Spanish Residency: Every Permit Type in One Place
A mini-encyclopedia of Spanish residence permits. Each permit type has its own page: requirements, process, timeline and common mistakes.
Not sure where to start? Open the step-by-step moving route: the whole path from choosing a status to citizenship, split into four phases.
Permit types
Permits under Law 14/2013 (international mobility)
The fast-track UGE-CE regime: roughly a 20-day decision, positive administrative silence, often filed without leaving Spain.
- Digital nomad visa: legal remote work from Spain. Fill out the application →
- Entrepreneur visa (startup visa): for an innovative business project.
- Highly qualified professional (PAC): for applicants who already have a job offer in Spain, including the EU Blue Card.
- Intra-company transfer (ICT): temporarily assigning an employee to a Spanish office of the same corporate group.
- Researcher residency: research, technical or teaching activity under a hosting agreement.
- Golden Visa: program discontinued: what happens to issued cards and the current alternatives.
General-regime permits
Processed through a consulate or the standard immigration offices under the general Foreigners’ Regulation (RD 1155/2024).
- Non-lucrative visa (NLV): for financially independent people, retirees and families.
- Arraigo: all rooting-based routes: legalizing from inside Spain (social, sociolaboral, familiar, socioformativo, segunda oportunidad).
- Humanitarian residence: a serious illness arising in Spain, crime victims, danger in traveling home for a visa.
- Work visa: employed work (cuenta ajena).
- Self-employment visa: the autónomo permit (cuenta propia).
- Family reunification: for family members of a resident.
- Family member of a Spanish citizen: under the EU citizen family regime.
- EU citizens’ residence: the EU regime (RD 240/2007) for EU/EEA/Swiss citizens and their family members.
- Residence for children: born in Spain (no visa, art. 159) and not born in Spain.
- Long-term residence in Spain: Spanish long-term residence and EU long-term residence (larga duración-UE), requirements and differences.
- Spanish nationality: residence periods and the naturalization process.
2026 extraordinary regularization
Filing closed on June 30, 2026. Relevant if you already applied: requerimientos, decision deadlines, work and healthcare rights, and renewal after a year.
- 2026 extraordinary regularization: what happens after filing: requerimientos, deadlines, work and healthcare, switching to ordinary residency after a year.
Temporary protection for Ukrainians
An EU emergency mechanism under Directive 2001/55/EC, not a residence permit under the general regime or Law 14/2013 - a separate legal basis handled through the National Police.
- Temporary protection for Ukrainians: status, renewal and switching to a regular permit.
Stay permits
Estancia - lawful stay, not residencia: authorized under the same Foreigners’ Regulation (RD 1155/2024), but a different legal category.
- Student visa: studies with the option to work part-time.
Renewals and status changes
- Residency renewal: deadlines, rules and pitfalls.
- Modification of a residence permit (change of status): switching from one permit category to another.
- Modification of a digital nomad, entrepreneur (startup) or highly qualified professional permit (Ley 14/2013) to a general regime permit
Requirements shared by most permits
- Income requirement and IPREM
- SMI: Spain’s minimum wage: the digital nomad visa threshold and employment contract floors.
- Health insurance for residency
- Criminal record certificate and apostille
- Medical certificate
Procedure and appeals
- Administrative silence: the decision deadline and type of silence for each procedure, requests for documents, the certificate of silence, appeals.
Living in Spain as a resident
- TIE and NIE: the difference and how to get them.
- Empadronamiento: padrón registration, documents, the two-year renewal.
- Entering Spain: C and D visas, 90 in 180, EES, declaración de entrada.