Moving
The Complete Moving to Spain Checklist
Most "checklists" for moving to Spain are articles with bullet points. You read them, feel briefly organised, and close the tab no further forward.
How this list works
Work it in phases, not in one sitting
Most of what matters early is decisions and documents; most of what matters late is logistics.
Your route decides parts of this list
Some items apply to everyone; some only apply if you're on a particular residence route.
Nothing here explains how long anything takes. — that's the timeline, and it's a genuinely different question.
Nothing here explains what order and why. — that's the step-by-step.
If you haven't decided to go yet, you're earlier than this list.
Everything below expands on these. If you only have two minutes, you have just had them.
This one is built to be worked. Every item is a thing you either have or haven't done, grouped by when it needs doing, and linked to the page that explains it — so the list stays a list instead of turning into an essay.
How to use this list
Three rules and then the list.
One — work top-down, not by what feels urgent. The early phases contain the items that block later ones. Skipping ahead to removals quotes while your route is undecided is the most common way to waste money on this list.
Two — where an item links out, follow it. This page is deliberately thin on explanation, because explanation lives on the pages that own it — so if an item points somewhere, that is where the answer is rather than here.
Three — some items won't apply to you. Route-specific items are marked. An EU citizen's list is meaningfully shorter than a non-EU applicant's, and there's a note at the foot about that.
Phase 1 — Earliest: decisions and route
- Decide, properly, that you're going. Not this page's job — the pre-move decisions is.
- Establish which residence route fits you. Everything below depends on this answer: which visa fits
- Check your passport's remaining validity and renew it if it's close — a renewal mid-application is an avoidable problem.
- Confirm what your route requires of you — the categories, not the paperwork: requirements for moving
- Work out whether your finances clear the requirement, and whether they'll still clear it later.
- Establish your healthcare position. Whether you need qualifying cover depends on your route, and for some people an entitlement route removes the question: healthcare in Spain
- Look at where you'd actually live — region, town, and whether you need a car there. This decides more of your budget than anything else: what it costs
- (If you own property at home) Decide sell or let, because it changes your finances and your paperwork.
- (If you have a partner) Check whether you're applying together or separately — it changes what each of you must show.
- (If you have children) Check what their position depends on — usually a parent's, but not always.
Phase 2 — Documents and evidence
- Get the master document list for your route and work from that, not from a generic one: documents you'll need
- Order your clean-record certificate from the appropriate national authority.
- Order birth, marriage or partnership certificates where your situation needs them.
- Get documents legalised or apostilled where required.
- Get sworn translations where required.
- ** Check the validity window on each document before you order it, and order in the right sequence.** Getting this wrong is the most common reason paperwork has to be redone — the rule, and which documents it applies to, are on the documents page.
- Assemble your financial evidence in the form your route expects.
- (If applicable) Arrange qualifying health cover before it is needed rather than after.
- (If you have children) Start school enquiries — places and admissions run on their own calendars, not yours.
- Check every document's name matches your current legal name, and sort any mismatch before it becomes an application problem.
- Confirm which authority issues your clean-record certificate — it follows where you've lived, not the passport you hold.
Phase 3 — Application, and what you can do alongside it
Note: what you can and can't safely do while an application is pending is a sequencing question, and the step-by-step answers it. The items here are the tasks themselves.
- Submit your application through whatever channel your route uses.
- Keep a complete copy of everything you submitted. You will be asked about it later, by someone who does not have it.
- Get removals quotes — quotes, not bookings.
- Research pet requirements if you're bringing animals: Moving to Spain with Pets.
- Decide what happens to your vehicle. Many movers sell rather than import.
- Plan the currency question — how and when you'll move money, not just the amount.
- Draft your notice periods — landlord, employer, utilities, subscriptions — without serving them yet.
- Price the move properly, including the things that outlast it: what it costs
- Check your insurance positions — what lapses on leaving, what needs to exist on arrival.
Phase 4 — Once you're approved
- Book the move properly. This is the point at which removals go from quote to booking.
- Serve your notices on the schedule you drafted.
