Guide to Spain Study Visa for Indian Students

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Documents
  1. Application
  2. Payment of Visa Fees
  3. Passport
  4. From the Educational Centre
  5. Proof of Accommodation
  6. Previous Qualifications
  7. Proof of Work Experience
  8. Economic Proof
  9. Police Clearance Certificate
  10. Medical Certificate
  11. Medical Insurance
  12. Additional Checklist Documents
  13. Statement of Purpose
  14. Curriculum Vitae
  15. Flight Tickets
• Apostillation and Sworn Translation
  1. Apostille
  2. Sworn Translation

Given the contrast in the proportion of students going to American countries for their Masters to European countries, it can be an overwhelming process to get the documentation in place and not being sure if you’ve checked all boxes. In this article, I will break down all the things you would need to know before applying for a Study Visa in Spain. My university is in Barcelona and my application was submitted to the consulate in Mumbai, so it might be slightly different from what is expected in the Delhi consulate. This article is just my experience to help everyone and I strongly advise that you go through all the official resources and not only follow this article.

First things first, these two pages from the consulate — Study Visa, Student Visa Checklist — will serve as your bible throughout the entire process (for students applying to Delhi, you can refer to this page). In this guide, I will mention a few additional documents as well which I felt were necessary for my application. I recommend having the originals along with two copies of each document for the process. I also recommend going through the entire guide first if you are yet to start your preparation since it is advisable to collect certain documents first and others later. I will also cover the process of apostilling and getting a sworn translation of your documents done. Let’s go through each document in the checklist.

1. Application:

• National Visa Application Form: The application can be found here. I suggest that you fill this form in the end, once you have all documents in place so that you don’t have to worry about changing the details repeatedly. I think all fields in the application are self-explanatory except for these ones:
  (22) Number of entries requested: Should be Multiple entries.
  (26) The fields under this segment are only for Residence Visas, do not fill the details of your sponsor (if you have one) here.
  (30) Place and Date: The consulate location and the appointment date.
• Two Passport Size Photographs: In colour and with white background

2. Payment of Visa Fees: Can be done either through a demand draft in favour of CONSULATE GENERAL OF SPAIN or at the consulate using UPI.

3. Passport: I think it is safest to make sure that the passport is valid for at least a few months after the completion of your course. Also, if you have traveled internationally previously, you need to take a photocopy of all the existing visa stamps as well.

4. From the Educational Centre: Three things are required from the university as mentioned in the checklist — Admission Letter, Study Plan, Payment of Reservation/Tuition Fees. Usually, all three of these are mentioned from the university once you have reserved your seat. If you have not received any of these, you should reach out to the admissions department of your university.

5. Proof of Accommodation: This is the first of three of the most unnerving parts of your application if you do not plan on going with university accommodation and don’t have the resources to guide you. Not only from the application standpoint, your housing will be an important part throughout your education. I looked through several resources for accommodation and a lot of reviews from many platforms, and these are the places I feel are the best and safest to look for an accommodation:

• Spotahome: I went with spotahome for my accommodation. It is slightly more expensive since it charges a few hundred euros for the platform fee. But I felt it was very safe in my experience since it verifies houses and also provides you with a video with the house tour. I booked a spotahome apartment for three months and provided the receipt for the same as proof.
• Uniplaces: From what I have read, this seems a little less trustworthy than spotahome, but they also provide the verification feature along with a video tour of the house. Moreover, they provide you with a dedicated certificate that you can show for your visa application upon booking.
• Badi: This was one of the most trustworthy platforms as suggested by multiple sources. I did not go ahead with it since the rooms were above my budget. It’s possible that I was just looking during the wrong time.
• Idealista: Along with Badi, this was the most recommended platform to look for houses and the prices are reasonable as well. Unfortunately from my experience, the houses I applied to were looking for tenants in the immediate future or people who were in Spain already.
• Facebook Groups: I am listing this as one of the resources for your reference but it comes with a big warning. Facebook groups come with huge number of scammers and please beware if you are going to look on Facebook. A common way to identify scammers is that they have very few friends, joined Facebook very recently or the houses are dirt cheap. Also, I would suggest not to make a post saying that you are looking for houses since that’s the easiest way to attract scammers. Rather, look for posts listing houses and even in such cases, you can search for the house images on Google to verify if they are legit. These are the groups that I had joined — 1, 2, 3, 4.

6. Previous Qualifications: You will need to carry these documents:

• 10th Standard Marksheet
• 12th Standard Marksheet
• Undergraduate Transcripts
• Undergraduate Degree Certificate

7. Proof of Work Experience: You need to get a letter of employment if you had an employer on the company letter head, preferably stamped and signed as well

8. Economic Proof: This is the second document that can cause confusion if you are not planning to take a loan for your education. If you are not planning to take a loan, then you would need a minimum amount of balance that you would need to show in your savings and fixed deposits. Additional investments can act as supporting sources of income, but from what I have gathered, only account balance and FDs are treated as primary sources of income. The minimum amount of balance you would need would vary from place to place in Spain. For Barcelona, my university website had mentioned the living expenses for a month as €800–950, so I needed to show funds worth the upper limit per month which was €950 excluding the tuition if not paid. According the the study visa page, the minimum amount you would need for living expenses is 100% of the IPREM, which amounts to €600 for 2024. Though this amount might not be sufficient for all cities.

