How to apply for Spain's Non-Lucrative Visa: the step-by-step, from first form to visa in passport
Plain Spain editorial team · Last reviewed · 12 min read
Most Non-Lucrative files that come apart do not come apart on the money. They come apart on sequence: a criminal-record certificate collected in February for an appointment in July, or a medical certificate that says the applicant is in good health when the consulate wanted the wording about public-health risk.
What the visa asks of you, figure by figure, is set out on the Non-Lucrative Visa page. This is the order you do it in, from the first form to your first month in Spain.
Key takeawaysLink to this section
- You file in person at the Spanish consulate covering the district where you legally live, and the residence authorization is decided alongside the visa.
- Three forms carry the application: your consulate's national visa form, EX-01, and fee form 790-052.
- Two documents age while you collect the rest. The criminal-record certificate and the medical certificate are the last things you obtain, not the first.
- Every foreign public document needs an apostille or consular legalisation, then a sworn translation into Spanish, in that order.
- Once the file is in, the immigration office has one month to decide the authorization, and silence at the end of that month is a refusal.
- Your first authorization covers twelve months. The renewal runs two years, and its funds test covers the whole two years rather than one.
Am I eligible before I start?Link to this section
Two tests settle it before you spend anything: the money has to arrive without you working for it, and it has to clear 400% of IPREM a month.
IPREM is the public-income index Spain uses for means tests, and it sits at €600 a month, unchanged since 2023 (Ley 31/2022, additional provision 90). Art. 62.1 of the immigration regulation asks a Non-Lucrative applicant for 400% of that figure, and 100% of it again for every family member on the application, which is how the ministry's own Non-Lucrative residence sheet states the requirement.
| Household | Monthly income | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Just you | €2,400 | €28,800 |
| You + 1 family member | €3,000 | €36,000 |
| You + 2 family members | €3,600 | €43,200 |
| You + 3 family members | €4,200 | €50,400 |
Savings do the same job as income. The rule is that the total covers the monthly figure across the whole period you are asking for, so a first application, which covers twelve months, puts a single applicant at €28,800 and a couple at €36,000. The funds have to be lawfully obtained and must not depend on you working for them. A job offer proves the opposite of what this visa asks. Where the index comes from and what would move it is set out in the guide to IPREM and the minimum wage.
Income in another currency is fine. Art. 62.1 asks for the monthly figure in euros "o su equivalente legal en moneda extranjera", or its legal equivalent in foreign currency, so a pension paid in rand or rupees counts at the exchange rate. In practice that exposes a household sitting a few percent above the line to a bad month on the exchange rate between ordering documents and filing them, so we plan those files with a margin.
If you are planning to keep a remote job, stop here. Art. 61.1 of the immigration regulation places the holder and the accompanying family in Spain "sin realizar actividades laborales o profesionales", without carrying out employment or professional activity, and a client three time zones away is still work. That ban reaches the family too, so a couple where one partner intends to carry on working is not a Non-Lucrative household. The two visas compared row by row is the quicker way to see whether the Digital Nomad route is yours instead.
Not sure the numbers work for your household? Check your eligibility in six questions. We ask for no email address.
Which forms do I fill in?Link to this section
Three, and each does a different job.
The national visa application form is the visa half of the file: one form per applicant, with a recent passport-size photo on a white background. Every consulate publishes its own version, and some want it in duplicate, as the Casablanca requirements sheet does. Download it from the consulate that will take your file, not from an aggregator.
Form EX-01 is the residence half: the application for the initial non-lucrative temporary residence authorization, named in the ministry's residence sheet. The visa gets you into Spain. EX-01 is what lets you stay.
Form 790, código 052 is the fee form for that residence authorization, also named in the residence sheet. It is a separate payment from the visa fee, which the consulate charges and which varies by consulate and nationality. The New York consulate's page publishes no visa-fee figure at all and says it must be consulted with the consular office, so treat any amount you read on a forum as somebody else's invoice.
