Spain Work Visa 2026: Types, Cost, Processing Time, How to Apply

Who needs a Spain work visa at all

• EU, EEA or Swiss citizen: no visa, no permit. Get your NIE and register (certificado de registro) within three months.
• Ukrainian under temporary protection: immediate right to work, until 4 March 2028.
• Everyone else, including Morocco, Colombia, Peru, Senegal, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh: an employer in Spain must obtain a residence and work authorisation for you first, and you then apply for the visa at the Spanish consulate. That route is below, together with the routes for people already in Spain.

Spain is unusual in Europe in that a large share of foreign workers got their status after arriving, through "arraigo" (rootedness) rules, rather than from abroad. The new immigration regulation in force since 20 May 2025 rewrote those rules and shortened the waiting times. Both doors are described here, because people searching for a Spanish work visa are often in one or the other situation.

The authorisation and visa types, with their Spanish names

• Autorizacion inicial de residencia temporal y trabajo por cuenta ajena: the standard employee authorisation, requested by the employer. The job must be on the shortage list (Catalogo de Ocupaciones de Dificil Cobertura, published quarterly by region) or the employer must prove no suitable candidate in Spain, through a certificate from the public employment service.
• Gestion colectiva de contrataciones en origen: the yearly collective hiring order, used mainly for seasonal agriculture (Huelva strawberries, Lleida fruit, Almeria greenhouses) and some stable jobs, with countries Spain has agreements with, such as Morocco, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras and Senegal.
• Arraigo: for people already in Spain. The 2025 regulation set the residence requirement at two years (down from three) and created five types: social, sociolaboral, familiar, socioformativo and the new "arraigo de segunda oportunidad". Arraigo sociolaboral needs a job offer of at least 20 hours a week.
• Visado de busqueda de empleo: a job-seeker visa for children or grandchildren of Spaniards and for a limited list of shortage occupations.
• EU Blue Card and highly qualified (Ley de Emprendedores): for graduates and senior staff; not a trades route.
• Visado nacional de trabajo (tipo D): the visa the consulate issues once the authorisation is granted.

The authority is the immigration office (Oficina de Extranjeria) of the province, under the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration. Its official pages are at inclusion.gob.es.

Who files what, and in which order

• Step 1, the employer files the authorisation request at the provincial Oficina de Extranjeria, with the contract, its tax and social security standing, and proof the job is on the shortage list or could not be filled. Since 2025 many provinces require this electronically.
• Step 2, the office decides, in theory within 3 months. Silence after that is a refusal (silencio negativo), which you can appeal.
• Step 3, you apply for the visa at the Spanish consulate within one month of the authorisation being notified, with the contract signed by both parties.
• Step 4, in Spain: within one month of entry the employer registers you with social security, and you apply for the foreigner identity card (TIE) at the police, with fingerprints.

Through the collective hiring order, the process is different again: the employer or growers' association files a group request, the Spanish authorities and your country's labour ministry select candidates, and the visa is issued for the season only. Workers who return each year and respect the dates are given preference, and after several seasons some have been offered a stable contract. For arraigo, you file yourself at the Oficina de Extranjeria, with proof of two years' continuous stay (registration in the town hall padron is the key proof), a clean criminal record in Spain and in your country, and, for sociolaboral, the job offer.

Official fees in euro

• Authorisation fee (tasa 062): about 210 euro for the employer's part and about 10 euro for the worker's part; the amounts are updated yearly.
• National visa: 80 euro; nationals of some countries pay different amounts under reciprocity, and nationals of Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and others pay less or nothing for certain visas.
• TIE card (tasa 012): about 16 to 22 euro.
• Arraigo: about 40 euro for the authorisation plus the TIE fee.
• Sworn translations and apostilles: usually 30 to 60 euro a page.

Figures as of October 2026; check the ministry's fee tables and the consulate's page for today's amounts. No employer or agent may charge you for the authorisation, the contract or the place in the collective hiring order; that is a criminal offence in Spain.

Processing time

• Employer authorisation: 3 months by law; in practice 2 to 6 months, longer in Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga, where offices carry large backlogs.
• Visa: 1 month by law from a complete application; appointment waits at Rabat, Casablanca, Dakar, Bogota and Islamabad add 1 to 3 months.
• Arraigo: 3 months by law; the 2025 regulation and extra staff brought many provinces down to 2 to 4 months, from the 6 to 9 months seen in 2023 and 2024.
• TIE: the police appointment (cita previa) can take 1 to 3 months to get in big cities.

From the employer's first file to your first day of work, 4 to 9 months is the honest range. It slips because provincial offices decide tens of thousands of files a year with small teams, and because each shortage-list check is province-specific.

Documents and the legalisation step

For the visa: passport, the authorisation decision, the signed contract, a criminal record certificate from every country you lived in for the last five years (apostilled or legalised, with a sworn Spanish translation), a medical certificate following the international health regulations wording, photos and the visa form. Spain insists on the apostille or consular legalisation for all foreign civil documents and on sworn translations (traductor jurado) rather than ordinary ones; this is the most common reason for a file to be returned.

Qualifications are not checked for most trades; nurses, electricians in regulated installations and drivers need recognition or licence exchange.

Reality check: what people get wrong about Spain

• Tourist entry then work: arriving on a Schengen visa and working is illegal, and the 2025 regulation did not change that; arraigo rewards time spent, not work done.
• Buying a contract: contracts sold for 3,000 to 10,000 euro, especially for agriculture and construction, have led to prosecutions of the sellers and to refused files for the buyers, because the office checks the employer's size against the number of contracts it offers.
• The shortage list: most manual trades are not on it in most provinces; the collective hiring order and arraigo are where most tradespeople actually enter.
• Language: Spanish is not required for the visa, but almost every job outside tourism requires it, and arraigo sociolaboral interviews are easier with it.
• Empadronamiento: register at the town hall from the first day you have an address; two years later it is the proof that makes arraigo possible.
• Family: reunification is possible after one year of legal residence with a renewed permit, adequate housing and income.
• Regional differences: Catalonia, Madrid, Andalusia and the Basque Country each have their own shortage list and office speed. The same job can be routine in one province and refused in the next.

Where this leaves you

Read the page for your own country: working in Spain from Morocco, from Bangladesh or from Pakistan. The trades Spain actually hires from abroad are covered in farm jobs in Spain, caregiver jobs in Spain and construction jobs in Spain, and the waiting times in detail in Spain work permit processing time.

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