Spain non-lucrative visa — what you must show

Spain's non-lucrative visa lets you live in Spain without working, and it forbids work outright. Real Decreto 1155/2024 requires 400% of IPREM a month, which is €2,400, plus 100% of IPREM for each dependant. You apply at the Spanish consulate for the district where you legally live, and the initial permit lasts one year.

What the visa is for, and what it forbids

Take the disqualifier first, because it is the one people find out about last.

The visado de residencia no lucrativa is for living in Spain without carrying on any work or profit-making activity. The name says it: no lucrativa, not profit-making. It is not a route for remote workers, freelancers, consultants who keep two clients at home, or anybody who intends to earn while they are there. There is a separate route for remote work, and it is not covered on this page.

What it is for is somebody who can support themselves from capital, a pension or investment income, and wants to live in Spain.

The money you must show

The regulation is Real Decreto 1155/2024, in force since 20 May 2025, and the article is 62, not the art. 47 of the old regulation that a great deal of English-language guidance still cites.

«a) Para su sostenimiento, durante su residencia en España, una cantidad que represente mensualmente en euros el 400 % del IPREM […] b) Para el sostenimiento de cada uno de los familiares a su cargo […] una cantidad que represente mensualmente en euros el 100 % del IPREM […] cantidad a acreditar de forma adicional a la referida en el apartado a) anterior.»

The Consulado General de España en Londres states the same thing in English: the minimum is 400% of IPREM, and 100% of IPREM is added for each family member in the applicant's care.

IPREM is the Indicador Público de Renta de Efectos Múltiples, a national benchmark figure used across Spanish administrative law. It is set by the annual budget act. There is no 2026 budget act, and there was none for 2024 or 2025 either, so under art. 134.4 of the Constitution the last one continues in force — a position the Ministerio de Hacienda publishes on a page of its own. The figure in force therefore comes from Ley 31/2022, disposición adicional nonagésima:

«b) El IPREM mensual, 600 euros. c) El IPREM anual, 7.200 euros.»

The Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal publishes the same monthly and annual figures and names Ley 31/2022 as their source.

The arithmetic, worked

The initial permit lasts one year under art. 61.4, and art. 62.2 requires the monthly figure to be shown for the whole period of the permit applied for.

| Who | Multiple | A month | For a 12-month permit | |---|---|---|---| | Main applicant | 400% of IPREM | 2,400 euros | 28,800 euros | | Each dependant | 100% of IPREM | 600 euros | 7,200 euros | | A couple, one dependent spouse | 500% of IPREM combined | 3,000 euros | 36,000 euros |

Those euro figures follow from 600 euros of IPREM. The consulate pages we could read publish the percentages rather than the euros, and the one consular page that does state the euro amounts is dated January 2025 and predates the current regulation. So take the percentages as the rule and the euros as arithmetic, and check IPREM at the moment you apply, because a budget act would move every figure in that table at once.

Where you apply, and why not in Spain

Three layers of the same answer.

Ley Orgánica 4/2000 art. 27.1 says a visa is applied for and issued at Spain's diplomatic missions and consular offices. RD 1155/2024 art. 26.1 requires the application to be made in person, at the consular office for the district where the applicant lives. And art. 63.1 applies that specifically to this visa, adding that applying for the visa is at the same time applying for the residence authorisation.

The London consulate operates that district rule literally: it asks for proof of legal residence in its consular district, and applications are lodged in person. Art. 38.b) of the regulation also makes it a condition that you are not in Spain unlawfully.

Read together: this is a route you take from where you live, before you go.

The NIE arrives with this route, and not with a purchase

This is the section that ties the two halves of this site together, and it is not on gov.uk, which predates the regulation by four years.

Art. 205.3 grants the NIE automatically on visa routes that allow a stay of more than 90 days in any 180 without a further permit. The non-lucrative visa is such a route. Then the same article excludes the other case:

«La concesión de oficio no se aplicará en el caso de las personas extranjeras que se relacionen con España por razón de sus intereses económicos, profesionales o sociales, que deberán interesar de dicho órgano la asignación del indicado número.»

So: if you come on this visa, the number arrives with it. If your only connection to Spain is that you bought a property there, it does not, and you apply yourself, in person. Buying a property is an economic interest. The whole of that separate procedure, including the five-day rule where silence means refusal, is on the NIE number.

What it does not give you

Not citizenship, and not a shortcut to it. Not a work permit, in any form. Not freedom to spend the year outside Spain: this is a residence route, and residence means living there. And not a tax answer — becoming resident in Spain has tax consequences that depend on your own circumstances and on the treaty position, and this site does not work them out for anybody.

Buying a property does not help your application and is not required by it. The two are separate decisions that people frequently take together, which is why they get confused.

What this page does not cover

The digital nomad route and the investor route. Both are outside this page, and we will say nothing about the current status of the investor route — a status claim about a visa is exactly the kind of statement that must not ship on second-hand evidence, and we have not read the instrument.

It also does not cover renewals, family reunification, healthcare arrangements or the appointment process at the visa centre.

What has to be arranged to live in Spain more broadly is on moving to Spain from the UK; the purchase is on buying property in Spain, what it costs is on what buying a property in Spain costs, and the Spanish terms are in the glossary.