Everything else in the file is a document you obtain rather than a form you complete.
What documents do I gather, and in what order?Link to this section
Work backwards from the appointment date, because two documents have a shelf life and the rest do not.
Find out the appointment wait before you order anything. In our experience it is the least controllable part of the process and the thing that sets your calendar: some consulates release slots weeks out, others months, and the wait is not negotiable.
Then collect the slow, non-expiring half of the file:
- Passport. At least a year of validity left, two blank pages, issued within the last ten years. Both the New York and Casablanca sheets state it, and both want a copy of the whole passport alongside the original.
- Health insurance from an insurer authorized to operate in Spain, covering what the Spanish public system covers. Travel insurance does not qualify, however long the trip.
- Proof of means. The residence sheet admits "cualquier medio de prueba", any means of proof, and names property titles, certified cheques and credit cards backed by a bank certificate among them. Bank certificates, pension statements and investment statements are the ordinary evidence.
- Proof that you live in the consulate's district. Jurisdiction follows your legal address.
- Family documents, if anyone is coming with you: marriage or partnership certificate, birth certificates for children, each apostilled or legalised and sworn-translated.
Only then order the two that expire:
- Criminal-record certificate from every country you have lived in during the previous five years. Art. 38.e of the regulation makes that five-year reach statutory for every residence visa, so a person who spent two of those years abroad produces two certificates.
- Medical certificate stating you carry no disease with serious public-health consequences under the 2005 International Health Regulations. That wording is what art. 38.i requires, and a note saying you are in good health is not the same document.
The five-year reach on the criminal record is where timelines quietly double. Someone who moved from Manila to Dubai three years ago needs a certificate from the Philippines and one from the United Arab Emirates, each from its own issuing authority and each needing its own authentication before a sworn translator can touch it. One of those countries is on the Hague list and the other is not, so that applicant runs an apostille and a full consular legalisation in parallel. The requirement itself is identical everywhere. What changes is the certificate's name and the route it takes to become usable in Spain.
| Document | How old it may be when you file | Who says so |
|---|---|---|
| Criminal-record certificate | Commonly three months. New York accepts an FBI Identity History Summary up to six months old, and accepts no other certificate from US residents | Casablanca sheet; New York consulate page |
| Medical certificate | Three months | Casablanca sheet |
| Passport | No age rule, but a year of validity left, two blank pages, issued within the last ten years | New York; Casablanca |
| Bank, insurance and income paperwork | No published window; consulates want statements that are visibly current | consulate practice, our experience |
Our own rule is to obtain both expiring certificates within 90 days of filing. That satisfies every consulate we have checked, and it still leaves room for the apostille and the sworn translation, which take days you cannot compress. The full calendar, stage by stage sets out how the pieces overlap.
How do apostilles and sworn translations work?Link to this section
They are two separate steps, and a document usually needs both. The apostille proves the document is genuine. The sworn translation makes it readable to the office deciding your case.
Which one you need depends on the country that issued the document. If it is party to the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961, the issuing country's own authority puts an apostille on it. If it is not, the document goes through full consular legalisation instead, which is slower and involves more counters. Spain applies the Ministry of Justice's list of signatory states, so that is the list to check rather than a general one.
The translation has to be sworn. Casablanca's sheet asks for "traducción jurada" on the criminal record and the medical certificate, and Spain's instructions for foreign public documents name a translator authorized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A fluent friend or an agency without that authorization will not do, however good the translation is.
Order matters. In our experience the apostille goes on before the translation, because the apostille is itself part of the document and the sworn translator has to render it too. A translation produced first usually has to be paid for twice. How apostilles, legalisation and sworn translations actually work walks through a single certificate from issue to filing.
How does the consulate appointment go?Link to this section
It is a document check, in person, not an interview about your plans for Spain.
You file at the Spanish consulate in whose district you legally reside. The residence sheet puts it plainly: "presencialmente, en la Oficina Consular española en cuya demarcación resida", in person at the consular office whose district you live in. That follows your legal address, not your passport and not the consulate with the shortest queue.
