Note: This article was written in March, 2018. It represents the current requirements in our experience at the San Francisco consulate. Requirements may change, and consular staff are entitled to request any documentation they feel is appropriate for your personal situation. However, we hope that you will benefit from our experience.

The story of how we were approved for our Spanish Non-Lucrative Residence Visas begins almost 18 months ago, but the actual work began late last year. First and foremost, we might not even be moving to Spain if it weren’t for the incredible article on the Spanish Non-Lucrative Residence Visa over at Bucking the Trend. We found that enough of the requirements had changed since that article was written that it seemed worth writing an up-to-date post to help others.

In a Nutshell: The Spanish Non-Lucrative Residence Visa

The Spanish Non-Lucrative Residence Visa is a visa that allows you to live, first for one year and then in renewable periods of two years, as a legal resident in Spain.

The Spanish Non-Lucrative Residence Visa allows you to:

Stay in Spain for up to a year, then for renewal periods of two years

Theoretically, after living in Spain for five consecutive years, apply for permanent residence

Access medical care through private insurance

Rent property

Sign utility contracts

Enroll your children in school

It does not allow you to:

Work legally for a Spanish Company

Partake of the public healthcare system

Qualify for public benefits of any kind

So basically, you get to stay in an amazing country in Europe for a year or more assuming you don’t burden their social services and don’t steal a job that should go to a Spaniard. For us, it was the perfect option, since we simply want the opportunity to live in Spain, experience and learn about its culture, and not be limited to the default tourist visa duration of 90 days.

Applying for the Visa: The Short, Short Version

Applying for the Spanish Non-Lucrative Residence Visa boils down to the following six basic steps:

Gather Required Documents Authenticate (Apostille) Required Documents Translate Required Documents Correctly Assemble Your Application Packet(s) Present Documents at a Visa Appointment and Pay Fees Receive Visa and Move to Spain

Sounds simple, right? Right! Well, not exactly. There are tons of gotchas, and since it isn’t in the best interest of the Spanish government to spoon-feed you the requirements, you’ll have to be prepared to do some serious homework. The process isn’t terribly difficult, it’s just extremely detail oriented. It requires discipline and organization.

If you’re ready to lock down that year of tapas, sangria, sun, and flamenco, let’s dive into the long version of how we got our visas.

Work Backwards From Your Departure Date

The Spanish consulate says that it may take them two to three months from the date your documents are accepted to process your visa application. On top of that, all of your visa application documents need to be dated no more than 90 days before your visa appointment. That means we had to start the application process six months before our planned date of departure— three months to get our documents together, and three months of (potential) wait for our visas.

We knew we wanted to move to Spain around the end of March, so in October, we set up an appointment for the first few days of January at our consulate in San Francisco. You can find the consulate that serves your state here. Each consulate appears to have a completely different appointment booking system. Start from your departure date and count back 90 days. This is the date you should try to make your visa appointment. Then, count back 90 days more to determine the earliest date you can start gathering documents…

…but don’t get started too quickly! Because of the way the Christmas holiday in Spain is celebrated (which peaks at Epiphany on January 6th), we were asked to reschedule our appointment for mid-January. You never know when a similar extended holiday or glitch might result in your visa appointment changing. Luckily, we hadn’t started gathering documents, or they would have expired by our new appointment date. A sensible time to start gathering those documents is probably closer to 80 days before your visa appointment. That’ll also give you a little breathing room if some document is found not to be in order at your visa appointment and you need to come back a few days later.

Speaking of gathering required documents, let’s take a look at some…

Incredibly Important Links

There is no centralized Spanish government site that provides you with links to all of the forms you will need to apply for the non-lucrative residence visa. However, It is possible to piece together the required forms from across all of the Spanish consulate sites. I have organized them into one place for you here.

Now that we have all of the required forms and links in one place, let’s work our way down the visa requirements PDF and discuss all of the required documents in detail.

Gather Your Documents

In this section, we’ll discuss the way we prepared each of the documents for each member of our family, and some of the more strict requirements that are not explicitly listed (or are at least difficult to find online).

