Moving to Spain from the UK: Which Visa Fits You After Brexit

Short answer: yes, you can still move to Spain from the UK, but not the way it worked before 2021. Since Brexit, British citizens are treated like any other non-EU national. You can spend up to 90 days in any 180 in Spain and the rest of the Schengen area as a visitor. To live here you need a long-stay visa, and you apply for it at the Spanish consulate in London, Manchester or Edinburgh before you move. The one exception is if you were already living in Spain legally before 1 January 2021: then the Withdrawal Agreement protects your residence, and our page on UK citizens in Spain after Brexit covers your case.

Which visa you need depends on one question more than any other: how will you support yourself once you are here? The table below answers that in a minute. After it comes the order of steps, from the first document to the residence card, and what British movers get wrong most often.

Which visa fits you after Brexit

Answer these three questions in order. The first one that says yes gives you your route.

1. Were you living in Spain legally before 1 January 2021? Then you do not need a visa. You keep your rights under the Withdrawal Agreement and hold (or should hold) a TIE card. See what changed for British residents.
2. Is your spouse, registered partner or parent Spanish or an EU citizen living in Spain? Then there may be a family route with its own residence card. Family of EU citizens apply for it inside Spain. Family of Spaniards can apply through the consulate or, in some cases, from inside Spain. Adult children qualify up to 21 with an EU parent or 26 with a Spanish parent, and older only in specific cases, such as depending on that parent. See Spain spouse and partner visa.
3. Neither? Pick your route by how you will earn money here, using the table.

Across our own enquiry records from British clients since 2021, the non-lucrative visa is the route asked about most, well ahead of the digital nomad visa, with the entrepreneur and self-employed routes after that. That matches who the British in Spain are: a large share of them are over 65. The catch with the non-lucrative visa is the one people miss: it allows no work at all, including a few hours for your old UK employer. If you still earn from work, the digital nomad visa is the route. The legal basis for both is in Royal Decree 1155/2024 and Law 14/2013.

If none of these fits cleanly, for example you are 60, still consulting a few days a month and your partner has an Irish passport, that is exactly the kind of case we sort out in a first consultation. Send us your situation and one of our lawyers will tell you which route works and what it will need.

How to move to Spain from the UK, step by step

This is the order that avoids repeated trips and expired documents. Plan on several months from the first document to the residence card, most of it spent gathering papers and waiting for an appointment.

1. Choose your route and check the numbers

Use the table above and check the income test against your real bank statements or pension letters, not your gross salary slip from two years ago. If you are moving with a partner or children, add their share before you book anything.

2. Get your UK documents ready

• Police certificate from ACRO, with the Hague apostille from the FCDO Legalisation Office, plus one from any other country you have lived in recently (the last five years for the non-lucrative visa, two for the digital nomad visa). See our guide to the apostille for Spain.
• Medical certificate signed by a doctor, in the wording Spain asks for. See the medical certificate for a Spanish visa.
• Proof of income: pension statements, bank statements, employment contract or client contracts, depending on the route.
• Private health insurance from an insurer authorised in Spain, with no co-payments, for the non-lucrative and digital nomad visas.
• Sworn translations into Spanish of anything not already in Spanish. Our team arranges them.

Police and medical certificates are normally accepted only if issued in the three months before you apply, so these two go last.

3. Apply at your Spanish consulate in the UK

You apply in person at the consulate that covers where you live: London, Manchester or Edinburgh. Our page on the Spanish consulates in the UK has their areas and contacts. Consulate processing usually takes four to eight weeks from the day you submit. The legal maximum is one month for Spain to decide the residence permit and one month more for the consulate to issue the visa, and the clock stops if they ask you for more documents. The digital nomad visa is the exception to applying from the UK: you can also ask for it from inside Spain while you are here legally as a visitor.

