Visa requirements to live in Spain in 2026 (September 2026)
I spent the last few days going through Royal Decree 1155/2024, the IPREM tables and the Agencia Tributaria rules on tax residency, because the visa requirements to live in Spain were rebuilt in May 2025 and the version most guides describe expired that month. The short answer is that Spain is now easier to move to and considerably more expensive to be resident in, and those two facts pull in opposite directions. Getting the visa is a paperwork problem you can solve in four months. Becoming a Spanish tax resident, which most of these permits require you to do, is a permanent change to how your worldwide income and assets are treated, and almost nobody plans for it before they file.
The quick answer
EU, EEA and Swiss citizens do not need any of this. You register locally and you live here. Everything below is for non-EU nationals.
Two routes account for most people who move to Spain without a Spanish job. If you have passive income or savings and do not intend to work, the non-lucrative visa wants €2,400 a month, or €28,800 a year, plus €600 a month for each family member. If you work remotely for companies outside Spain, the digital nomad visa wants €2,849 a month and is the only route that lets you keep earning while you live here. Those are not interchangeable. The non-lucrative visa prohibits all work, and that includes remote work for a foreign employer, which consulates have been enforcing much more firmly through 2025 and 2026.
The route that used to soak up everyone who could afford it is gone. Organic Law 1/2025 repealed the golden visa on 3 April 2025, so buying property no longer gets you residence. Existing holders keep their permits and can renew, but there is no purchase route for anyone new and no grace period. That closure is why non-lucrative applications are up and why consulates are scrutinising income traceability harder than they used to.
Everything else runs through family, study or time already spent in Spain. Royal Decree 1155/2024, in force since 20 May 2025, made all of those meaningfully better. Renewals now run one year then four rather than two plus two. Students in higher education can work 30 hours a week. Non-EU family members of Spanish nationals got their own five year permit with immediate work rights. And the arraigo routes, for people already here without status, dropped from three years of prior residence to two.
What the residence categories actually mean
Four distinctions decide which route is yours, and getting one of them wrong costs months.
Non-lucrative
Residence without economic activity. You live on money earned outside Spain and you perform no work of any kind, anywhere, for anyone. That last part surprises people.
Teletrabajo
The digital nomad permit. You may work remotely, but no more than 20 per cent of freelance income from Spanish clients, and employees may not hold a Spanish contract at all.
Estancia versus residencia
A student holds a stay, not residence. It carries work rights now, but the years spent on it count for nothing toward the five needed for long-term residence.
Arraigo
Five routes to regularise if you are already in Spain without status. Social, sociolaboral, socioformativo, familiar and a second chance route for lapsed residents.
The most expensive misunderstanding is the difference between the visa and the tax return. Immigration and the tax agency are separate authorities that do not coordinate, and neither will warn you about the other. The non-lucrative visa requires you to spend more than 183 days a year in Spain in order to renew it, and spending more than 183 days a year in Spain makes you a Spanish tax resident on your worldwide income. Those are the same fact viewed from two departments, and only one of them sends you a bill.
Visa requirements to live in Spain, route by route
All figures are 2026 amounts. The income thresholds are pegged to the IPREM, which stayed at €600 a month this year only because no national budget was passed, so treat that as a pause rather than a trend.
| Route | Work rights | What it turns on | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-lucrative residence | None at all | €28,800 a year plus €7,200 per dependent, and private health cover | 1 year, then 4 |
| Digital nomad, teletrabajo internacional | Foreign income | €2,849 a month from outside Spain, a relationship 3 months old | 1 year abroad, 3 in Spain |
| Student stay | Up to 30 hours | Enrolment in higher education or higher vocational training | Course length |
| Self-employed, cuenta propia | Full | A viable licensed activity and the funds to launch it | 1 year, then 4 |
| Employee, cuenta ajena | Full | A Spanish job offer, filed by the employer | 1 year, then 4 |
| Family reunification | Full | A sponsor resident a year, adequate housing, roughly 150 per cent of IPREM | Tied to the sponsor |
| Family member of a Spanish national | Full | Marriage, partnership, a child under 26 or a dependent parent | 5 years |
| Arraigo, five routes | Full | Two years already in Spain, or qualifying family ties with no wait | 1 to 5 years |
| Long-term residence | Full | Five years of continuous legal residence, student years excluded | 5 years, renewable |
| Golden visa | Repealed | Abolished on 3 April 2025. Existing holders may still renew | Closed |
The pattern in that table is worth naming. Almost every route with full work rights depends on either a Spanish employer, a Spanish family member, or time already spent in Spain. If you have none of those three and you are not already retired, the digital nomad visa is effectively the only door, which is why it has become the default answer for anyone under 50 moving to Spain from scratch.