Primary Applicant

National Visa Application Form: This form, in English, is the application for all forms of long-stay visa in Spain. For the non-lucrative visa, you will be able to skip many of the sections. Surname is Last Name. Surname at Birth is maiden name. Forenames is first and middle (if any) names. For Principal Purpose of Journey, check “Residence without work permit.” Under Number of entries requested, we chose “‘more than two.” If you don’t have housing arranged yet in Spain, you can write the city and province you intend to live in. Finally, format all dates in European format, day/month/year, so September 1, 2018 would be 1/9/18. Otherwise, everything should be self explanatory.

Translations Required: No

Apostille Required: No

Form EX-01: Form EX-01 is the application form specific to the non-lucrative residence visa for Spain. The instructional page contains instructions in English. As with the national visa application form, format all dates in European Format, day/month/year. Though the instructions tell you to put your US address in place of the “Domicilio en España,” we were instructed by the consular staff to rewrite section 1 with a Spanish address (or the planned city and province). Your mileage may vary. We brought two extra blank copies of each of the forms, and we were glad we did! You will fill out sections 1 and 3 (section 2 is only if someone is submitting the application on your behalf). In section 4, check “INICIAL” and nothing else. Check “CONSIENTO” to allow the Spanish government to verify your identity (good luck getting a visa without it!). Directly below “CONSIENTO,” enter the city, day, month (in Spanish) and year, e.g.: San Francisco, a 18 de Octubre, 2018. Finally, sign your name in the box marked “FIRMA DE SOLICITANTE.” If you have children, and they are of school age, check “Si” next to “Hijas/os a cargo en edad de escolarización en España.”

Translations Required: No

Apostille Required: No

Original Passport: Submit your original passport, which should be valid for the entire duration of your requested visa.

Two Passport Size Photos: Get a passport photo taken anywhere. You may want to get three or four copies since you may be able to use them when you arrive in Spain. Note that European governments are slightly more stringent when it comes to identity photos. You should probably not smile in your photo, and should adopt a neutral expression.

Notarized Document Explaining Why You Are Requesting the Visa: This is just a letter explaining why you should be granted a visa and will be a respectful, problem-free guest in Spain. This is your chance to make a great impression! Here’s a (slightly redacted) version of the letter we included:

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing this letter in support of my family’s application for a one-year non-lucrative visa to reside in Spain. My wife and I recently welcomed our daughter into the world. We are avid travelers, and the birth of our daughter helped us to realize that exposing her to the diverse places, cultures, and languages of the world is one of the most beautiful and valuable gifts we can give her. When deciding where to spend our year abroad as a new family, Spain was our first and only choice.

I have attached statements from our bank covering the past several months, which show that we consistently maintain a cash balance in excess of $xxxxx USD, as well as statements reflecting the balances of our investment accounts. We hope these documents will help to establish our financial responsibility and solvency. We also hope that our letters of clearance from our doctors and from the Department of Justice will demonstrate our good character and health.

Sincerely,

TFV

You will need to have this letter notarized, so wait to sign the letter until you meet with the notary. This document will also require a certified Spanish translation.

Translation of Documents In the past, it was possible to use machine translation or to arrange for any Spanish translation service for your documents. The Spanish government now requires that your documents be translated by one of their certified translators (see this list). I was able to find a certified translator nearby. If you try to bypass this requirement, it will be obvious to the consular staff. All of the certified translations are printed on special government-supplied paper, and are assigned a serial number by the translator. You can’t fake it, so don’t try. Another word of advice: develop a relationship with your translator early on, and be prompt and organized. Give them plenty of time to complete your translations and keep them up to date on the status of your application. Pay promptly. You may find that your translator has valuable insight into issues with your application that they may share when they translate your documents. You may, as we did, hire your translator to assist with translation of things like medical records to make your move easier.

Translations Required: Yes

Apostille Required: No

Proof of Periodic Income: This is probably the single most confusing requirement of the entire visa application. The requirements state that you must have an annual income of 25,560 Euros for the primary applicant, plus 6,390 euros for each additional member of your family. For our family of three, that meant around $47,000 in early 2018.

The problem some people encounter is with the word “periodic.” While one consular officer might interpret this requirement to mean a bank account balance in excess of the required amount for the full year, another may insist on proof of a recurring payment from a pension, investment, or social security. Still another might require you to show that your employer will continue to pay you while you are in Spain (while the visa is non-lucrative, it appears that most of the consulates simply want you to prove that you will not take a job that might otherwise be occupied by a Spaniard, and will accept proof of remote work). What constitutes sufficient proof of income is entirely at the discretion of the consulate staff, and you will not win any argument on this matter. Smile, and figure out a way to get the proof you need.

