Adventures in getting a Spanish non-lucrative (retirement) visa

If you’ve decided that moving to Spain from the US sounds like an ideal plan, congratulations! You won’t be sorry. There are many web sites that go into minute detail about every step of the process of applying for a visa. Here, I’m going to describe our experience, with some details provided for clarity and some caveats for potential gotchas to watch for, so you’re more likely to get approved.

First, note that a residence visa allows you to live in Spain. It is not the same as citizenship (I’ve been asked this before). We are legal residents of Spain but remain US citizens and travel with US passports. A NLV (non-lucrative/retirement visa) must be renewed on a specified schedule, including proof of continuing financial stability. After living in Spain for five years, we can request permanent residency (also not the same as citizenship). We must still renew our visas, but it will be about showing we continue to live here rather than proving financial means.

A caveat: I can only talk about our NLV process with the Spanish Consulate General in Houston back in 2017. Although Madrid sets all visa requirements, individual consulates in the US and other countries are allowed some freedom with their interpretation. And some rules have changed since 2017. Also, I know nothing about any other visa than the NLV. With that, on with the story…

The minute we returned from our April 2017 house-hunting trip, we requested an appointment with the consulate in Houston. We’d been told to do this even though we hadn’t gathered a single piece of paper. Appointments were hard to come by then. Covid has made it even worse. The next available appointment date for us was mid-August, so we had almost four months to get ready.

Note that which consulate you use is dependent on where you live. Some consulates in the US are known to be more liberal than others, but there’s nothing you can do if you are stuck with one that is less-so (Houston is definitely less-so).

Source: http://www.exteriores.gob.es/Embajadas/WASHINGTON/en/consulates/Paginas/default.aspx

Appointment set, we reviewed the requirements for the NLV and started gathering paperwork. Here’s a summary of the current (2021) requirements for the consulate in Houston (I’ll cover some of these in more detail):

1. Schengen visa application form (downloadable from the consulate’s web site)
2. Passport (that does not expire during the time the visa covers, which means one year)
3. Status in USA (for non-citizens — proof of legal residence such as a green card)
4. Driver License or other legal photo ID (passport alone isn’t enough)
5. Two recent passport-sized photos (Walgreens is a great place for these)
6. Formal petition to apply for the Visa (more on this later)
7. Proof of accommodation in Spain (more on this, too)
8. Proof of sufficient funds (and a bit of clarification on this as well)
9. Background check (from the FBI)
10. Medical certificate (definitely more on this one)
11. Proof of international medical insurance (a caveat on this)
12. Authorization form M790 C052 (downloadable only in Spanish, but there are helpful sites that show translations and sample answers)
13. Form EX-01 (same as 12)
14. Visa fee (follow their instructions exactly)
15. USPS Priority or Express Mail envelope and postal delivery authorization (so they can return your passport to you with the visa sticker inside)

There are additional requirements for a spouse (such as a marriage certificate) and kids (such as a birth certificate). Also, every document that isn’t already in Spanish must be translated by a Certified Translator (most consulates can provide a list of approved people). Some documents require a Notary or Apostille (like an internationally recognized Notary) stamp. Finally, all documents must be copied.

It’s not that bad

The above may feel quite overwhelming. Some people pay thousands of dollars for help with their visa process. It’s honestly not that hard. It’s more tedious than anything. We created a Google Docs spreadsheet to track every step of the process. Here’s a copy, which covered our consulate’s requirements at that time (note that FLNB is the initials of our bank, Ximena was our Certified Translator, and “ – ” indicates that step wasn’t necessary):

Most of our experience was “follow the dots” — keep plugging away and putting Xs on our spreadsheet and pieces of paper in our folders. Here are a few of the as-promised additional details:

6 Formal petition to apply for the Visa

The consulate defines this as “A brief explanation of your professional background. Also why did you decide to go to live in Spain and what are you planning to do while you reside there. Finally, how long are you planning to stay and any other reasons you would like to explain to support your application.”