4. Arrive, register at the town hall and get your TIE

Your visa lets you enter. Within one month of arriving you apply for your residence card, the TIE, with fingerprints at the police. Register your address at the town hall as well (the empadronamiento), because banks, doctors and schools will ask for it. Your NIE number normally comes with the visa.

5. Sort out healthcare

On the non-lucrative and digital nomad visas you keep the private insurance you used for the visa. If you receive a UK State Pension, the S1 form can give you Spanish public healthcare paid for by the UK once you are resident. After a year on the town hall register, the Convenio Especial lets you pay a monthly fee to join the public system. Anyone working and paying Spanish social security is covered by it.

6. Exchange your driving licence

Once you are resident, your UK licence is valid in Spain for six months. Before that ends you have to exchange it for a Spanish one at the DGT, under the UK and Spain agreement. After six months without exchanging it you cannot drive legally. Details in our page on the Spanish driving licence.

7. Understand your taxes before the first 183 days

If you spend more than 183 days of a calendar year in Spain, or the main base of your work or economic interests is here, you become a Spanish tax resident and declare your worldwide income in Spain. Spain also presumes you are resident if your spouse and minor children live here. The UK and Spain have a double tax treaty, so the same income is not taxed twice, but which country taxes your pension depends on the kind of pension. Assets abroad worth more than €50,000 per category have to be reported on the Modelo 720. Moving here on a Spanish employment contract? You may qualify for the Beckham regime, which has a short application window. Our tax guide for expats explains the rest, and our own tax advisors can run your numbers before you move.

Our 90-day rule calculator helps if you plan scouting trips before the visa, so you do not use up days you will need later.

Where the British actually live in Spain

Spain’s statistics office counted 266,462 British citizens registered as residents on 1 January 2025. It remains the largest English-speaking community in Spain by far. You will see figures of 300,000 or 400,000 quoted: those count residence cards (which include people who have left) or estimate those who never register. The official count by province looks like this:

Town by town, the biggest British communities are Orihuela, Barcelona, Mijas, Madrid and Rojales. Among towns of more than 10,000 people, Rojales has the highest British share: almost three residents in ten. In a few small villages of Almeria, such as Arboleas, it is closer to half. On the buying side the British still lead the Costa del Sol. In the year to June 2026 they were the largest foreign buyers in Mijas (18% of foreign purchases) and Marbella (12%), and second in Estepona (13%, behind the Dutch).

What British people ask us about is a different map. In our enquiry records the places named most often are Barcelona, Tenerife, Mallorca and Alicante, in that order: more city and islands than the retirement coast. Our full count of how many Brits live in Spain has every town, and there are separate guides for moving to Benidorm from the UK and moving to the Canary Islands.

For a monthly budget beyond rent, our breakdown of the cost of living in Spain compared to the UK uses official household spending data. If you are thinking of buying, start with buying a house in Spain, and if you plan to stop working, with our guide to retiring to Spain from the UK.

Mistakes we see British movers make

• Moving first and sorting the visa later. After 90 days in any 180 you are overstaying, and that can block the visa you apply for next.
• Doing a little remote work on a non-lucrative visa. It is not allowed, and it can cost you the renewal.
• Letting the police certificate expire while waiting for a consulate appointment.
• Keeping the UK driving licence past six months of residence.
• Assuming the green EU residence certificate still does everything. If you moved before 2021, the Spanish authorities and the British Embassy strongly recommend exchanging it for a TIE. With a TIE you do not have to register in the new EU Entry/Exit System at the border. With the green certificate you do.
• Ignoring Spanish tax residency in the first year, when most of the planning can still be done.

Want a second pair of eyes before you file? Book a consultation with our team. We have been handling Spanish residence applications since 2010, and we file the application for you.

Other moving guides

• Moving to Spain from the USA
• Moving to Spain from Canada
• All long-stay visa types in Spain
• Spanish citizenship and the pros and cons of Spanish residency

Moving to Spain from the UK: common questions