Since we had no idea what would be asked of us, we prepared three months worth of bank statements showing a cash balance in excess of the annual requirement. We also showed the most recent quarterly statement for our 401(k) and taxable investment accounts. Alongside those documents, my stateside client provided me with a letter that indicated I was free to continue to work remotely (and what my approximate monthly income was) if I chose to do so. I did not include the letter from my client in the packet I submitted, but had it on-hand in case it was required. In the end, the bank and investment statements were enough.

Translations Required: Yes

Apostille Required: No

Police Criminal Record Clearance: You will need to request a clearance letter from your State Department of Justice stating that you do not have a criminal history and are not wanted for any crimes (hopefully!). While it is possible to submit a letter from the FBI instead, for most people it is likely to be much easier to get the letter from your state.

In most states, a criminal record clearance letter can be acquired by having fingerprints taken and electronically submitted to the DOJ. Your state, like mine, may require you to contact the DOJ once your results are sent to have a clearance letter sent.

Once you have the clearance letter in hand, it must be officially translated and you must acquire an Apostille of the Hague.

Apostille of The Hague Many of the documents you will need have a requirement that they be “legalized with the Apostille of the Hague Convention.” Think of the apostille as an international notarization. Basically, the apostille allows countries to exchange official records, even though their forms and processes may be different, and know that what they are getting is a legitimate document. In general, each state’s Secretary of State can provide an apostille for documents issued in that state. That means that if your marriage certificate, birth certificates, and criminal record checks come from a variety of states, you will send each document to the state that issued it for an apostille. In California, it is possible to have documents apostilled in person in Sacramento, or via mail. The cost is $20 per document as of 2018. We sent all of our documents via mail, and the turnaround time for each was approximately two weeks (from date of mailing to the date we received the documents back).

In California, we followed this process to request our criminal records clearance letter. Note the passage at the bottom of the page which reads:

An “Apostille” or a “Certification” is frequently required by foreign governments before the background check will be accepted. The document you receive from the DOJ is not the actual Apostille. As such, if you need this additional service, you will need to contact the DOJ at visa-immigration@doj.ca.gov AFTER you receive the DOJ response in the mail.

We first received our fingerprint results, then we emailed the DOJ to get the clearance letter, and when that arrived, we sent it to Sacramento for an apostille. The entire process from fingerprints to completed, apostilled letter took about five weeks. Start early!

Translations Required: Yes

Apostille Required: Yes

Medical Certificate: The Spanish consulate provides a helpful template for the medical certificate. If you’re lucky, you can get your doctor to print this PDF on hospital/medical practice letterhead, fill it in, sign and date it, and stamp it with their seal. If not, the minimum requirement is that the letter from your doctor include the words “the patient has been examined and found free of any contagious diseases according to the International Health Regulation 2005,” and that it be signed, dated, and if applicable, stamped.

In our experience, two of our doctors were happy to use the language from the template, though they preferred to include only the English version. This meant that we had to have the letter translated, but that wasn’t a big deal. Mrs. Vagabond’s doctor adamantly refused to use the template, and it took two revisions of the letter to get the right language included. In the end, our various medical certificates were all accepted.

Translations Required: Yes

Apostille Required: No

Proof of Having International Medical Insurance: After the income requirement, the medical insurance requirement is probably the most likely to cause issues. Many applicants apply hoping that travel insurance or catastrophic coverage will be sufficient, and indeed these policies used to satisfy the medical insurance requirement… but not any more.

As of 2018, you must present proof of legitimate medical insurance the covers you in Spain, with no deductible, with a minimum coverage of 30,000 Euros. In practice, the best way to achieve this coverage is to take out a policy with a private Spanish medical insurance company. We ended up going with a Mas Salud policy from Sanitas. We added options for zero copay, worldwide coverage (excluding the USA) so that we would be covered anywhere we travel, and the policy already included dental coverage. The total cost for our entire family for the year was a little under $3,000 USD. This is a few hundred less than my high deductible healthcare plan just for myself in the United States.

If you take out a policy with a Spanish insurer, they can furnish you with a letter in Spanish proving your coverage. This letter does not require a translation. Because of the required coverage minimums, I also printed and included the (Spanish) policy document, which was about 25 pages long, but proved that our level of coverage met the requirements. If your proof of coverage is not already in Spanish, you will need to get it translated.

