Spain Long Stay and Long Term Visa 2026: 9 Routes Compared

Short answer: a long stay visa for Spain is the national visa, type D, that a non-EU citizen needs to live in Spain for more than 90 days. It is not one visa. It is the way in to a specific permit, and that permit decides whether you can work, how much money you must show and how long you can stay. Living on pensions or savings? The usual choice is the non-lucrative visa, which asks for €2,400 a month in 2026. If you work remotely for companies abroad, look at the digital nomad visa instead, at €2,850 a month gross. Students, people hired by a Spanish employer, founders and family members each have a route of their own. Most of them give you 12 months to start with, and nearly all begin at the Spanish consulate for the place where you live, before you travel.

Two questions rule out most of the options below. Will any money come in while you live in Spain, even from a remote job? And is a spouse or partner moving with you? Answer those, then read the table.

The 9 long-stay visas, side by side

Each row cites its legal basis: Royal Decree 1155/2024, the immigration regulation in force since 20 May 2025, Law 14/2013 for the digital nomad and entrepreneur routes, or Spain’s bilateral agreements for the working holiday. Amounts are for 2026: IPREM, the index behind most income tests, is still €600 a month, and the digital nomad figure follows the 2026 minimum wage of €1,221 a month paid 14 times a year.

A few routes are missing on purpose. The regulation has no separate au pair visa. And a Spanish spouse or partner changes the picture completely: the family permit for partners of Spanish citizens has no income test. Highly qualified professionals and EU Blue Card holders also have their own track, which you will find with every other option in our guide on how to get residency in Spain.

Is there a 12-month visa for Spain?

Yes, in the sense most people mean. The non-lucrative visa and the self-employed permit start with exactly one year, a digital nomad visa from a consulate with up to one year, and an employee permit with the length of the contract, capped at one year. Since the 2025 regulation took effect, the visa sticker itself can also be issued for the length of your permit, up to one year (article 37.2), instead of the 90-day entry visa many guides still describe.

The “new 12-month visa” in the headlines is something else. It is the job search visa of article 43, which gives you 12 months in Spain to find an employer. Google’s AI answer presents it as open to descendants of Spaniards and some professions, and on paper it is. In practice the places only exist if the yearly hiring order creates them, and the order for 2026 (Orden ISM/1547/2025) creates none. The order allowed a revision in its first six months and none was published, so for now no consulate can take applications for this visa. Graduates of Spanish universities are the exception: they have a separate permit of up to 24 months, explained in our job seeker visa guide.

Which routes people ask us about

We went through the enquiries sent to us that mention a long stay, a long-term visa or a 12-month visa, and ranked the routes they name. Only the order is published here (My Spain Visa enquiry records, 2021 to 2026). The non-lucrative visa leads, ahead of the student visa. Entrepreneur and self-employed routes come next, then the digital nomad visa and work permits with a job offer. The working holiday visa closes the list.

One theme sits above all of them: a spouse or partner coming too. It is named more often than any single visa, and it changes the numbers, because each route charges for family in its own way. The non-lucrative visa adds €600 a month per relative. With the digital nomad visa one relative adds 75% of the minimum wage, about €1,068, and each one after that about €356. The student visa adds €450 and then €300. Family reunification is no shortcut either, because the person already living in Spain needs a year of residence before they can sponsor anyone.

By nationality the top of the list does not move: the non-lucrative visa leads for Americans, Britons, Canadians and Australians alike. The working holiday visa only makes the list for Canadians and Australians, which fits the law: Spain has no youth mobility agreement with the US or the UK.

How to apply for a long stay visa in Spain

1. Pick the route by where your money comes from, not by the name of the visa. Pensions and savings point to the non-lucrative visa. A salary or invoices from abroad point to the digital nomad visa. A Spanish employer means a work permit, and the employer files that one before you do anything.
2. Gather the documents in the right order. The base is a passport with at least one year of validity left (article 38), criminal record certificates and proof of your savings or income, with apostilles and sworn Spanish translations, plus private health insurance unless a Spanish job will put you on Social Security. Routes under Royal Decree 1155/2024 also ask for a medical certificate and for criminal records from every country you lived in during the last five years; for Americans that means an FBI check with an apostille. The digital nomad and entrepreneur routes ask for the last two years plus a signed statement covering five (Law 14/2013, article 62). Consulates usually want the criminal record and the medical certificate issued within the last three months, so order those last.
3. Apply in person where you legally live. That means the consulate covering your state, province or country of residence, or the visa centre it works with (article 26). In the US, check which Spanish consulate covers your state before you book. Students should file at least two months before the course starts.
4. Answer requests fast. If the consulate calls you to an interview, you get no more than 15 days to attend, and requests for documents must be answered within 10 days, which can be stretched by 5. Miss either and the file is closed as withdrawn (article 27).
5. Collect the visa within one month of being told it is granted. After that it counts as renounced (article 28.4).
6. Enter Spain and start the TIE clock, explained further down.