We aren’t the first to get hung up on this one. A what? A letter about why we want to move? I know people who have written near-theses for this step. We chose to keep ours short and sweet, and the consulate had no issues. Other than an omitted header and closing, here is mine in its entirety:

7 Proof of accommodation in Spain

According to the consulate in Houston, we had to show that we had an established address to move to (such as home purchase or lease paperwork) as part of our visa application. That’s still the case in Houston, but it isn’t the case for every consulate. Our friends who applied through the consulate in San Francisco in 2018 were not required to have an address at all. (I do not know what the SF consulate requires now.)

The accommodation requirement rule never made sense to me. What if we were denied? We’d own a house we couldn’t live in. What if someone signed a lease and paid a security deposit? But that was their requirement. It’s why we went on our house-hunting trip before we even set our visa appointment. We hadn’t yet closed on the house, so our Spanish attorney had to fax us a copy of the purchase contract before she’d finished the details. At least the consulate rep was happy with it.

Be warned: If your consulate requires this, the exact paperwork they require likely varies by the type of accommodation you have chosen. Definitely do not deviate from the specific instructions on your applicable consulate’s site.

8 Proof of sufficient funds

The minimum monetary amount does not vary between consulates, but the paperwork they want just might. Some consulates are happy with the front page of three prior bank statements. The consulate in Houston decided to require the entire prior year’s worth of statements (which meant a special request by us to our bank, as only six months of statements were available online). The consulate also didn’t want just the front pages. They wanted every detail page (showing deposits, withdrawals, fees, etc.). And every page had to be translated!

There was no arguing and no point in getting angry. We just printed out everything and gave all of it to Ximena. Spain is infamous for their unflinching bureaucracy. Here’s an entertaining video about Spanish red tape (created by Intereconomia Corporación S.A.):

I’m not going into the current monetary requirement, because it is sometimes updated, and exchange rates can make a difference in how the consulate views things like US bank balances and pension/Social Security check amounts. Note that there is a specified additional amount for each family member who is applying, including any kids. The bigger your family, the higher the financial proof you’ll need.

10 Medical Certificate

We expected to have no trouble with this one because we were both pretty darned healthy (especially as far communicable diseases were concerned). We actually put off getting this step done until last. We could not have been more wrong.

The reason? The consulate describes this as “A doctor’s recent statement (not older than 3 months) signed by an M.D. with doctor’s or medical center’s letterhead. It must be an original certificate with doctor’s ink signature and also indicate the following: the interested does not suffer from any of the diseases that may have serious public health repercussions in accordance with the provisions of the 2005 International Health Regulations.”

The above specified regulations document is 84 pages long. Few American doctors are familiar with the provisions in this document. We struggled to find a doctor who would sign a letter that included the required text based on a document they had not read. We got referrals, runarounds, refusals, and shrugs. We were running out of time.

In desperation, I read the entire document (most of it applies to people like merchant sailors and cargo plane crews, and to issues like yellow fever). I found one page that pertained to people like us who were applying for residence in another country. I printed it out and faxed it to our doctor, who had already told us “no” multiple times. She finally agreed to provide us with letters, one day before our consulate appointment!

11 Proof of international medical insurance

All non-EU residents are required to have private insurance their first year in Spain. The consulates are very specific about what the coverage must include, so be sure any policy you apply for meets their criteria. After one year, you can, if you choose, request to participate in Spain’s excellent Instituto Nacional de la Salud (national healthcare). It isn’t free, but for us it is only €158 each (about $180 at the current exchange rate) per month, with 100% coverage and no deductible or copay. I’ve been quite happy with it.

Let me be quite clear before I continue: I am in no way recommending you lie on an insurance application form. That said, however, don’t do what I did. I have a bit of a medical history, thanks to more than a few surgeries and procedures in my past (I unfortunately inherited my mom’s genes).