There’s another big “gotcha” here: Your insurer may not be able to schedule a policy to start three months in the future (when you expect to land in Spain). This means you may end up paying for a couple of months of coverage that you can’t use, since you haven’t moved to Spain yet. All of the Spanish insurers we investigated could only start a policy in the current month, or the following month. The good news is, the policy is incredibly comprehensive and cost-effective relative to coverage in the United States, so paying for a couple extra months for three people only came out to a few hundred dollars.

Translations Required: Yes, If Not Already In Spanish

Apostille Required: No

Evidence of Legal Residence in the United States: This did not apply to us since we are citizens, but if you are a non-citizen of the US, you will have to show a residence card or visa.

Translations Required: Unknown

Apostille Required: No

Authorization form M790 C052: This form is the payment form for your visa application. It is very straightforward. Put the current year in top-right box marked “Ejercicio.” Fill in your name in format Last, First Middle in the box marked “Apellidos y nombre o razón social.” Under Nacionalidad, put your country of citizenship (in Spanish), or “EE.UU.” for United States (Estados Unidos). Fill in your street address (but not city, state, or ZIP code) in the box marked “Nombre de la via pública.” Write your City and State in the box marked “Municipio.” Fill in your country name of mailing address (in Spanish), or “EE.UU.” for United States (Estados Unidos) in the box marked “Provincia.” Put your ZIP code in the box marked “Codigo postal.” Check the box marked, “Principal” under “Autoliquidación.” Check box 1c, “Autorización inicial de residencia temporal.” Finally, fill in the place and date in the bottom-left box marked “Declarante,” using the Spanish format of “San Francisco, 18 de Octubre, 2018,” and sign your name!

Translations Required: No

Apostille Required: No

Spouse

National Visa Application Form: Same requirements as above.

Form EX-01: Same requirements as above.

Original Passport: Same requirements as above.

Three Passport Size Photos: Note that the document calls for one extra passport photo for the spouse. It’s unclear why this is, as we were only asked for two. Still, it can’t hurt to bring extra.

Marriage Certificate: You must present a certified copy of your marriage certificate that has been generated within 90 days of your visa appointment. The marriage certificate must be translated and apostilled.

Translations Required: Yes

Apostille Required: Yes

Police Criminal Record Clearance: Same requirements as above.

Medical Certificate: Same requirements as above.

Proof of Having International Medical Insurance: Same requirements as above.

Evidence of Legal Residence in the United States: Same requirements as above.

Authorization form M790 C052: Same requirements as above.

Children

National Visa Application Form: Mostly the same requirements as above, but since you will likely be filling this form out for a minor child, note the following differences: Box 10, “Surname, forename, address of person who exercises parental responsibility or legal guardian” should include all legal guardians (in a majority of cases, both parents). In Box 28, Signature, both parents should sign and date the form.

I initially filled this form (and all of the others) out with only a single parent’s name and signature, which led to me rewriting them at the consulate while the consular officer waited.

Form EX-01: Mostly the same requirements as above, but since you will likely be filling this form out for a minor child, note the following differences: All legal guardians must sign the form in the box marked “FIRMA DEL SOLICITANTE.” Put one of the parent’s names in the field marked “representante legal, en su caso.” Under Titulo, write your relationship to the child (in our case, “padre del menor,” or “Father of the minor”).

Original Passport: Same requirements as above.

Three Passport Size Photos: Same requirements as “spouse” above.

Birth Certificate: You must present a certified copy of your child’s birth certificate that has been generated within 90 days of your visa appointment. The birth certificate must be translated and apostilled.

Translations Required: Yes

Apostille Required: Yes

Medical Certificate: Same requirements as above.

Proof of Having International Medical Insurance: Same requirements as above.

Evidence of Legal Residence in the United States: Same requirements as above.

Authorization form M790 C052: Mostly the same requirements as above, but since you will likely be filling this form out for a minor child, note the following differences: All legal guardians must sign the form in the box marked “DECLARANTE.”