The two routes most people use
The non-lucrative visa
Governed by Articles 61 and 62 of RD 1155/2024. You prove 400 per cent of the IPREM, which is €2,400 a month or €28,800 a year, plus 100 per cent of the IPREM per dependent, meaning €600 a month or €7,200 a year each. A couple therefore needs around €36,000, a couple with one child €43,200, and a couple with two €50,400. Processing runs two to four months at the consulate and the full timeline from gathering documents to holding a physical card is more like four to six.
Two things about the money matter more than the headline figure. Recurring passive income is much stronger evidence than a large balance, and a healthy account with no income stream behind it is the profile most likely to be refused. And at first renewal the figures double, because the funds have to cover the full two year period that renewal grants. People budget for the first year and get caught at the second filing.
The health insurance requirement fails more applications than the income test. The policy must have no copayments and no waiting periods, and must provide cover equivalent to the Spanish public system. Consulates have tightened further, with some now rejecting policies carrying annual limits below €30,000 or copayment clauses above 20 per cent. Ask your insurer to confirm the no-copayment and no-waiting-period points in writing, because a policy that looks compliant on the brochure often is not.
The digital nomad visa
The income threshold is 200 per cent of the minimum wage, which for 2026 works out at €2,849 a month or €34,188 a year. Apply from a consulate and you get up to a year. Apply from inside Spain and you get up to three, plus access to the Beckham regime, which is a flat 24 per cent on Spanish employment income rather than the progressive scale up to 47 per cent.
Three conditions refuse applications rather than delay them. Freelancers may take no more than 20 per cent of their income from Spanish clients. Employees may not hold a Spanish employment contract at all. And the relationship with your employer or clients must be at least three months old, with the company itself trading for at least a year. The reviewing unit looks for a coherent pattern of foreign income across contracts, invoices, payslips and bank statements that agree with each other, so a single large transfer proves nothing.
If you work remotely, do not apply for the non-lucrative visa because the income threshold is lower. It prohibits all work, including remote work for a foreign employer, and enforcement tightened through 2025 and 2026. Holding the wrong permit and working anyway puts your renewal at risk, and the €449 difference in monthly income between the two routes is far cheaper than losing your residence in year two. If you cannot meet the digital nomad threshold, the honest answer is that you are not yet eligible to live in Spain while working, rather than that there is a cheaper way to do it.
Family, study and the arraigo routes
If you have a Spanish or EU family member, ignore everything above. RD 1155/2024 created a dedicated five year residence and work authorisation for non-EU family members of Spanish nationals, with work rights from the moment the card is issued and no separate permit needed. It covers spouses, registered and unregistered partners, children up to 26 and dependent ascendants. La Moncloa reported over 42,000 of these issued in the first seven months. It is faster, longer and more generous than anything you can buy your way into.
Ordinary family reunification, for non-EU residents bringing non-EU relatives, is a different and slower animal. You need to have held your own permit for at least a year, show adequate housing, and demonstrate income of roughly 150 per cent of the IPREM for the first family member plus 50 per cent for each additional one. The decision deadline is two months and silence counts as refusal. The genuine improvement since May 2025 is that a reunified spouse can now work, employed or self-employed, from the moment they receive the card.
Students get 30 hours a week of work rights automatically, up from 20 and no longer needing a separate permit. That only applies to higher education and higher vocational training, so a language academy gives you none of it. Graduates can then modify to a full work permit from inside Spain, usually without a labour market test. The catch is that student time does not count toward the five years for long-term residence, which reshapes the timeline for anyone planning to stay.
For people already in Spain without status, the arraigo system now has five routes and the general residence requirement is two years rather than three. Arraigo social needs two years plus family ties or a municipal integration report. Arraigo sociolaboral needs two years plus a contract of at least 20 hours a week. Arraigo socioformativo funds a training route with up to 30 hours of work. Arraigo familiar, and note this changed, is now reserved for family members of EU, EEA and Swiss citizens rather than of Spanish nationals, with no prior residence requirement and a five year permit. And a second chance route covers people who held a permit within the last two years and lost status for reasons unconnected to public order.
