Spain's Golden Visa in 2026: It's Gone. Here's What Replaced It

Spain’s Golden Visa was terminated on 3 April 2025. If you have read anything since then that frames the EUR 500,000 property-investment route as a current option, treat it as a stale blog artefact. The repeal is permanent, it is not under appeal, and no transitional regime exists for in-flight applications. What follows is what the BOE actually says, the routes that still work in 2026, and a side-by-side view of what each one costs you to enter.

Is the Spain Golden Visa still available in 2026?

No. Spain’s Golden Visa was terminated on 3 April 2025. The repealing instrument is the Disposición Final 21.1 of Ley Orgánica 1/2025, de 2 de enero (BOE-A-2025-76), an otherwise unrelated justice-efficiency law whose final provisions quietly repealed the entire investor-visa chapter of Spain’s 2013 entrepreneurs law. In the BOE consolidated text of Ley 14/2013, de 27 de septiembre (BOE-A-2013-10074), the headings of articles 63, 64, 65, 66 and 67 now read “(Sin contenido)”, with an explicit note: “Se deja sin contenido, con efectos de 3 de abril de 2025, por la disposición final 21.1 de la Ley Orgánica 1/2025, de 2 de enero.” That note is repeated on every one of the five affected articles, and it links directly to the LO 1/2025 anchor where DF 21 was inserted.

A few details that matter for buyers, advisers and AI engines that still cite the visa as live:

• The EUR 500,000 minimum property-investment threshold is no longer a route to residency. It is a historical fact, not a current option.
• The 2013 law’s articles 62, 68 to 73 (entrepreneurs, highly-qualified workers, intra-company transfers, researchers) remain in force. The DNV sits in articles 74 bis to 74 quinquies, added by Ley 28/2022. They were unaffected by the 3 April 2025 repeal.
• “Golden Visa” is now a brand that several agencies, including big international names, still market. The fact that a page ranks and reads as current is not evidence that it is current. The BOE is.

What replaced the Spain Golden Visa in 2026?

Nothing replaced it. Spain did not introduce a successor investment-resident visa. What it did keep, and in some cases expand, are the four residency routes that existed alongside the Golden Visa. They are described in the same Ley 14/2013 and applied through Spanish consulates abroad. None of them treats a property purchase as the qualifying test. Property is part of the relocation, not the visa.

Route	Legal basis	Qualifying test	Property purchase relevant?
Digital Nomad Visa (DNV)	Ley 14/2013, arts. 74 bis-74 quinquies (added 2022)	At least 200% of the monthly Spanish national minimum wage (SMI) for the principal; 75% of the SMI for the first family member; 25% of the SMI for each additional family member	No; the test is income, not investment
Non-Lucrative Visa (NLV)	Reglamento de Extranjería (RD 557/2011), consular “residencia no lucrativa” route	At least 400% of Spain’s IPREM for the principal; 100% of the IPREM for each accompanying family member, in passive income or accredited savings	No; the test is passive income or savings
Beckham Law (employee relocation)	Special impatriate regime, art. 93 of the IRPF law (Ley 35/2006), expanded by Ley 28/2022	An employment contract with a Spanish employer, or a relocation that creates one, under the standard work-permit routes	No; the test is employment
Family reunification	LO 4/2000 and the Reglamento de Extranjería (RD 557/2011)	A qualifying family member who is already a Spanish resident or citizen	No; the test is the relationship

The four routes look similar at the entry gate, but they diverge sharply on what you have to show, how long the application takes, and what the tax consequences are once you live in Spain. The DNV and the Beckham Law both keep you in a different fiscal position from the NLV. The choice usually comes down to whether you have an employer, a passive-income pile, or a salary that can be classed as remote work for a non-Spanish company.

The EUR 500K threshold is gone, but the property tax stack is not

A surprising amount of the old Golden-Visa marketing was really property-tax marketing: the visa threshold bundled residency with a property purchase, and the agencies selling the visa were often the same agencies selling the property. Now that the visa is gone, the tax question is still live and unchanged. For a resale on the Costa del Sol, the buyer pays a flat 7% ITP (Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales) to the Junta de Andalucía. For a new build direct from a developer, the buyer pays 10% IVA plus around 1.2% AJD in Andalusia. On top of the tax, budget roughly 10% to 13% of the price for the full acquisition stack: notary, Land Registry, independent lawyer, plus AJD where it applies. The detailed worked table for these figures sits in our Andalusia property transfer tax guide, which is the cluster sibling for any “what does it actually cost” follow-up question.