Did you make it this far? You did it! You have acquired all of the necessary documents to apply for your Spanish non-lucrative residence visa! One last thing to prepare: The visa fees. The consulates only take cash or money order, and since the application fees can fluctuate at any time, I strongly recommend bringing small bills in excess of what you expect the total amount to be. We paid for a non-lucrative visa application for each person ($140 x 3) and what we were told was a authorization fee, which is listed as $11 on the fee schedule, but ended up being $13 per person at the appointment. As I said, bring extra small bills.

Assemble your Application Packet(s)

For each member of your family, you should present a packet of original versions of all of the documents required by the PDF, in the order they are listed. If a translation is required for a document, it should come after the original. If an Apostille is required for a document, your department of state will probably staple it to the front of the original. If they don’t, place it before the original document. So, your documents should go in this order:

Apostille (if required) – Original Document – Translation (if required)

Now that you have an assembled packet of original documents, apostilles, and translations… photocopy the entire thing and create a second, identical packet. That’s right, each member of your family will have two packets- an original and a copy! I advise going one step further and scanning all documents for your records. Though some people have reported that they were given some or all of the documents back, we found that the consulate retained all of the documents. The only thing we got back was our passports.

The Visa Appointment

If you have prepared thoroughly, you should sail right through the visa appointment. We arrived about thirty minutes early, and we had cleared our schedule for the day. We were buzzed into the consulate and explained (in English) that we had an appointment for our visa application. The consulate was nearly empty, with just one other Spanish family waiting for some consular function.

Though all three of us had appointments, when the consular officer saw that our daughter was a newborn, she had me come back to the secure area alone so that my wife could continue to care for the baby, which was really kind of her. We sat down at a table in the consulate and I presented her with our packets (prepared as described above). She took about ten minutes silently reviewing all of our documents. She pointed out that I had completed all of the government forms for our daughter with only my name, and had me write out new copies to include both parents, which Mrs. V and I dutifully signed. She also noted that though the form EX-01 instructions direct you to use your US address where it asks for the Spanish address, they wanted the city and province that we intend to live in (Granada, Andalucía). Had it not been for those errors, the appointment would have been very fast.

Because all of our documents were in order, they were accepted on the first try, and we paid $459 for three visa applications. We were told that generally speaking, the window for visa approval was two to three months, but that we could likely expect to be approved sooner. We received a receipt for our payment, and a printout indicating our visa application number. We were able to track the status of our visa applications on a governmental website.

Visa Approval

We went home expecting to wait nervously for a few months to find out whether we had been approved for a Spanish non-lucrative residence visa. Much to our surprise, we received emails just 14 days later indicating that we had been approved for our visas and giving us 30 days to report in person to pick them up (everyone in the family needs to return to the consulate). We were asked to bring an itinerary showing our entry date into Spain to the visa pickup, as well as our passports.

The consular officer told us that visitors who travel from another state to pick up their visas generally are given same-day pickup service, and that locals usually drop off passports and pick them up a few days later. Though we are locals, the staff was kind enough to print our visas and affix them to our passports while we waited.

Just like that, after 90 days of preparation and 14 days of waiting, we could legally enter Spain!

It’s Not Quite Over Yet

A few important things to note: once you have picked up your visa, you’ll notice that it doesn’t cover the dates you plan to live in Spain: only a window around the dates you’re planning to enter the country. This is because technically, you aren’t in possession of your residence permit yet. For that, you’ll have to enter the country and visit an Oficina de Extrajería, or Foreigner’s Office, where you will apply for an identification card that serves as your authorization to remain in the country for the rest of the year.

The good news is, you have basically completed the critical portion of the process and have been approved to live in Spain for a year! You’ve also been issued the all-important NIE number (Número de Identidad de Extranjero, it’s printed on your visa and probably begins with the letter “Y”), which is sort of like a social security number. You’ll use your NIE for things like filing taxes, applying for utilities, and of course, applying to renew your visa!

Hopefully this guide gives you some insight into the process of applying for a Spanish non-lucrative residence visa. Honestly, it’s a ton of work that requires you to be organized and on the ball. In essence, the act of preparing your visa application is a sign to the Spanish government that you take the privilege of living there seriously, and are willing to work to achieve your goal of a year abroad in Spain!

If I can do anything to help you prepare for your own visa application, please let me know in the comments!

Update: And of course, once you get to Spain, you’ll probably want to know how to navigate the newly-updated Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero (TIE) application process, which is when you really lock down your visa.

Update Update: …and once you’ve lived here for a year, you may want to learn about renewing this visa.

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