Printing ID photos in Alicante
Alicante has one of the busiest immigration offices on the coast, and appointments are hard to get: turning up with the photo already done saves having to come back.
Where to print in Alicante
In Carolinas and San Blas there are locutorios and copy shops that print on the spot for cents. Fotoprix and the Carrefour photo counter are the fixed-price alternative if you prefer a chain.
Your options in Alicante
- Locutorios and neighbourhood copy shops — Carolinas, Benalúa, San Blas. Between 0.20 € and 0.60 € a sheet, almost always while you wait. A locutorio is a small shop for calls, copies and paperwork; they are everywhere and they are the cheapest option.
- Chains — Fotoprix, Carrefour. Fixed price and long opening hours; a little dearer than the locutorio round the corner.
- At home — photo paper and 100 % scale. Plain paper will not do: the ink bleeds and grey comes out grey.
The phrase to say at the counter
This is the one point where all the earlier work falls apart, and it depends on what you ask for rather than on the shop. Say it in Spanish:
«Imprimir a tamaño real, al 100 %, sin ajustar a la hoja y sin bordes automáticos.»
“Print at actual size, 100 %, without fitting to the page and without automatic borderless.”
When the machine prints “borderless” it stretches the image by 2–3 % and the photos stop measuring 26 × 32 mm. With that much drift the photo no longer meets Real Decreto 1553/2005, and at the police station it shows at a glance with a ruler.
What you take to be printed
A 10 × 15 cm sheet with eleven photos already laid out and cut marks in the margins: eight at 26 × 32 mm, the official size, and three at 30 × 40 mm in case your particular office asks for the other one. Printing it costs cents and leaves you spare copies for several procedures — for the TIE fingerprint appointment bring two or three.
Make the photo before you go
Upload a phone photo and we hand back the sheet, ready to print in Alicante.
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