Car Key Replacement in Torrevieja
Lost the only key you had, or fancy a spare with a remote instead of the plain one that came with the car. Either way it is auto locksmith work rather than key cutting: the metal is the easy half, and the chip in the head has to be taught to your car before the engine will turn over. Tell us the make, model and year over the phone and you get a price for your job before anything starts.
Call and speak to a locksmith
663 770 223Have the make, model and year to hand
Torrevieja and its urbanisations, plus Orihuela Costa and Guardamar. English from the first question to the invoice.
Five jobs, and only one of them is an emergency
Most car key work here is planned. Somebody bought a car in Spain and it came with one key, or the spare is a plain blade and they want the remote. That is the order they are listed in.
You've lost the only key you had
There is nothing left in a drawer to copy from. The blade has to be cut to your car's own lock, and the chip has to be paired with the immobiliser afterwards, which is longer work than duplicating a key you still hold. Bring the car's papers and your ID: the work happens with the car in front of us, never remotely. Whether your model can be finished in one visit or something has to be ordered in for it, you are told on the phone.
You want a spare, and this time with a remote
This is the job the English-speaking forums round here ask about most: “have a manual spare want a remote one”, as one Torrevieja poster wrote it on a Costa Blanca expat forum in October 2025. There is a plain key in the drawer, it works, and you want a second one that locks and unlocks the car from the pavement. Nothing is on fire, so you pick the day, and it costs a good deal less than sorting it out the week the first key disappears.
The remote has stopped talking to the car
Buttons wear, batteries die, and now and then a remote loses its pairing altogether. Often it is nothing worse than a flat battery, and that is what you will be told, not sold a new remote.
A key snapped in the ignition or in the door
The broken half comes out with extraction tools and the key is reproduced from what is left of it. If the barrel was damaged as it broke, you hear about it before anyone goes further, not afterwards on the invoice.
The keys are shut inside the car
The one case here that is genuinely urgent. Ring, tell us where the car is parked and whether you can see the keys through the glass, and you get the price before anyone sets off.
If it is your front door and not your car, our English page for Torrevieja covers lockouts and out-of-hours call-outs. The emergency side of this service is set out in full on the Spanish page, cerrajero de coches en Torrevieja (page in Spanish).
What we ask to see, and why we insist on it
Two documents every time, plus the car's own number: its registration document, the permiso de circulación; something that says you are you; and the VIN. It is not paperwork for the sake of it. That check is the only thing standing between your car and a stranger who fancies it, and anyone willing to skip it for you would skip it for him.
If the car is not in your name yet, say so when you ring. A company car, a car in your wife's name, one you bought a fortnight ago and have not transferred: none of that is a problem, but we will tell you what we need in writing from the registered owner before a date is set.
The VIN is the chassis number at the base of the windscreen, visible through the glass from outside. If the car is still on British plates the document changes but the check does not, and that is the next section.
Have this ready when you ring
- Make, model and year of the car.
- Whether any key still works, or every one is gone.
- The registration document for the car.
- Your ID card, residencia or driving licence.
- The VIN from the base of the windscreen.
A car key is three things at once
Which is why the shop that cuts your front-door key in five minutes cannot help you with this one, and why the price of a car key has very little to do with the price of a key.
The blade
The metal, cut to the pattern of your car's locks. On its own it will open the door and turn in the ignition, and the engine will still sit there doing nothing.
The transponder
A chip in the plastic head. The immobiliser asks it a question when you turn the key, the chip gives the right answer, and only then will the car start. Teaching your car to accept a new chip is the actual job.
The remote
A small radio that locks and unlocks the car from a few metres away. It has to be coded as well, which is why a key with buttons never sits at the same price as a plain one.
None of the three works without the car itself. Coding is done with the vehicle present, through its diagnostic socket, which is why nobody can post you a working key and why we ask for the make, model and year before quoting.
The DGT, Spain's traffic authority, counts 59,000 registered cars in Torrevieja and puts their average age at 13.47 years (municipal data for 2025); counting every kind of vehicle, the town has the fourth largest fleet in the province of Alicante. Both figures are in the tables the DGT publishes town by town, Datos municipales. Información general 2025.
Our reading of it, not the DGT's A fleet of that average age is mostly cars from the years when the key already had a chip in it, and old enough that a franchised dealer will often have to order one in: the motoring magazine motor.es put the wait at a few days for an ordinary replacement, and up to a fortnight when every key has gone (13 October 2021). The auto locksmith sits between the two. Which of those your car needs, and whether anything has to be ordered for it, you find out when you ring, not on the day.
If the car has not been re-registered yet
The plate on the back changes neither the metal nor the chip. What it changes is the paper trail we follow to prove the car is yours, and it is worth knowing where you stand before you ring anybody.
