Questions
Spain visa questions, answered plainly
Sixteen questions, each answered in its first sentence. Where a rule is settled we say what it is. Where it varies by consulate, or where the law simply does not answer, we say that rather than invent a clean number. Every answer carries one link to the page that takes it further.
Eligibility
Which visa fits your situation, and what you have to be able to prove.
Can I work on Spain's Non-Lucrative Visa?
No, and remote work for a foreign employer is still work. The regulation admits you and your family to Spain without carrying out employment or professional activity, so the ban covers everyone on the permit. After a year of residence you can apply to convert it into a permit that does allow work, which is a fresh application and not a formality.
Which Spain visa do I need, the Non-Lucrative or the Digital Nomad?
It turns on where your money comes from. If it arrives without you working for it (a pension, rent, dividends, savings), that is the Non-Lucrative Visa. If you earn it working remotely for an employer or clients outside Spain, that is the Digital Nomad Visa. The income bar, the work rights, where you file and how it renews all differ from there.
How much money do I have to show for a Spain visa?
Each visa multiplies a different Spanish index: the Non-Lucrative reads IPREM, the Digital Nomad reads the minimum wage. Neither figure is fixed in the visa law itself, so both move when the index behind them moves, and every person you bring raises the total. The Digital Nomad number rose in 2026 when the minimum wage did; the Non-Lucrative one has not moved since 2023, because the index behind it is frozen.
Can savings replace monthly income on the Non-Lucrative Visa?
Yes. What the rule asks is that your funds cover the monthly amount across the whole period the authorization is asked for, so a first application is measured over twelve months rather than one. Property titles, certified cheques, pension and investment statements all count as proof, provided a bank certificate stands behind them.
Documents
What Spain will accept as a document, and what makes one go stale.
Does every document need an apostille and a sworn translation?
Every foreign document in the file needs both, or the legalisation equivalent. If your country is on the Hague list it takes an apostille from the authority that issues them; if it is not, the document goes through consular legalisation, which involves more offices and more weeks. Then it goes to a traductor jurado, a translator sworn in by Spain's foreign ministry. An ordinary certified translation is a different thing and gets rejected.
How recent does my criminal-record certificate have to be?
Three months at most, at every consulate we have checked bar one: New York accepts an FBI summary up to six months old and no other certificate from US residents. The window is the consulate's own rule rather than the regulation's, so read your consulate's sheet before you order anything. Our own rule is to obtain the expiring certificates within ninety days of filing, which leaves room for the apostille and the translation.
Does the document list change depending on which country I am from?
The list is the same everywhere. What changes is the name of your criminal-record certificate, which office issues it, whether it takes an apostille or a full legalisation, and how many countries you owe one to. The Non-Lucrative reaches back across your previous five years of residence, so a move abroad four years ago means two certificates on two different tracks.
Timelines
The deadlines the law fixes, and the waits it says nothing about.
How long does a Spain visa take?
Two to four months from first email to visa, in our experience. Very little of that is an official deciding anything: the legal decision windows are the short part, and the months go on police certificates, apostilles, sworn translations and waiting for an appointment slot your consulate controls. Anyone quoting you a single number has not asked where you live.
What happens if the office does not answer by its deadline?
That depends on the route, and the difference is worth knowing before you pick one. An in-Spain Digital Nomad application left unanswered past its window counts as granted, and so does a Non-Lucrative renewal. An initial Non-Lucrative authorization left unanswered counts as refused. For a visa decided at a consulate the law attaches no meaning to silence at all, in either direction.
When do I have to apply for my TIE card?
Within one month of entering Spain if you arrived on a Non-Lucrative visa, and within one month of being notified if you have just renewed. Read that as a month and not thirty days, because the regulation counts months. A Digital Nomad visa issued by a consulate needs no TIE; an authorization granted inside Spain does, once it runs longer than six months.
Family
Who can come with you, and what they are allowed to do once they are here.
Can my family come with me?
Yes, on the same application or afterwards, and each person raises the income you have to show. Who counts as family is not the same on both routes: the Non-Lucrative list is a spouse or proven partner, unmarried minor children, and adult children who cannot support themselves. The Digital Nomad route also admits dependent parents, which the Non-Lucrative one does not.
Can my spouse work in Spain?
On the Non-Lucrative Visa, no: the ban on working covers the family as well as the holder. On the Digital Nomad route we will not tell you either way, because the law is silent: neither the statute, nor the joint instruction, nor the unit's own checklist says whether a spouse's authorization permits work. Write to us with your situation and we will tell you what is settled and what is not.
Taxes
Two rules count the same 183 days for two different offices, and only one of them decides your tax bill.
Will living in Spain make me a Spanish tax resident?
More than 183 days in a calendar year and you are, and days are not the only trigger. Spain also treats you as resident if the main base of your economic interests is here, and it counts short absences against you unless you can prove tax residence somewhere else. We prepare visa files, not tax returns, so budget for a Spanish adviser in your first year.
Is the Non-Lucrative renewal's 183-day rule the same as the tax rule?
No. Two different laws count the same number of days for two different offices: renewal asks whether you really lived in Spain during the calendar year, and an immigration office decides it. Tax residency decides whether Spain taxes your worldwide income, and the tax agency decides that on a wider test of its own. You can satisfy one and miss the other.
Our service
What we do, what we are not allowed to do, and what it costs.
Are you lawyers?
No. We are an independent consultancy that prepares visa files: we work out what your case needs, assemble and check the documents, manage the sworn translations and keep you ahead of every deadline. We do not represent you before a court and we do not give legal advice. Where a case needs a lawyer we say so, and we work alongside one.
What does it cost to use you?
Three packages, priced on the page, and the price you see is the whole of what we charge. Sworn translations and government fees are other people's charges and we pass them through at cost, quoted for your consulate before you pay us anything. We do not charge for the first answer, and there is nothing to book.