The extraordinary regularisation that ran under Royal Decree 316/2026 is closed. Applications opened on 16 April 2026 and the window shut on 30 June. It was the seventh such process since the 1980s and the largest since 2005, aimed at roughly half a million people. If you missed it, the ordinary arraigo routes are what remain.
Renewals, and getting to permanent status
The renewal structure is the quiet win of the 2025 reform. An initial authorisation runs one year, then renews for four in a single step, replacing the old two plus two grind. That is one fewer trip through the immigration office and one fewer round of document gathering.
Renewals happen in Spain, at the immigration office in your province, and you must be physically present. For the non-lucrative visa you also have to show you have spent more than 183 days in Spain during the preceding year, which is not optional and not negotiable. You resubmit proof of income, proof of valid health cover or enrolment in the convenio especial public scheme, a clean criminal record certificate and proof of address. The renewal fee is small, around €22 per person, and decisions take up to three months.
After five years of continuous legal residence you qualify for long-term residence, valid for five years and renewable, and RD 1155/2024 added a ten year card for people over 30. Absences matter for that count: no more than six consecutive months away and no more than ten months in total across the five years. Student time is excluded from the five, which is the single detail that most often derails a plan built around studying first.
The tax bill built into the permit
Here is the part I could not find explained properly anywhere, and it is the thing I would most want to know before filing.
The non-lucrative visa requires more than 183 days a year in Spain to renew. Article 9 of the Spanish personal income tax act makes anyone present more than 183 days in a calendar year a Spanish tax resident. The permit therefore does not merely permit tax residency, it compels it. There is no version of holding this visa long term while remaining non-resident for tax.
Three consequences follow, and they compound. First, Spain taxes residents on worldwide income under IRPF, at progressive rates running from 19 to 47 per cent, with investment income taxed separately at 19 to 30 per cent. That captures a US Social Security payment, a UK state pension, dividends, foreign rental income and capital gains on assets you sold abroad. Double taxation treaties give you credit for tax already paid elsewhere, but they do not remove the Spanish obligation and Spain applies its own brackets.
Second, wealth tax. The regional tax applies to net worldwide assets above €700,000 per person, with a €300,000 exemption for your primary residence, at rates from 0.2 to 3.5 per cent depending on the region. Madrid grants a full rebate. Catalonia does not. On top of that sits a national solidarity levy on large fortunes, designed specifically to override regional rebates like Madrid's, which is why choosing a low tax region is less protective than it looks. Sources put the solidarity threshold at somewhere between €3 million and €3.7 million of net assets depending on how allowances are counted, so treat the lower figure as your planning number.
Third, Modelo 720. Any category of overseas assets above €50,000 must be declared, with a companion Modelo 721 for crypto. The Court of Justice of the EU struck down the old penalty regime in January 2022 and Spain repealed those specific sanctions, so the horror stories about disproportionate fines are out of date. The filing obligation itself remains and is enforced.
The bitter part for non-lucrative holders is that the Beckham regime, the flat 24 per cent that makes Spain attractive to arriving professionals, applies to Spanish employment income. If your permit forbids you from working, you have no Spanish employment income and therefore no access to it. The visa that requires you to be tax resident is the one that excludes you from Spain's best tax regime. Digital nomad holders who apply from inside Spain can use it. Non-lucrative holders cannot.
None of this is an argument against moving. It is an argument for getting Spanish tax advice before you choose your arrival date and your region, rather than in the following April when the return is due. A tax adviser costs a few hundred euro a year. Getting the region and the timing wrong costs multiples of that annually, for as long as you live here.
How to actually apply
- Decide honestly whether you will work. If any income will come from work you perform while in Spain, including remote work for a foreign employer, the non-lucrative visa is the wrong permit no matter how much cheaper the threshold looks. Pick the route that matches what you will actually do.
- Get tax advice before you pick a region. Wealth tax rates and rebates are regional, the solidarity levy is national, and your autonomous community is determined by where you actually spent your days rather than where your address is registered in December. This decision is made once and lived with for years.
- Buy the insurance policy last and read it first. No copayments, no waiting periods, cover equivalent to the public system, and no annual limit that a consulate could call inadequate. Get the insurer to confirm those points in writing rather than relying on a product name.
- Start apostilles and sworn translations immediately. Criminal record certificates, marriage certificates and any document proving income need an apostille and a translation into Spanish by a sworn translator. This is the step that quietly eats two months and it can all be done in parallel.
- Shape your income evidence rather than just gathering it. Recurring pension, rental or dividend income documented across twelve months beats a large balance. Where you rely on savings, be ready to explain where they came from, because traceability checks have tightened since the golden visa closed.