The DVLA's rule is that you must tell them if you take a vehicle out of the UK for 12 months or more, which they call permanent export. You fill in the permanent export section of the V5C, send that part off and keep the rest of the log book. Keep it somewhere you can lay hands on it: while the car is still British, that remainder is the ownership document an auto locksmith will want to see.
On the Spanish side there are two offices and several different clocks, and they get mixed up constantly. If you live here, the one that counts is the Agencia Tributaria: 30 days to register the vehicle in Spain. Those 30 days are not everybody's deadline. The RACE sets out the other two cases: a non-resident should not keep the car in the country for more than six months at a stretch, and someone who has just moved their habitual residence here has 60 days. The DGT is the other office. It issues the temporary green plates, valid for two months and renewable while the process runs, and it wants the modelo 576 from the tax office along the way.
Driving about on foreign plates indefinitely is the expensive option: the RACE puts the fine for it at between 500 and 1,500 €. Bigger numbers than that circulate online with nobody's name on them, so this is the figure we use.
And the honest limit, because you would rather hear it now than after paying: some models need a code from the manufacturer, or a procedure only a franchised dealer can run. If yours is one of them we will say so on the phone, before you have spent anything with us.
The paperwork, in one place
- Permanent export section of the V5C sent to the DVLA, the rest of the log book kept by you (GOV.UK).
- If you live here: 30 days to register the car in Spain (Agencia Tributaria).
- If you do not: no more than six months in the country at a stretch, or 60 days once you move here for good (RACE).
- Temporary green plates, two months and renewable (DGT).
- Modelo 576 from the tax office as part of the process (DGT).
- 500 to 1,500 € fine for driving on foreign plates (RACE).
Published prices, with the name of whoever published them
We do not print a tariff, and nobody honest can: the figure moves with the car, with the type of key and with whether any key at all survives. What we can do is show you the public ranges, say who published them and when, and then give you a price for your car over the phone.
Dealer or specialist, from one source
The motoring magazine motor.es (13 October 2021) puts a key from a franchised dealer at between 130 and 350 €, depending on make and model, and the same job at a specialist workshop at around 65 € for a plain key and between 120 and 200 € for one with a remote. Both halves of that comparison come out of the same article, so at least they were measured the same way.
By the sort of key you actually have
Autopista (28 March 2024) publishes the ladder: 10 to 20 € for an old-fashioned key with no electronics in it, around 100 € once there is a transponder, 120 to 150 € for a key with a remote, 150 to 200 € for a card, and over 200 € for keyless. It does not separate dealers from locksmiths, so treat it as a second opinion alongside the figures above.
Losing every key is a different job
Copying a key you are holding and creating one from nothing are not the same work at all. With no key left, the car has to be opened, the code obtained and the immobiliser taught something it has never seen before. A quote built on the price of a copy is a quote for a different job.
Where our figure comes from
From your car, before we start, and it is the figure on the invoice at the end. How pricing works in this trade here, what the surcharges are and what being overcharged looks like is set out on our locksmith prices page.
Your policy might cover this
Ring your insurer before you ring anybody, us included. Some Spanish motor policies carry a key add-on, and if yours is one of them, that is the cheapest phone call you will make today.
Read what the cover actually says, though, because it is often narrower than people assume. Take one company that publishes its wording in full: Línea Directa covers loss, breakage, blocking or decoding and duplicates, with a ceiling of 300 € per incident, and it expressly excludes theft of the keys and changing the locks. That is one insurer's small print and not the market's, but it tells you which two lines to look for in your own policy: the ceiling, and what is left out.
Either way you get the invoice itemised, parts and labour on separate lines, which is the document a claims department asks for. And if the keys went missing with a bag that also held your house keys, the front door is a separate decision: changing the locks explains how that one is done, including when you are not in the country.
Worth asking your insurer
- Is key replacement covered at all, or only after a break-in?
- What is the ceiling per incident?
- Does the cover include coding, or only the key itself?
- Do they need the itemised invoice, or a claim number first?
What people ask on the local forums
None of these is a review of us, and not one of them was written for us. They are public posts by English speakers living around Torrevieja, quoted with the board and the date they were written on, and between them they describe this job better than any sales page could.
“does anyone have contact details for company/guy who used to operate out of kiosk at Carrefour in Torrevieja who makes replacement car keys”
“I did get a key for my Seat Altea from the company below … I think I had to take my car documents along.”
“When my wife wanted a new remote key for her Opel, she had to order it from Opel and then they had to programn it to her car. It wasn't very cheap.”
“It's not just a case of a new key. The chip inside the key will have to be coded too … so ask for a price before you say yes.”
Planned work, documents taken along, and a price asked for before anybody says yes. That last line is a neighbour's advice, given for free on a public forum, and it is how we work.
Get the spare made before you need it
Call 663 770 223 with the make, model and year, say whether any key still works, and you get a price for your car before anything is started. English from the first question to the invoice.