Savings and the Spanish Non-Lucrative Visa

You do not have to have a lump sum. The regulation gives two routes to the same requirement: sufficient means for the period of the authorisation, or an evidenced source of periodic income. A pension, rental income or another recurring source can satisfy it as readily as a bank balance.

What catches people is not the amount — it is the evidence. The provision setting out how availability is proved is unusually specific, and the specificity is where applications slow down.

Savings or income — the two routes

The requirement is about capacity to support yourself without working, and the regulation does not insist on how that capacity is held.

Sufficient means for the period. A balance covering the authorisation you are applying for.

Or an evidenced source of periodic receipt of income. The regulation's own phrase. A recurring income stream, properly evidenced, meets the requirement without needing the equivalent capital sitting in an account.

That matters most to people whose wealth is in income rather than cash — and it is the half of the rule most often left out.

How much, and why we publish it in one place

The test is set as a multiple of Spain's IPREM index: 400% of monthly IPREM for the main applicant, and a further 100% for each dependent family member, the second amount additional to the first.

And the total is a multiplication, not a flat figure. The global amount required is the monthly figure applied across the period of validity of the authorisation you are seeking — so a longer authorisation asks for proportionally more.

The amounts are expressly minimums, and they are measured at the moment of the visa application or of the renewal rather than at some earlier point.

We do not restate the euro value here. IPREM changes, and a money figure published on two pages is a figure that will eventually disagree with itself. The Spanish non-lucrative visa carries the current amount and how it is calculated, and it is the page we keep up to date.

Proving it — the part that is specific

The general rule is generous: any means of proof admitted in law. The regulation then names examples, which tells you the kinds of thing that are expected to work:

Property deeds. Title documents as evidence of means.

Certified cheques.

Credit cards — but with a condition: they must be accompanied by a bank certification evidencing the amount available as credit on that card. A card on its own does not evidence anything.

Foreign accounts: four items, named

This is where applications stall, and the list is explicit. Where you put forward information about accounts or financial instruments held abroad, it must include:

The full company name or denomination of the bank or credit institution, together with its address.

Complete identification of the accounts.

The date of opening or cancellation — or, where relevant, the dates on which authorisation over the account was granted and revoked.

The balances at 31 December of the year before the application, and the average balance for the last year.

Read the last one twice. It is not a current balance. It asks for a fixed historical point and an average across a year — which means a snapshot printed the week you apply does not satisfy it, and an account funded shortly before applying will show an average that tells its own story. If you are planning this, the average matters more than the peak.

If your money comes from a company

The regulation deals with this directly, and it connects to the route's core prohibition. Where the means come from shares or participations in Spanish, mixed, or foreign companies based in Spain, you must:

Certify, from the company itself, that you carry out no labour activity in it; and

Provide a responsible declaration to that effect.

Which is consistent rather than surprising. The non-lucrative route authorises residence without labour or professional activity, so holding shares is compatible with it while working in the business is not. Can you work on a Spanish non-lucrative visa? sets out what the prohibition actually covers.

What this page will not tell you

The current euro amount. Governed on our non-lucrative visa page, deliberately not duplicated.

Whether your particular evidence will be accepted. The provision admits any means of proof, which means the assessment is about what your documents establish.

What your consulate's own checklist asks for. Practice varies by post and the consulate publishes it.

Any tax consequence of holding or moving the money. A separate subject, and not one we advise on.

Frequently asked questions

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