Knock and it shall be opened

Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Right. In the real world? Forget knocking—demand it. You’ve got the right. Consular offices are the strangest creatures in the bureaucratic fauna, and whether they help you or not depends entirely on the mood of the clerk forced to deal with you on some unlucky Tuesday.

One thing in the Immigration Service of Andorra remains non-negotiable: you’ll need a clean criminal record certificate from the country where you were born and from the country where you’re living when you apply to Andorra’s immigration service. Without those, your application is dead in the water.

Exceptions? Sure—if you switched countries before you turned eighteen. And then? Prove it. Dig up your old school records from the country you moved to and wave them in front of the authorities.

As for getting the clean criminal record certificate—you don’t have to fly back to your birthplace. That’s the good news. The better news? The consulate of that country in your current place of residence is legally obliged to give it to you—even if you’re no longer grazing in their pasture one of their citizens.

Here’s the golden rule: your certificates must cover every single year you’ve spent in any country. Leave a gap, and you’ll have to plug it with proof you were in school or doing military service. Otherwise, you’ll spend quality time testing the patience of the immigration officer until you’ve built a perfect, gap-free map of your international pasture-hopping.