Being in Spain irregularly at the time of the application is a ground for refusal in its own right, which is why the file asks for proof of address in the district. Some consulates add requirements the others do not: Casablanca's sheet lists availability of accommodation in Spain, and asks non-Moroccan residents for their Moroccan residence permit. Consulates also differ on who has to appear, so ask when you book whether children need their own slot.
The consulate may ask for extra documents or call you in for an interview. That is not a bad sign on its own, but it does extend the period the consulate has to decide.
We also prepare applications filed inside Spain, which go to an Oficina de Extranjería rather than to a consulate. Be careful with what you read about the decision clock on that route. The one-month period in art. 63.4 of the regulation runs from the consulate's communication, so on its face it describes the consular process. We plan an in-Spain file on the same one month, treating silence at the end of it as a refusal. That is our working assumption, not a rule anyone has published.
What happens after I file?Link to this section
Two decisions follow, one after the other, and on this half of the process silence is bad news.
The residence authorization goes to the Delegación or Subdelegación del Gobierno, which has a maximum of one month from receiving the consulate's communication to decide it. Art. 63.4 of the regulation is explicit about what happens if that month runs out: "transcurrido este plazo sin respuesta, se entenderá que la solicitud ha sido desestimada", the application is understood to be refused. No letter arrives to tell you that has happened, so the useful move at the end of a quiet month is to ask the consulate where the file is rather than assume it is moving.
The visa decision has a legal period of three months from the day after you file, stated by the New York consulate and echoed by Casablanca as roughly three months, and the consulate may extend it if it asks for further documents or an interview. Once a favourable authorization comes back to the consulate, art. 39.5 of the regulation gives it a maximum of one further month to resolve and issue the visa.
Then you collect it in person. Art. 28.4 gives you one month from notification, and a file left uncollected closes as a withdrawal. Some consulates are more generous than the regulation's floor: Casablanca states two months. Yours may not.
In our experience the whole thing runs two to four months from first email to visa in passport, and most of that is document gathering rather than waiting on an official. The appointment wait sits outside every clock above, because none of them start until the day after you file.
What do I do in my first month in Spain?Link to this section
Apply in person for the TIE within one month of entering the country. That deadline is art. 63.5 of the regulation, and it is counted in months rather than days: a month from 31 January is not thirty days later.
The TIE, tarjeta de identidad de extranjero, is the physical card that proves your residence once you are here. The visa in your passport gets you in; the card is what you show afterwards. In our experience the police station also wants a padrón certificate at that appointment, the proof that you have registered with your town hall, and both the paperwork and the booking system vary by province, so read what your own province publishes rather than a national summary.
Then look one year ahead, because the renewal is where the arithmetic changes shape. Your first authorization covers twelve months. A renewal is granted for two years (art. 64.7), you apply during the two months before the current one expires (art. 64.1), and you must have lived in Spain for more than 183 days during the calendar year, real and effective residence in the regulation's words (art. 64.2.f).
The monthly bar does not rise. It is the same €2,400 a month it was at the start, plus €600 a month per dependent (arts. 64.2.b and 62.1). What changes is the calendar you multiply it by: art. 62.2 requires your funds to cover the monthly amount for the whole term you are asking for, and a renewal term is two years.
The renewal office has three months to decide, and here silence works in your favour: an unanswered renewal is understood to be granted (art. 64.8), which is the reverse of the one-month rule on the initial authorization. Once you are notified, you have one month to apply in person for the new card (art. 64.9).
One last warning about the 183 days, because the number turns up twice in a Spanish life and the two rules are not the same. Art. 64.2.f decides whether your residence is renewed. Art. 9.1 of Ley 35/2006 decides whether Spain taxes your worldwide income, and it counts occasional absences against you unless you can prove tax residence somewhere else. You can meet one and miss the other, so plan them as separate questions.