The listing agent for our rental helped us set up utilities. You give them your bank information and they will contact the utilities and set up automatic withdrawals. However the accounts remained in the name of the landlord. We have one little inconvenience in that our electric bill is in the landlord's deceased father's name and there is not enough information to set up automatic payments. You may be lucky enough to have tv and wi fi service already set up as part of your rent. If not you will have to set up your own internet/cable/phone installation and service, which is generally much cheaper than in the U.S. Movistar and Vodafone are the largest providers and have storefronts everywhere. The tricky part comes if you want fiberoptic sevice for faster internet. Ask your landlord if it is already installed in your building and who is the provider. Any company should be able to use the building's existing fiberoptic but they may tell you that THEY don't have it in your building yet will "in a couple of months." We went with Movistar first and waited for fiberoptic to be installed but switched to Vodafone because we got tired of the repeated delays.

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Thanks a bunch for the info. As a US citizen, hoping to have the nonlucrative visa, will there be a lot of bureaucratic hoops to jump thru to get set up with the various utilites

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Hi, epilot, I think you will find that setting up utilities is a pretty simple process, but you MUST have a bank account in Spain to do it as well as an NIE (if you need more info on this, please ask!). When I was in Valencia, the two places that I rented required me to give them my bank account number for utilities, which were kept in the landlord's name(s). Utilities were typically pulled directly out of your bank account... which is why you need the account.

As noted by anlgza, this is not a bad thing but one caution: make sure you check the POTENCIA for your power service. This is the overall KW amount of possible power assigned to your apartment, and while it is normally not a big deal, you pay higher per KW/hr for a higher potencia. You may not know the amount until your first utility bill, which is every other month. I found this out the hard way, when my first bill was 300EUR because my potencia was set for what was probably a restaurant. It took some time to resolve that, but once it was done, my power bill went down to 90EUR for two months.

Another component is the TV/Internet/Phone/cellphone. I used Movistar, and for ~100EUR/mo I got TV with a whole bunch of channels (which I rarely watched), fiber internet (good point from anlgza on this!), a home phone, and cellphone service with 3Gb of data usage. Here in the States, I am paying the same amount for just one cellphone service and none of the other services. This will also come automatically out of your bank account. One thing I really liked about Movistar is that they have a team of customer service reps who speak English, and not all of the companies do. While I can hold my own in a phone conversation in Spanish, it was much easier when I transferred my services from one apartment to another, and was able to keep my fiber service in my new location (which was, incidentally, in a very old building off of C/de Jesús)!

Please continue to ask questions if you need more information.

Kind regards, Christopher

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Thanks, CWWells67 for the great info, especially the potencia was enlightening. How long does it take to obtain the NIE and then the bank account followed by the utilities hookup. Trying to determine how long I will have to stay in hotel until is done. Epilot

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Check your visa nonlucrativo paperwork carefully. You should get an NIE number with that paperwork before you even enter Spain. With that, you can open a bank account immediately, and you will be on your way to getting an apartment. For me, with friends helping, it took me two weeks to go from a hotel room to my own apartment. Most likely, the utilities will be on, just switched to your name, which is a pretty regular occurrence and handled by the rental agent (inmobiliaria). Good luck!

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Thanks Anlgza, you information is direct and to the point and will help a lot when we make the move to Valencia

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