistar stores and on their website you'll be able to find other slightly more expensive options that offer more data/minutes etc. Unfortunately as foreigners buying the card using a passport as ID the only option available to us is the 7 euro plan.

As I said there are plenty of other options but this is the cheapest and most practical one I found. I hope this has helped you if you're wondering how to go about getting a SIM on your year abroad.

The flagship Movistar store is located at Gran Vía, 28.