Moving
Moving to Spain: the complete guide
Yes, you can move to Spain — whether you're coming from the UK, the US, or anywhere else. What you'll need depends first on your citizenship, then on what you plan to do in Spain. EU citizens have free-movement rights. Most non-EU citizens need a long-stay visa or residence route to live in Spain beyond the normal 90-in-180 visitor allowance — and choosing the right one is the single most important decision in the whole move.
The short answer
Visa
EU citizens — free movement (registration after three months). Most non-EU citizens — a long-stay visa or residence route beyond the 90-in-180 visitor allowance.
Money
budget separately for visa/application costs and the physical move — the total varies enormously by household, origin and whether you ship possessions.
Healthcare
several residence routes require applicants to show qualifying health cover before approval; others rely on a different healthcare or social-security route.
Timeline
how long a move takes is set by your route, your documents and appointment availability rather than by a single figure — the moving timeline carries the one band we can stand behind.
Golden rule
rent before you buy, and get the sequence right — half the pain of moving to Spain is doing things in the wrong order.
Everything below expands on these. If you only have two minutes, you have just had them.
This guide walks the entire journey in the order you'll actually face it: deciding, choosing a visa, proving your money, sorting healthcare, finding a home, making the move, and surviving your first month of Spanish admin.
The journey in nine steps
- 1Check your right to move
- 2Decide if Spain fits
- 3Choose your route
- 4Plan the money
- 5Sort healthcare
- 6Choose where to live
- 7Arrange the move
- 8Arrive and register
- 9Settle
Can you move to Spain?
EU, EEA and Swiss citizens
have freedom of movement. You can arrive, live and work without a visa — though after three months you're required to register as a resident, and there's still a checklist of Spanish admin waiting for you. Irish citizens: this is you — the whole visa section below is one you can happily skip.
UK citizens
lost freedom of movement with Brexit. You can still move to Spain — thousands of Brits do every year — but for stays beyond 90 days in any rolling 180-day window you'll need a visa, exactly like Americans or Canadians. What changed, what didn't, and the myths that refuse to die: moving to Spain after Brexit.
Americans, Canadians, Australians and other non-EU citizens
follow the same baseline: the 90/180 rule allows visits, and a long-stay visa unlocks actual living. The rolling window catches people out more than any other rule in this guide — it's 90 days in any 180, not per calendar year.
Decide if Spain is right for you
Spain earns its reputation: the climate, the healthcare, the cost of living relative to the UK or US, the pace of life. But an honest guide starts with the other column. Spanish bureaucracy is slow and appointment-based. Summer heat inland is brutal. You'll be far from family. Deep-Spain living without Spanish is isolating. And becoming a resident generally makes you a Spanish taxpayer — on your worldwide income, not just what you earn here.
Two practical suggestions before you commit. First, visit in the worst months, not the best — an August afternoon in Seville and a January evening in a coastal town teach you more than any brochure week in May. Second, treat your first year as reversible: rent, don't buy, and keep an exit route. The people who regret the move are rarely the ones who planned one.
Choose your visa route
This is the decision everything else hangs off. The good news: for most English-speaking movers, it comes down to a shortlist of well-trodden routes.
Living without working — the non-lucrative visa (NLV)
Spain's route for retirees and anyone living on pensions, savings or passive income. You must show income above a set threshold — a multiple of Spain's IPREM index, working out at around €2,400 a month for a single applicant as of August 2026 — and hold qualifying private health insurance — and the visa does not authorise work. How that applies to edge cases (remote income, investments, occasional activity) is exactly the kind of question the specialists handle.
Working remotely — the digital nomad visa (DNV)
For remote work carried out for companies outside Spain — with room, for the self-employed, to keep a limited share of Spanish professional activity under the regime (currently up to 20% of income, as of August 2026). Unlike the NLV, you keep working — in exchange for a higher income requirement — roughly twice Spain's minimum wage as of August 2026 — and some employer paperwork.
Studying
A student visa covers degrees and, notably, serious language study — a legitimate route some adults use to live in Spain while they learn.
Family routes
Married to an EU citizen, joining a settled resident, or bringing dependants on your own application — each works differently.
One warning that applies to every route: requirements are categories here on purpose — exact figures, document lists and consulate procedures change and are maintained on our specialist visa sites, which is where the router above will take you.
The money: what it really costs
There are two different money questions, and mixing them up causes real problems.
What you must prove
income-based visas require evidence of funds, held and documented the way the consulate expects, not just "enough in the bank".
What the move costs
a separate, mostly unavoidable bill: visa and application fees, apostilles and translations, health cover, flights, removals, rental deposits, and a buffer for the weeks when everything needs paying at once. The total varies enormously by household, origin and whether you ship your possessions — which is why our cost guide works through three real budgets (single renter, retiring couple, family of four) rather than one headline number.
What living here costs afterwards
a third question again, and the one people conflate with the second. Groceries, utilities, healthcare, the monthly rent rather than the deposit: none of it is in the cost of getting here, and the answer depends far more on region and household than on the move itself.
Plan the currency side early too: on a six-figure lifetime of transfers, the difference between a bank's rate and a specialist's is real money.
Healthcare: the rule nobody tells you
Here's the part that surprises almost everyone: for the non-lucrative visa, health insurance is part of the application rather than something to arrange after you arrive. The regulation sets the legal requirement; for the documents you need to provide, check the instructions for your route and the consulate handling your application. Other routes can have different healthcare or social-security rules.
The longer story is encouraging. Spain has a broad public healthcare system — though access and waiting times vary by region and status — and as your residency matures you'll typically gain routes into it. UK state pensioners have a particular advantage worth knowing about early: the S1 scheme, which can fund Spanish public healthcare for eligible people — check your S1 entitlement early in your planning. How the whole system works, what's public, what's private and where you'll fit: healthcare in Spain.