Legal deadlines: how long Spain has to answer

These are the maximums in the law, counted from the day each office receives the file, and the clock stops while you answer a request for documents. If the immigration office lets its deadline pass, the silence counts as a refusal you can appeal. The UGE, the government unit for large companies and strategic groups, works the other way round: no answer in time means approval.

On the routes run by the immigration office, the non-lucrative permit must be decided within one month (article 63.4) and the consulate then has one month to issue the visa (article 39.5). In the files we handle as immigration lawyers in Spain, the whole consular stage usually takes 4 to 8 weeks from the day you submit. Students wait far less on paper: seven days for the immigration office and one month for the consulate (article 36). Self-employed permits get three months (article 85.4), plus the month for the visa.

Where someone in Spain files for you, two clocks run. An employer’s application has three months (article 77.6), and once the employer is notified you have one month to apply for the visa, which the consulate must issue within another month (article 40). A family reunification permit has two months (article 68.6), the relative then has two months to apply for the visa, and the consulate one. On the Law 14/2013 routes a consulate has 10 working days for the visa (article 75.5), the UGE decides permits in 20 days (article 76.1), and entrepreneurs also need ENISA’s report, due within 10 working days (article 70).

The visa gets you in, the TIE card keeps you legal

The visa and the TIE are two different things. The visa is the sticker in your passport: it lets you in and proves your status until you have your card (article 208). The TIE, the foreigner identity card, is the residence card itself, and your NIE number is printed on it.

The one-month rule. If your permit runs for more than six months, you must apply for the TIE in person, with fingerprints taken at a police station, within one month of entering Spain (articles 37.3 and 63.5; article 34.3 for students). Appointments are the bottleneck in many cities, so book yours before you fly.

Employees and the self-employed follow a different order. They register with Social Security within three months of arriving, and the month for the TIE starts from that registration (articles 77.9 and 85.8).

A digital nomad visa issued by a consulate is the odd one out. Under article 75.4 of Law 14/2013 it lets you live and work in Spain without a TIE for as long as it is valid, up to one year. You apply for the card when you move on to the three-year permit, which you can request from Spain in the 60 days before the visa expires.

What to bring to the fingerprint appointment, and how the fee is paid, is on our page about the TIE card in Spain.

What consulates push back on

Three patterns from our own files, already published with more detail on our non-lucrative visa page:

Los Angeles. A US brokerage statement above the €28,800 yearly threshold, backed by a six-month transaction history, is usually accepted as liquid funds. The most common request for more evidence is for IRS tax transcripts, and answering inside 48 hours keeps the file moving.

Miami. Refusals based on dashboards or payment platforms such as Stripe or PayPal that show active US-sourced earnings are now common. What works in our appeals is showing that the active account was transferred, left dormant or closed before the application went in.

London. UK retirees who start the file with only the S1 form are routinely asked to add a full Spanish private policy with no co-payments for the opening year. Swapping in a compliant policy mid-process generally lets the file be approved without starting again.

The full checklist, from bank statement formats to insurance, is in our guide to non-lucrative visa documents and proof of funds. If your case sits close to a line, say remote income you plan to keep, a pension just under the threshold or a partner with a different passport, tell our lawyers about it before you book the appointment.

What the 2025 regulation means for a D visa now

Royal Decree 1155/2024 has applied since 20 May 2025, and a few of its rules shape how you plan a long stay today. Read the dates on your visa sticker, because it can now run for the length of the permit, up to one year (article 37.2). The non-lucrative permit lasts one year and then renews for two at a time (articles 61.4 and 64.7); each renewal checks that you spent more than 183 days of the year in Spain (article 64.2.f), and if the office does not answer within three months, the renewal counts as granted (article 64.8).

Students in higher education can work up to 30 hours a week without asking for a separate permit (article 57). The job search visa now runs for 12 months, but it only opens through the yearly quota, and the 2026 quota is empty. Royal Decree 316/2026, approved in April 2026, adjusted the regulation again, mostly the arraigo permits for people who already live in Spain.

Not sure which row of the table is yours? Our where should I live in Spain quiz checks your budget against these visa thresholds and ranks the towns that fit it. Or write to our team with your situation; we reply within 24 hours.

Questions we get about staying longer in Spain