Visa information

Spain offers two named visas in the 2026 guide — a Digital Nomad visa for remote employees and freelancers, running up to five years, and a Non-Lucrative visa for people with passive income, with no work allowed — plus local registration for EU citizens. It also states a closure plainly: the Golden Visa via property closed in 2025. Spain scores 66/100 for visa and bureaucracy.

The routes the guide names

Digital Nomad visa — for remote employees and freelancers.

Non-Lucrative visa — for people with passive income (no work allowed); this is the guide's standard retirement route (see the Retirement page).

EU citizens register locally — the guide's third line is a registration route, not a visa.

And a closure, stated in the visa list itself: Golden Visa via property closed in 2025. The schemes list repeats it — “Golden Visa closed to property in 2025; other routes remain” — so no property-purchase Golden Visa route is presented as open on this page.

Duration the guide gives, income thresholds it does not

For duration, the guide's remote-work line is specific: the Digital Nomad visa runs up to 5 years, with a Beckham-law style 24% flat tax available (the tax term is covered on the Tax & Legal page — note the schemes list gives the flat tax up to 6 years, a different figure for a different thing).

For income, the guide prints no threshold for either visa — no passive-income amount for the Non-Lucrative visa and no earnings floor for the Digital Nomad visa. The Hub's site FAQ fills that gap with its own figure — a digital nomad visa typically requiring a minimum of around $2,300 per month, launched in 2023 — but that figure and date appear only in the FAQ, not the guide, and are attributed as such here. At the guide's exchange rate of $1 ≈ €0.86, dollar figures convert at roughly that rate for planning.

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

The guide does not list individual government visa fees separately. What it gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” line in each move plan — described as government fees, apostilles and translations, with the Luxury tier adding an immigration lawyer — and those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself:

• $850 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,250 — Mid-range plan
• $1,250 — Retirement plan
• $3,000 — Luxury plan (the plan notes the luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer)

The Retirement plan carries one further, separate line: $2,300 for “Retirement visa, lawyer & pension certification”, covering an immigration lawyer, apostilled pension letters, medicals and translations.

Application steps and timelines, by tier

The guide builds the application into each plan's timeline rather than printing a single step list. The common sequence across the plans and checklists is:

• Choose the route first and print its requirements; the Affordable checklist starts with “Visa route chosen and requirements printed.”
• Gather and legalise documents — apostilles and translations are named in every tier; the Retirement paperwork stage adds pension or income letters certified and apostilled, a police certificate, a medical, and birth and marriage certificates translated.
• Check your passport — the Affordable checklist requires a passport valid 18+ months.
• Arrange health insurance before you file (see the Hospitals page for the guide's first-year insurance budgets).
• File — yourself on the Affordable tier, or with a lawyer or agent on the Mid-range, Luxury and Retirement tiers.

Paperwork-stage durations in the guide: ~10 weeks filing yourself (Affordable), ~8 weeks with a lawyer or agent filing (Mid-range), ~6 weeks with a lawyer filing everything (Luxury), and ~14 weeks for the Retirement paperwork stage. After the move, the settle stage includes registering your address and opening a bank account.

Renewals and the path to residency — the honest limit of the guide

Beyond the Digital Nomad visa's up to 5 years, neither the guide nor the site data gives renewal intervals, absence limits or a timetable to permanent residency or citizenship for either visa, so this page states none. Treat the routes and the one duration as confirmed by the guide, and the rest as a question for an immigration lawyer or the official source below.

Frequently asked questions