Immigration to Spain

Immigration to Spain can be achieved through various visa options:

• The wealth visa (or non-lucrative visa) service is our most popular channel to residency. This service is for the individual who wants to immigrate to Spain and has sufficient funds to live in Spain without working.
• The golden visa (or property visa) service gives residency to those who buy a property over 500,000€.
• With a nomad visa, you can get a residency permit for up to 1 year if you apply for the visa from your country of residence, or up to 3 years if you submit your application from inside of Spain.
• Companies can either hire qualified professionals through our skilled worker visa service, or relocate employees from the foreign office to the Spain office via a corporate visa.
• The investor visa is for the individual who seeks immigration to Spain via investment in a business.

The general procedure for immigration to Spain is this:

• You deliver your visa application in person at the Spanish Embassy in your country of residence.
• The Embassy forwards the application to the authorities in Spain.
• If your application is approved, the Embassy will call you to pick up your visa. You have 30 days to pick up your visa.
• With the visa, you travel to Spain. You must enter Spain within the time stipulated on your visa (normally 90 days). In the airport, make sure the police stamp your passport.
• Within 30 days of your arrival in Spain, you must apply for your residence permit (with NIE number), in the province where you are planning to live.
• You must renew your permit periodically. As long as the conditions for your residence permit are maintained, residency in Spain may be renewed indefinitely.

Strong Abogados lawyer Monica Sevillano is our specialist dedicated to immigration to Spain. She has achieved an extraordinary success rate on visa approvals for our clients.

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Once I have residency in Spain, how long before I can apply to become a Spanish citizen?

Obtaining Spanish citizenship via residency requires you to have been a legal resident in Spain for an uninterrupted period of 10 years immediately prior to the application. This means living in Spain 183 days per year each year.

In the following cases, the residency period may be shortened:

• 5 years: for people who have obtained refugee status.
• 2 years: for current citizens of Latin-American countries, Andorra, Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, Portugal, and persons of Sephardic origin.
• 1 year for:
  • People born in Spain.
  • People who, at the moment of application, have been married to a Spaniard for a year and are not separated (de iure or de facto).
  • People married to Spaniards who have died, if they were not separated at the time of the spouse's death.
  • Those born outside Spain to parents (also born outside Spain) and grandparents all of whom were originally Spanish citizens.
  • People who did not duly exercise their right to acquire Spanish citizenship by option.
  • People who have been under the charge of a guardian or judicially recognized foster care by a Spanish citizen or institution for two consecutive years at the moment of application.

Moreover, the individuals concerned must prove good citizenship and a sufficient degree of integration in Spanish society.

Within the 10 year period to citizenship is an important step: becoming a permanent resident. You can apply for permanent residency after 5 years of living continuosly in Spanish territory. Once you are a permanent resident, you no longer have to justify the reasons under which you got to be a resident. For example, if you got in through a Golden Visa, you no longer have to prove that you own the property. You just have to show your NIE to renew your residency. Being a permanent resident means you will not lose your residency even if you leave Spain. If you leave Spain for a year, though, you are no longer on track for Spanish citizenship: you would have to start counting your 10 years for citizenship from scratch.

What are the final steps for a resident to become a Spanish citizen?

Once you have fulfilled the time frames of your Spanish residency, then you can apply for Spanish citizenship.

• Once you file the application for citizenship you have 4 months to complete the process. You will probably be required to take a Spanish language exam (DELE level A2) and a Spanish culture exam, so we recommend you start studying before you file the application. To do so, sign in to the Instituto Cervantes website to get the study materials and practice exams.
• You can file the application online with a digital certificate or at a Civil Registry office in Spain.
• Once you file, you will be told what documents you have to add to your application.
• If your application is approved, you will be called for an appointment.

If I have to present the application myself at the Embassy, why hire an immigration lawyer?

A good immigration lawyer in Spain does, in fact, have access to the Spanish authorities reviewing your application. It simplifies the reviewer's work to be able to contact the lawyer and receive clarifications regarding the application. It is NOT worth it for them to contact the applicant directly. The lawyer speaks their language, both literally and figuratively. The lawyer can supply the additional documentation requested for an application that would otherwise get rejected.

2018 update: Because of the high volume of applications, it can sometimes take years to respond to the application. To solve this problem, the Ministerio de Justicia signed an agreement (applicable in 2018) to allow immigration lawyers to submit applications and other requests via software. This reduces the application's processing time considerably, but this software is only available to lawyers.