Moving to Spain: A First-Steps Guide for Expats

The thing nobody tells you about Spain is that it is not one country in any practical sense. Moving to Bilbao and moving to Seville are different experiences - different climate, different pace, different second language, different cost base, and administrative practice that varies from one regional government to the next. People who move here having researched “Spain” often find the specifics do not match, because they researched the wrong region.

The second thing is that Spanish bureaucracy runs on appointments, and appointments are the constraint on everything. Not the rules, which are generally reasonable. The cita previa.

With those two caveats, it is a wonderful place to live, and there is a reason so many people who come for two years are still here a decade later.

The right to stay

EU, EEA and Swiss citizens have the right to live in Spain. You move, and then register as a resident - which produces a certificate and an NIE number - once you can show you are working, self-sufficient or studying, with health cover.

Non-EU nationals apply at a Spanish consulate in their country of residence for a national visa before travelling. The routes that matter for most people: work visas tied to an employer, the non-lucrative visa for people who can support themselves without working in Spain (long popular with retirees and the financially independent), a student route, family reunification, an entrepreneur route, and the digital nomad route introduced for people earning from foreign clients or employers.

The remote-work route in particular has drawn a lot of attention, and the conditions attached to it - income level, the nature of your employment relationship, how long your employer has been trading - are specific and have been adjusted since launch. Check them with the consulate rather than from a summary. The current picture is in the Spain visa section.

Whichever route you take, the visa is not the end of it: you complete the process in Spain with a residence card appointment and fingerprints. That two-stage structure is standard and is explained in visas and residence permits explained.

Your first three appointments

Spain has a recognisable opening sequence, and it is worth knowing the names.

The NIE - número de identidad de extranjero - is your foreigner identification number. Everything formal requires it. Non-EU arrivals typically get it as part of the residence card process; EU citizens get one with their registration certificate.

The empadronamiento is registering on your local town hall’s population register, producing the certificado de empadronamiento. This is the Spanish version of the address registration that unlocks so much elsewhere - it is what you need for public healthcare, school enrolment and a long list of procedures. The requirements for proving your address vary by municipality and some are stricter than others about what they will accept from a short-term rental, so check locally before booking accommodation. The general version of this problem is in registering your address abroad.

The bank account. Spanish banks will want your NIE and passport, and often proof of address. App-based banks are widely used here and are the usual way to bridge the gap while you assemble the rest.

Then, the cita previa problem. Appointment slots for immigration and some town hall procedures are booked online and in busy provinces they are genuinely scarce, released in batches and taken within minutes. Everyone deals with this; the local knowledge is which time of day slots appear and whether a neighbouring office has capacity. It is the single most common source of expat frustration in Spain and it is worth reading dealing with bureaucracy abroad before it grinds you down.

Healthcare

Spain’s public system is genuinely good and, in most regions, well regarded. Access comes through being registered and contributing - typically via employment or self-employment - or through other qualifying arrangements, and it is administered regionally, so the practical experience differs between autonomous communities.

If you are on a visa route that does not involve working in Spain, you will generally need private insurance, and it is usually a condition of the visa. Private cover in Spain is comparatively affordable and widely held even by people with full public access, mostly to shorten specialist waits.

Once you are in the system, you register at your local health centre and are assigned a médico de cabecera. Details in the Spain healthcare section.

Money, tax and the thing to watch

Spain taxes residents on worldwide income, and residence for tax purposes is determined by presence and by where your economic interests sit. The point that catches people, particularly on the non-lucrative and remote-work routes, is that living here makes you tax resident regardless of where the money comes from. There is a special regime for certain inbound workers that can be advantageous, with conditions - a question for a Spanish gestor rather than a blog.

Speaking of which: the gestoría is a Spanish institution worth knowing about. These are administrative agencies that handle paperwork, tax filings and dealings with officialdom on your behalf, and using one is completely normal for Spaniards, not a sign of helplessness. For your first year the fee is frequently the best money you will spend.

Be aware too of regional taxes - wealth and inheritance treatment varies substantially between autonomous communities, enough that it genuinely influences where some people choose to live. The Spain tax section covers the structure, and the general principles are in tax residency explained.

Cost of living and where to live

Spain is cheaper than northern Europe on food, eating out, transport and services, and the gap in daily life is real - a lunch menu, a coffee, a beer are all noticeably less. Housing is where the variation bites: Madrid and Barcelona rents have risen substantially and both cities have tight markets, while inland cities and much of the north remain genuinely affordable.

Salaries, as in Portugal, are modest by western European standards. If you earn locally, the arithmetic is different from what it looks like on a foreign income.

Two regional realities worth planning around. Summer heat in the interior and the south is not a holiday experience when you are working through it - Seville and Córdoba in August are formidable. And language: Catalan, Basque, Galician and Valencian are co-official in their regions and are not decorative. In Catalonia and the Basque Country in particular, schooling and much public life run in the regional language, which is a significant factor if you are moving with children.

Settling in

Spanish social life is generous and slow to fully include you, in that order - you will be invited to things quickly and inside the circle gradually. The schedule takes adjustment: lunch is late, dinner is much later, and the working day in many sectors is shaped around it.

English is widely spoken in Barcelona and Madrid and much less so elsewhere, and the honest position is that Spain rewards Spanish more than most western European countries reward their language. It is also one of the easier languages for English speakers to reach conversational level in, which makes the effort unusually well repaid.

If you are comparing the Iberian options, moving to Portugal is the obvious sibling - similar climate, smaller country, different tax history and a rather different bureaucratic personality - and moving to Morocco is a short ferry ride from the southern tip at a fraction of the cost. And for the wider Mediterranean picture, moving to Italy and moving to Greece cover countries people often shortlist alongside.

The province-level detail, current visa conditions and cost breakdowns are in the Spain country guide and the cost of living section. For the current state of cita previa availability in a specific province - which changes constantly - ask in the visa and immigration forum.