How to Get Residency in Spain in 2026: Every Route Compared

Short answer: if you are not an EU citizen, you get residency in Spain by qualifying for one specific permit. There is no general “Spanish residency” you can apply for. Retirees and people living on savings or pensions usually go for the non-lucrative visa, which asks for €2,400 a month. Remote workers use the digital nomad visa, at €2,850 a month gross. Then there are routes for students, employees, founders, family members of Spanish or EU citizens, and people who have already lived in Spain for two years. Most visas are applied for at the Spanish consulate where you live. Five years of legal residence gets you long-term residence, and ten years usually opens the door to citizenship.

Choosing the right route is most of the work. Picking a permit that does not match how you earn your money is the reason we see most often behind a refusal, and it is also the hardest mistake to fix later, because a wrong first permit can block the renewal.

Every route to Spanish residency, side by side

Figures are the 2026 amounts. IPREM, the index Spain uses for most income tests, has been frozen at €600 a month since 2023; the digital nomad threshold follows the 2026 minimum wage.

Which route fits you: three questions to ask first

You can rule out most of the table in a couple of minutes.

• Will you work while you live in Spain? If the answer is no, and your income comes from pensions, investments or savings, the non-lucrative visa is built for you. If you will keep working for a company or clients abroad, look at the digital nomad visa. A Spanish job means a work permit, and that one is driven by the employer, not by you.
• Do you have family ties? A Spanish spouse or partner changes everything: there is no income test and you can work straight away. If a parent was Spanish from birth and born in Spain, you can opt for citizenship with no visa at all. If it was a grandparent, citizenship needs one year of legal residence instead of ten. Check that before anything else.
• Are you already in Spain? Most visas have to be requested from your home country. The exceptions are the digital nomad visa, some student files, the family-of-a-Spaniard permit and arraigo, which exists precisely for people who have been here two years.

In our own enquiry records since 2021, the non-lucrative visa is the route both Americans and Britons ask us about most, with the digital nomad visa second. After that the two groups split: Americans move on to the student visa, Britons to the entrepreneur route. That matches what the two groups tend to be: retirees and remote workers first.

Minimum income and savings for each route

It depends entirely on the route, and some routes ask for no fixed amount at all. The two that most readers compare are the non-lucrative visa, which needs €2,400 a month or €28,800 in savings or passive income for the first year, and the digital nomad visa, which needs €2,850 a month gross from remote work. For the non-lucrative visa each dependant adds €600 a month. For the digital nomad visa a spouse adds about €1,068 a month and each child about €356.

Savings count for the non-lucrative visa, but consulates want to see the money in an account in your name, and at renewal the bar doubles because you renew for two years: €57,600 for one person. If your income is close to the line, assume the consulate will read it strictly. The full breakdown, with savings, pensions and dependants, is on our page about how much money you need for the non-lucrative visa.

The visa threshold is only half of the budget. If you will become a Spanish tax resident, our Spain tax calculator shows what you would pay on a salary, a pension or freelance income in each region, so you can see what the €2,400 or €2,850 is really worth after tax.

Residency in Spain for Americans and for British citizens

Americans can use every route in the table. The usual friction points are an FBI background check with an apostille, and, for the digital nomad visa, social security: the US-Spain agreement does not cover remote work, so many W-2 employees end up switching to contractor status before applying. The non-lucrative visa avoids that problem but bans work, including remote work for a US employer. Our guide to moving to Spain from the USA goes through the budget in dollars.

British citizens have been third-country nationals since Brexit, so the 90-day limit applies and you need a visa to stay longer. If you were already living in Spain before 1 January 2021 and can prove it, the Withdrawal Agreement protects you and you are on a different track. For everyone else the non-lucrative visa is by far the most common route, and state pensioners should also look at the S1 for healthcare. More in moving to Spain from the UK.

General requirements for a Spanish residence permit

Each route has its own list, but almost every application includes these:

• Passport valid for at least the length of the permit, and in practice one year or more.
• Criminal record certificate from every country you lived in during the last five years, apostilled and translated into Spanish by a sworn translator.
• Medical certificate stating you have no disease that could have serious public health implications.
• Health insurance: private cover with no co-payments and no waiting periods for the non-lucrative and student routes. Workers are covered by Spanish social security once registered.
• Proof of means for the route you chose, with recent bank statements.
• The government fee (form 790 code 052 in Spain, or the consular fee abroad, which varies by nationality).

Documents expire. Criminal records and medical certificates are usually only accepted if they were issued in the three months before you apply, which is why the order you collect them in matters.

After the visa: the steps to become a Spanish resident

1. Enter Spain while the visa is valid. The visa already carries your permit, and since May 2025 it can be issued for as long as that permit, up to one year (article 37.2 of Royal Decree 1155/2024), so check the dates on the sticker.
2. Register on the padrón at your town hall. The empadronamiento is your proof of address for almost everything that follows.
3. Apply for your TIE within one month of entering Spain, or of registering with Social Security if you came to work, with fingerprints taken in person at the police station. A digital nomad visa issued by a consulate needs no TIE while it is valid. The TIE card is the residence card itself, and your NIE number is printed on it.
4. Sort out healthcare and banking, either through social security or the private insurer you used for the visa.
5. Watch your tax position. Spending more than 183 days a year in Spain normally makes you a Spanish tax resident, taxed on your worldwide income.
6. Renew on time. Most first permits last one year (a digital nomad permit granted in Spain, up to three) and are renewed from inside Spain in the 60 days before expiry or the 90 days after. See renewing the non-lucrative visa.

What changed in Spain’s residency rules in 2025 and 2026

The current rules come from Royal Decree 1155/2024, the new immigration regulation in force since 20 May 2025. These are the changes that matter most if you are planning a move now:

• Arraigo needs two years in Spain, not three, and there are now five types, including one tied to training and one for people who lost a previous permit.
• Spouses and partners of Spanish citizens have their own permit, separate from the EU family card, with no income requirement.
• Students can work up to 30 hours a week, and can switch to a work permit after graduating without leaving Spain.
• Renewed work permits last four years instead of two.

From temporary residence to permanent residency and citizenship

After five years of legal, continuous residence you can apply for permanent residency in Spain, called long-term residence. Absences of up to six months at a time are allowed, as long as they add up to no more than ten months in the five years. Time on a student permit only counts at 50% towards the EU long-term permit, and only if you hold a residence permit when you apply.

For Spanish citizenship, article 22 of the Civil Code asks for ten years of legal residence in general. It is two years for nationals of Latin American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea and Portugal, and for Sephardic Jews; one year if you have been married to a Spaniard for a year, were born in Spain, or have a parent or grandparent who was Spanish from birth; and five years for recognised refugees. Americans and Britons are in the ten-year group, and Spain asks them to declare that they renounce their previous nationality. What that means in practice is explained in our guide to dual citizenship in Spain.

Questions about getting residency in Spain