Do you actually need private cover?
Your route and your circumstances decide it — not a rule of thumb.
Health insurance is provided through our specialist health-insurance service, Spanish Health Insurance. Spanish Health Insurance specialises in private health insurance for people moving to and living in Spain.
Where will you live?
The rule we repeat more than any other: rent first. Even if you're certain you'll buy, a year of renting teaches you what no viewing trip can — which streets are shaded at 6pm in August, which urbanisations empty out in winter, which town actually fits your life. Buying costs serious money on the way in and the way out, so buying the wrong place is the most expensive mistake this move offers. The full argument, including when buying straight away genuinely makes sense: whether to rent or buy in Spain.
When you are ready to buy, Spain is open to you — foreigners buy property here freely, residency or not. The process, the costs and the reasons you'll want an independent lawyer are a guide of their own: buying property in Spain.
As for where — the honest answer is that the "best place" depends on what your week looks like. The coastal strips (Costa Blanca, Costa del Sol, Costa Cálida) offer established expat life, airports and winter sun; the big cities trade space for energy and work; inland Spain offers the country at half the price and twice the Spanish. Our region-by-region guides arrive as the Living section grows.
The move itself
Your belongings
Moving household goods to Spain as part of a genuine change of residence generally qualifies for import-duty relief — but the paperwork (inventories, proof of residence change) has to be right, and post-Brexit UK moves involve customs steps that didn't exist before — the belongings guide keeps the current process. Ship everything, part-load, or sell and re-buy? The maths differs by household.
Your pets
Dogs and cats travel to Spain routinely — with the right certificates, microchips and timing windows, which differ depending on whether you're coming from the UK, the EU or North America — the pets guide keeps the current rules. Start this earlier than feels necessary; some steps have fixed waiting periods.
Your car
Bringing a car is possible but rarely simple — registration, taxes and (for UK cars) the right-hand-drive question mean many movers sell before they leave and buy in Spain. The driving section covers licences, importing and buying when it opens.
Your first 30 days
Your first month usually involves the same cast of tasks — registering your address at the town hall (empadronamiento), residence/TIE formalities where they apply to your route, opening a bank account and sorting healthcare registration — but the exact order depends on your route, your region and even your bank. What matters is knowing the dependencies before you start, because doing these in the wrong order for your situation is how a two-week task becomes a two-month one. Our arrival guide maps the sequences by route.
How long does it all take?
There is no single answer, and a page that gives you one is guessing. What differs by route is not really a number — it is what you are waiting on:
What actually decides how long it takes
- EU citizenNot a permission question at all — the pace is set by your own logistics, and by registering once you are there
- Digital nomad visaConsulate appointment availability, and how quickly your employer or clients produce the paperwork the route asks for
- Non-lucrative visaConsulate appointment availability is usually the bottleneck, followed by the validity windows on your documents
- Student visaYour course start date. It is fixed and the application is not, so the plan runs backwards from it
Source: the right of EU and EEA citizens to reside in Spain for longer than three months, and their obligation to apply for inscription in the Registro Central de Extranjeros within three months of entry, under Real Decreto 240/2007 (BOE-A-2007-4184), arts. 7.1 and 7.5. Verified September 2026.
The critical path is almost never the flight or the removals van — it's consulate appointment availability and the validity windows on your documents. Working backwards from those two is what a realistic plan looks like.
Where to go next
The practical run, in order. The checklist is everything to arrange; the step-by-step is what order to do it in; what your route requires and the documents that prove it are the two halves people mix up; the timeline is what decides the pace; what it costs is the budget; and your first 30 days picks up on arrival.
Where you're moving from. The admin differs more than the move does: the UK, the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia. If you hold EU citizenship, your route is a different one entirely; if you don't, this is the shape of it. Britons who were already living here before the end of 2020: what Brexit changed, and what it didn't.
Who's coming with you. Moving as a family is the household decision; with children is schools and settling in; with pets starts earlier than anyone expects.
Your situation. Moving without a job sorts the routes that don't need one. Working remotely from Spain is the operating reality rather than the visa. And moving permanently is the long game — the question of what you're building toward, asked at the start instead of year five.
Still wondering
Questions people actually ask
Can I move to Spain without a job?
Yes — that's exactly what the non-lucrative visa exists for, provided you can show sufficient income from pensions, savings or investments and hold qualifying health insurance. The NLV does not authorise work — if you plan to continue remote or professional activity, check which residence route fits that activity before applying.
Can UK citizens still move to Spain after Brexit?
Yes. The right to simply move ended, but the routes didn't — most British movers now use the non-lucrative visa (retirees and the financially independent) or the digital nomad visa (remote workers). The 90/180 rule governs everything short of a visa.
How much money do I need to move to Spain?
Two answers: enough to satisfy your visa's income requirement (set as a multiple of Spain's IPREM index — around €2,400 a month for a single NLV applicant as of August 2026), and enough to fund the move itself — which varies enormously by household, origin and how much you ship. Our cost guide breaks it into three realistic budgets rather than one headline number.
Is healthcare free in Spain for expats?
Not automatically. Access to public healthcare depends on your status. Several residence routes require qualifying health cover before approval, while others use social-security or other entitlement routes — and options widen as your residency matures. UK state pensioners may qualify for UK-funded cover through the S1 scheme.
How long does moving to Spain take?
It depends on your route, and the honest answer is that no single figure covers them all. What decides it is consulate appointment availability and the validity windows on your documents — not the packing. Work backwards from those two.
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
Turn all of that into a list you can actually tick off, in the order the tasks unlock each other.