My cédula expired on my birthday last year, so I finally got around to renewing it. The Registro Civil site did not have an option to reserve an appointment in Buin, so I reserved for Paine at 8:30 AM. I figured the first appointment of the week would be the least likely to be delayed.
I got there a bit early. They called me at exactly 8:30. I was out of there by 8:40 and home before 9 AM. And, she arranged for me to be able to pick up my ID in Buin. I hate the picture, but I never look good in those close camera photos.
This is Chile, so YMMV, of course. But, I thought my experience was worth sharing.
Oh, and it appears that offices that use the reservation system aren’t seeing people without an appointment. They were turning people away, telling them to go to Buin where they can stand in line and hope to get one of the 30 daily numbers.
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My wife had a similar experience with the RC in San Antonio but my hijastra a terrible experience in Santiasco. Despite the appointment system, she still had to wait in the hot sun for about an hour and their was a lot of confusion with the mass of people outside.
Yeah. The other close option was San Bernardo and I thought it would be more likely to be more crowded and slow due to the higher population, similar to your hijastra’s experience. Plus, the few times I have had to go there to visit offices we don’t have here in town, it always felt sketchy. I think Paine was a much better option.
Thanks for the info. I need to renew mine shortly as well. What about the PDI? That was a major issue last time I had to renew.
Same situation here in Valpo some time ago, the “appointment” gives you the right to stay in line (outside the office) for 2+ hours. Those without appointment are turned away.
@scandinavian - I am nationalized, so I am, fortunately, spared from having to deal with the PDI.
I see.
I had a look around to check if by any chance PDI had made the process digital and stumbled across this:
https://www.pdichile.cl/trámites-online/certificado-de-vigencia-de-permanencia-definitiva
That sounds amazing - anyone have any experience with that?
That would be great if it works out. I always thought there should be some way for the civil registry to view that information directly. But, of course, that would make to much sense 
! Hopefully, you can give it a try and report back.
It was supposed to be ready on the 20th, but I already received an e-mail yesterday saying I can go pick it up.
Just an update on the cedula process for foreigners with permanent residency.
It is indeed no longer necessary to present the PDI documentation or any other paperwork. Only your expiring / expired cedula.
On the flip side - all registro civiles in Santiago at least are completely overwhelmed and you can only book online. My experience was as follows:
My cedula expired early March 22.
December 21 - tried booking online. Got message that I was not able to yet
January 22 - tried online. Got message that I needed some approval from PDI. Spoke to PDI and registro civil and nobody could tell what that was about.
Went to main office of Registro civil in Huerfanos and stood in line for hours. In the end, they bypassed the error message (by clicking that my existing visa was from a consulate, which is not correct) and getting me a scheduled time (again in Huerfanos as it was the earliest date possible in the entire RM) for March 22nd.
Yesterday, I went at the scheduled time, but it was a mess. In the end, I was attended about 2 1/2 hour after my scheduled time. When I left people were shouting at the registro civil guys trying to control the lines.
I believe that the main reason that it is so busy now, is that all cedulas that expired in 2020, 2021 and 2022 until Feb 28th were extended. So a whole lot of cedulas need renewing at the same time.
Do you remember exactly how many days it took? I need to book tickets and don’t want to wait until the official delivery day (which is 28 days from today!)
I went on January 10th and got the e-mail that it was ready on the 12th. I don’t know why it was so fast.
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I have to admit, I was very lazy. I only today got around to actually picking up my ID. A lot of people were still outside waiting for numbers and such. It was kind of disorganized. But, I showed the guard the receipt I got and she directed to a pretty short line of 3 people. It was my turn after about 10 minute and the ID was still there. It took a few minutes to activate and I was good to go.
The weird thing they were asking people where they lived and there were a lot of people that had come from Santiago. Maybe because they didn’t want to make an appointment and they are still not using the appointment system in Buin. Staff seemed to be giving priority to people who said they lived here.
Had to renew a little early as I have a trip planned to the States in a couple of weeks and my cedula will expire before I return.
Went to the new office in San Antonio at 1:30 pm last Tuesday and the place was completely empty.
Go my notification just a few minutes ago, so 1 week even though the worker said 15 days on average for a cedula entranjera.
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My husband has an appointment for his cédula in Buin on Friday. We’ll see how it goes. He got the earliest hour, 8:30, so hopefully it will be fast.
Well, it was a lot more disorganized for my husband than my experience. They were giving out numbers and taking people with appointments too, not prioritizing those with appointments. It took a while for them to even start calling people who needed to renew their IDs. I told him he should have gone to Paine like I did.
The downtown S Bdo office isn’t great, but if you can get early appts at Mall Plaza Sur, it isn’t too bad.
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Thanks. When we go there, we usually just head to Jumbo/Easy, so we don’t pass to the area where the Registro is. I had sort of forgotten it existed. It’s pretty convenient for us.
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