- Watch document expiry dates against your appointment. Medical certificates are typically valid 90 days and criminal record certificates three months. The commonest refusals are not borderline cases, they are files where something expired while the application was in process.
- Budget for the doubled renewal figures. The first renewal covers two years and asks you to prove funds for both. Knowing that in year one is the difference between a routine filing and a scramble.
Questions people ask about living in Spain
What are the visa requirements to live in Spain if I work remotely?
The digital nomad visa, and only that. You need €2,849 a month from clients or an employer outside Spain, a working relationship at least three months old with a company trading at least a year, private health insurance and a clean criminal record. Apply from inside Spain rather than at a consulate, because that gets you three years instead of one plus access to the Beckham tax regime.
Can I buy property to get residence?
No, not since 3 April 2025, when Organic Law 1/2025 repealed the golden visa. There is no transitional route and no replacement scheme. People who already hold a golden visa keep it and can renew, but a purchase made today gives you no residence rights at all. Buying property and holding a non-lucrative visa are two separate things you can do in either order.
Can I work remotely on the non-lucrative visa if my employer is abroad?
No. The permit prohibits all lucrative activity, and Spanish authorities read that as covering remote work for foreign employers and clients. Consulates and immigration offices have tightened on this specifically through 2025 and 2026. It surfaces at renewal, when your income evidence has to be consistent with having performed no work, and losing a renewal is a far worse outcome than meeting a higher threshold in the first place.
Do I have to spend 183 days a year in Spain?
On the non-lucrative visa, yes, and you have to prove it at renewal. That requirement is also what makes you a Spanish tax resident, so the two cannot be separated. On other routes the presence rules are looser, but the absence limits for long-term residence still apply: no more than six consecutive months away, and no more than ten months in total across the five years.
How long until permanent residence or citizenship?
Five years of continuous legal residence gets you long-term residence, valid five years and renewable, with a ten year card available to people over 30. Time held as a student does not count toward those five. Citizenship generally requires ten years of legal residence, with much shorter periods for nationals of Ibero-American countries, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, Portugal and Andorra, and for people of Sephardic origin.
Do I need to speak Spanish?
Not for any visa on this page. None of them has a language test. For living here it is close to essential, since the town hall, the tax office, the health centre and most landlords operate in Spanish only, and the paperwork is a one off while the language is every day. Citizenship is the exception, since naturalisation does require passing a language and civics test.
Final verdict
Having read all of it, the visa requirements to live in Spain now sort people by one question: where does your money come from. Passive income and no work means the non-lucrative visa at €2,400 a month. Remote work means the digital nomad visa at €2,849. A Spanish or EU family member means a five year permit with immediate work rights that beats both. Property means nothing at all since April 2025. And everything is downstream of the fact that these permits make you a Spanish tax resident by design rather than by accident.
So my recommendation is blunt. If you work remotely at all, pay the €449 a month difference and take the digital nomad visa, because the non-lucrative route is not a cheaper version of it, it is a different permit that forbids the thing you intend to do. If you are retired on passive income, the non-lucrative visa is the right answer and you should shape your file around recurring documented income rather than a large balance. And if you have any meaningful assets, choose your Spanish region on tax grounds before you choose it on scenery, because a €700,000 wealth tax threshold treated one way in Madrid and another in Catalonia is a difference measured in thousands of euro every year you live here.
One thing before you file anything. Book an hour with a Spanish tax adviser before you pick your arrival date. The 183 day line is calendar based, so arriving in July rather than May can decide whether you are tax resident for that year at all, and that single choice is worth more than every other optimisation in this article combined. Immigration will not mention it, your consulate will not mention it, and by the time the tax agency mentions it the year is already over.
Sources: BOE, Real Decreto 1155/2024 · Ministerio de Inclusión, consolidated Reglamento de Extranjería · La Moncloa on the 2026 extraordinary regularisation · CostaLuz Lawyers on the 2026 IPREM · My Spain Visa on non-lucrative income and tax exposure · Lexidy on the non-lucrative income thresholds · Jean Galea on wealth tax and the solidarity levy · 360 Business Law on the arraigo routes and the golden visa repeal. Spanish residence thresholds move with the IPREM, wealth tax rules differ by autonomous community and change with regional budgets, so confirm every figure against the Ministerio de Inclusión and the Agencia Tributaria, and take tax advice, before you file or book travel.