These documents would be needed to prove your economic means:

• Your ID Proofs — Aadhaar and PAN Card.
• Bank and FD statements from the last 6 months, signed and stamped by the bank. From my knowledge, the statements should not be older than 2 weeks from your appointment date. So you can get these documents the week before the appointment.
• Additionally, I think it is beneficial to have the bank balance statement as well from the bank signed and stamped. You can get this from any bank in the country when obtaining the statements.
• ITRs of the last three years. You can get this by going to the ITR website, then going to e-File > Income Tax Returns > View Filed Returns > Download Receipt for each year.
• Payslips from last 6 months.
• Investment Portfolio.
• Additionally, if you have a sponsor, you would need all documents (a) to (f) for the sponsor and also a notarized Affidavit of Support. You can find a few sample affidavits here.
• If you have taken a loan, then a certificate of the loan from the bank signed and stamped. I think you should carry all above documents regardless of whether you have taken a loan or not.

9. Police Clearance Certificate: This is the final document that may take a lot of time to process and obtain for your application. You need to take the PCC from the RPO and not the local PCC available for various states (I had applied for the local one by mistake in case of Maharashtra). I would suggest that you start work on this document first as you should assume at least 3 weeks for the certificate to arrive. This step requires a lot of proactivity as you might have to follow up with your police station multiple times to expedite your process.

10. Medical Certificate: You need to get a medical certificate from a clinic or hospital on their letter head, signed and stamped by the practitioner. The contents of a sample medical certificate are available here. Make sure your name and passport number is mentioned in the certificate.

11. Medical Insurance: Regarding the insurance, I reached out to the consulate, and they said they only accept insurance from Spanish companies operating or having its parent company in Spain. I took my insurance from Sanitas Bupa. You must reach out to them on their website and they will provide you with their price quotations. While filling the insurance form, you have the option of filling a separate form applicable for students which is the one I selected. The insurance needs to be taken for the entire duration of your studies.

12. A few extra documents in case of minors and representatives have been mentioned in the checklist that you may look into if they apply. I did not fall under those categories, so did not have to do either of them.

This concludes all the documents in the checklist provided by the consulate. Apart from these, a few documents that I submitted during my application process were.

13. Visa Cover Letter/Statement of Purpose: This was required for me when I had applied for a visa for a vacation and I recommend you to have one now as well. The letter must contain a brief description of:

• The course you have been accepted into.
• Your previous education and how it was relevant to what you are going to pursue.
• Any internship/work experience you have had.
• The reason for choosing this university.
• Your future plans after completing your studies.
• A summary of your financials.
• List of documents you are attaching with your application.

14. Curriculum Vitae/Résumé

15. Flight Tickets: Although it is not mentioned to be compulsory anywhere, I still went ahead with it due to the student offers that were being applied. I opted for Emirates as it was the most affordable. It also offered extra luggage and free date change and cancellation for students. You must show them a valid ID or your acceptance letter from the university for the same.

This covers all the documents I took for my appointment and I think one would need for the visa process. The next section covers the process of apostilling and getting your documents translated.

Apostille: You can think of apostilling as a step above basic notarization. In this case, your documents get stamped by the Ministry of External Affairs. You may get this done yourself, but the government provides a list of agencies that can get the apostille process done for you. They will get all steps done to get your documents apostilled. This process takes about 4–5 business days. I went with BLS International as it is the same agency responsible for visa appointment booking. The following is the minimum list of documents that you would need to get apostilled. You may get any other documents apostilled if you wish to. I also got my final year transcript apostilled:

1. PCC
2. Medical Certificate
3. University Degree Certificate

Sworn Translation: After apostilling, a few documents require a sworn translation. A sworn translation, unlike a simple translation, can only be done by a few people designated by a foreign office. More details are available here. In my case, BLS International also provides a translation service from sworn translators. This process took another 4–5 business days. These are the minimum set of documents you would need to get translated:

1. PCC
2. Medical Certificate

This completes all the documentation I had collected for my visa process. To book an appointment, you need to visit BLS International. You may find other useful information regarding the application process here as well. I booked my appointment 3 weeks prior to the actual appointment date. This may vary as you get closer to the course commencement season.

Just to reiterate, this guide is just to help everyone out because I can understand that the process can get overwhelming if you don’t have help. It is not an official/promotional article and you should cross-check everything with the official resources provided by the consulate. Hope this guide made the application process for the visa just a little simpler for you :)