- Arrange somewhere to live on arrival — rented, and with less commitment than you think you want.
- Book travel, including for pets if they're travelling with you.
- Tell the people who need telling at home — bank, tax authority, pension provider, GP, insurers.
- Set up mail redirection and decide how long you need it.
- Close or convert accounts you won't keep, and keep the ones you genuinely need at home.
- Photograph or inventory what's being shipped — useful for insurance and for arguing with anyone later.
- Sort a phone plan that works on day one rather than day ten.
- Assemble a hand-carry document pack — the originals you cannot afford to have in a shipping container.
- Arrange access to money on day one, before any Spanish account exists.
- Confirm what your removal firm will and won't take, and dispose of the rest deliberately rather than in the last week.
Phase 5 — Arrival
The order of these is route-dependent and has real dependencies in it. The tasks are here; the ordering is the step-by-step's job, and the fuller arrival picture is Your First 30 Days in Spain.
- Register your address at the town hall — the empadronamiento, which several later steps depend on.
- Complete your card step if your route involves one: the TIE explained
- Confirm your NIE position — if you don't already hold one, you will need it: your NIE explained
- Open a Spanish bank account, and find out what your particular bank actually asks for before you go in.
- Register for healthcare on whatever basis your entitlement turned out to be: public versus private
- Register with a local doctor once your entitlement is settled.
- Deal with your driving licence on whatever basis applies to you.
- Exchange or convert what needs converting on the basis that applies to you, rather than the basis a forum described.
- Register children with schools once your address is settled.
- Get professional eyes on your tax position — becoming resident makes tax residence a live question, and it is a separate test from your immigration status. Early, not after your first Spanish tax year.
The items people forget
Not extra tasks. The ones already above that most often go unticked, gathered here because a checklist's real job is catching omissions.
- The document you'll need twice. Several documents are needed both for the application and again after arrival. Order accordingly rather than discovering it later.
- Prescriptions and medical continuity. A supply to bridge the gap, and a summary of your history to hand to a new doctor.
- Anything that auto-renews at home — insurance, memberships, storage, breakdown cover. These outlive the move unless cancelled deliberately.
- Access to your own accounts from abroad. Two-factor authentication tied to a phone number you're about to give up is a genuinely disruptive problem.
- Digital copies of everything, stored somewhere you can reach without your laptop and without your old phone number.
- Your pension providers. They usually need telling separately from your bank and your tax authority.
- Voting, wills and powers of attorney — the arrangements a move quietly invalidates.
- A plan for the paperwork you'll be handed in Spain. It arrives faster than most people expect somewhere to put it.
If you're an EU, EEA or Swiss citizen
Your list is genuinely shorter, and it is a different list rather than a subset. You aren't applying for a visa: you register as a resident, generally within three months of arrival, and the evidence you provide is about resources and cover rather than clearing a non-EU threshold. Phases 1, 4 and 5 broadly apply; most of Phase 2's legalisation work and all of Phase 3's application content do not. The map for your position: Moving to Spain as an EU Citizen.
Still wondering
Questions people actually ask
What do I need to do before moving to Spain?
In rough order: settle your residence route, confirm what it requires of you, assemble and legalise documents, apply, and only then commit money to removals and travel. The tasks are listed above by phase; the decisions that come before all of it are their own subject.
When should I start planning a move to Spain?
Early enough that documents and your route aren't running against a fixed date. The realistic answer depends on your route and is a timeline question rather than a checklist one.
What's the first thing to sort when moving to Spain?
Your residence route. Almost every other item on this list either depends on it or changes shape because of it, which is why booking anything before it's settled is the classic expensive mistake.
Do EU citizens need to do all of this?
No. Phases 2 and 3 largely fall away, and what remains is a shorter list with a different shape — see the section above for which phases still apply to you.
Can I move to Spain and sort the paperwork afterwards?
Not for most non-EU routes, which are applied for before you travel. That is one of the sequencing points the step-by-step guide exists to make.
This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change — for advice on your situation, speak to a qualified professional.
Keep going
Where most people go next
One thing to do next
What blocks what, and what breaks if you reverse it.