The first thing every doctor does in the US is hand you a history form and ask you to fill it out while sitting in their waiting room. To make it easier, I had created a spreadsheet, listing all my surgeries and procedures by date, with a short explanation of what each was for (going all the way back to my wisdom teeth extraction in 1976). That way, I could write “see attached” on the doctor’s form and hand them a printout of my spreadsheet. Saved oodles of time.

I made the mistake of sending that detailed spreadsheet to the insurance companies I was applying to in Spain. Suffice to say that they all freaked out. Then promptly denied my application. I guess to them I seemed like walking death.

For the next company on my list of potential insurers, I included only those health issues that were current and/or directly pertinent (my big toe bunion removal in 1994 was not something they needed to know about). I was finally approved for a policy less than a week before our appointment.

Spanish private insurance companies might choose to exclude certain pre-existing conditions before they’ll offer to cover you. Don’t let that worry you. Even if you have to pay cash for a year, it will be hundreds or even thousands less than you are paying in the US (even with insurance), and if you then join the NHS your second year, all of your medical issues will be covered.

For example, in Austin, my Botox Migraine injections cost me around $2000 every 5 months (they weren’t covered there, either). In Spain, those same shots were €350 (about $405). (I say were because Spain made me well. I no longer need the shots at all. I’ll be writing on this topic in the future.)

Our appointment date finally arrived

The day of our appointments was anti-climactic, and I’ve since learned that’s the case with most people. We showed up for our appointments (they required separate appointments for each of us, although some consulates let you make a single appointment as a family), thick paper packets in hand.

We waited in the small lobby until a rep called Eric’s name, then walked together to the window and reminded her that we were a married couple (we have different last names). She took both of our packets at the same time and told us to wait in the lobby some more.

My smaller pile (as spouse) is on the left. Eric’s pile, as the primary person applying, was three times as thick

There were no interviews. We never were called back to anyone’s office. After about 15 minutes she said they needed more paperwork relating to my insurance (I admit my stomach lurched a bit at this request after what I’d gone through just to get insurance). She also said we could head home and FedEx the required papers. I took care of that request the next day and thankfully she was satisfied with what the insurer provided.

(Our friends who used the consulate in San Francisco, and other friends who used the consulate in Chicago, both had a different experience than us. They were all called into a back office, and every page of their packets were scrutinized as they sat there. They also both had to provide some additional paperwork, so perhaps that part is pretty common.)

Normally, the consulate rep keeps your passport and, once your visa is approved, they affix the sticker to a blank page and return it to you in the envelope you provided as part of your packet (#15 in the list I mentioned earlier). Unfortunately we couldn’t do that. We had a scheduled closing date on the house in Spain, likely to happen before our visas were approved. This definitely threw a monkey-wrench in the consulate’s normal procedures.

We didn’t learn about this bit until the day of our appointment. We hurriedly contacted our attorney in Spain, who faxed proof of our closing date to the consulate office while we all waited. We were very fortunate that the 7-hour time difference didn’t prevent this from happening.

The consulate rep reluctantly handed our passports back, but said the consulate would require us to return to collect our visas in person. They would not mail the visa stickers alone. A consulate employee had to personally affix them to our passports.

Approved!

We flew to Spain on September 1. We closed on our house on the 4th. Our dogs arrived on the 7th. We still hadn’t been approved. We finally got the call on the 11th and flew back to Houston on the 29th and again handed our passports to the consulate rep. She smiled and affixed the visa sticker (complete with hideous photo) in each of our passports and handed them back. It was an expensive round trip for a 5 minute appointment, but at least we’d reached the end of our visa journey and could officially begin our new life in Spain.

If I had it to do over again, would I hire someone? Not at all. As I said earlier, it was tedious but, except for the couple of scares, not difficult. Our actual physical move (including the dogs) was another matter, but that’s a topic for a future article.