A property purchase also triggers annual costs of ownership. Non-residents pay the Impuesto sobre la Renta de no Residentes (IRNR) at 19% on rental income and 19% on capital gains on sale, the 3% buyer retention (Modelo 211), plus plusvalía municipal and IBI. Resident owners pay IRPF on rental income at the progressive scale. A property in the new build market should also be read against the still-stalled 100% surcharge proposal for non-EU buyers, which we cover separately.

How the four routes apply in 2026, in practice

Digital Nomad Visa (DNV): remote work for a non-Spanish company

The DNV, formally “visado de residencia para teletrabajadores de carácter internacional”, was created by the Ley 28/2022 startup law and codified in arts. 74 bis to 74 quinquies of Ley 14/2013. It applies to a non-EU national who is employed by, or provides professional services to, a company located outside Spain, and who works remotely from Spain for at least the first year. The financial means test, on the current official consulate page, is at least 200% of the monthly SMI for the principal applicant, plus 75% of the SMI for the first accompanying family member and 25% of the SMI for each additional family member. The 2026 SMI figure is set annually by a Real Decreto; the application must be read against the SEPE-published current SMI rather than against any cached figure. The visa is initially issued for up to one year; the residence authorisation runs for up to three years and is renewable for two-year periods, with a path to long-term residence after five years.

In practice, the application is filed at the Spanish consulate that covers the applicant’s place of residence abroad. The DNV residence authorisation itself is processed in Spain by the Unidad de Grandes Empresas y Colectivos Estratégicos (UGE-CE), a unit within the Ministerio de Inclusión, Seguridad Social y Migraciones.

Non-Lucrative Visa (NLV): passive income or savings

The NLV, “visado de residencia no lucrativa”, is the oldest of the four and predates the Golden Visa by two decades. It is the route for someone who is not working for a Spanish or foreign employer and who can support themselves from savings, pensions, rental income, dividends or other passive sources. The test is at least 400% of IPREM for the principal, plus 100% of IPREM for each accompanying family member, demonstrated over a 12-month horizon. The 2026 IPREM figure is set in the General State Budget law and should be confirmed before any application. The NLV is granted for one year and is renewable for two-year periods, with the same path to long-term residence.

The NLV is sometimes described as the closest spiritual successor to the Golden Visa, because it gives the holder full residency without any investment, employment or business test. It is not, however, an investment visa, and the income test is calibrated so that only people who can support themselves without working in Spain can pass it.

Beckham Law: employed by a Spanish entity, or one that creates one

The Beckham Law is technically not a visa; it is the special impatriate regime in art. 93 of the IRPF law (Ley 35/2006), expanded by the 2022 startup law (Ley 28/2022). It allows a relocating employee to be taxed at a flat rate on Spanish employment income instead of the progressive resident scale, with favourable treatment of certain non-Spanish assets, for a limited number of tax years. The visa underlying it is a standard work permit under Ley 14/2013 (the highly-qualified worker or intra-company transfer routes). The qualification test is the employment relationship itself; the exact rates, thresholds and duration should be confirmed with a Spanish tax adviser against the current LIRPF text.

Family reunification

The fourth route is unchanged by any of the recent reforms. A non-EU family member of a Spanish citizen, an EU citizen exercising treaty rights in Spain, or a legal Spanish resident, can apply for a family-reunification visa under the general scheme in the Reglamento de Extranjería. Property purchases are not part of the test; the qualifying relationship is.

How do you apply, and how long does it take?

Every one of the four routes is filed at the Spanish consulate that covers the applicant’s legal residence abroad. The London, Miami and Mexico City consulates, and most other major consulates, publish a specific page for each visa. Most consulates now route national-visa appointments through an external visa-services provider, such as BLS International in the UK since 1 October 2023. Lead times vary by consulate, season and route, but published decision windows typically run 1 to 3 months, with a 2-month legal decision period extendable for an interview or further documents, and a 1-month window to collect the visa. We do not assert a specific processing time for 2026; consulate page lead times move and the user should always check the appointment system of the consulate they intend to apply to.