Spain's nomad visa is open. Law Society guide is not news
The Law Society recirculated 'Digital nomad visas in Spain: a practical guide for UK solicitors', dated 12 July 2023. That is not a launch notice from this week. The Consulate in London already takes digital nomad visa files, and the foreign ministry's Washington telework sheet prints the 2026 means test.
What the Law Society printed
On 12 July 2023 The Law Society ran Digital nomad visas in Spain: a practical guide for UK solicitors (Giorgio Guarneri, Fieldfisher Spain). The piece opens by saying Spain has recently implemented a residence permit for digital nomads, names Law 28/2022 of 21 December 2022, and walks UK solicitors through who may apply, the one-year consular visa versus the up-to-three-year in-Spain authorisation, the 20% Spanish-client ceiling for self-employed work, and document tips. It frames the route as lifestyle colour for the profession — “exciting opportunity”, “vibrant culture” — and closes with ¡Buen viaje!
It does not print a euro income floor. Under “Other requirements” it asks for “financial stability” via income, savings or a work contract. That wording is a secondary practice note. It is not a Spanish immigration circular, a BOE change, or a new open/close date. The RSS hit is the same July 2023 article recirculating.
What the consulates publish today
Spain’s digital nomad (telework) visa is open. For applicants who live in the United Kingdom, the page that takes the file is the foreign ministry’s London sheet — Digital Nomad Visa (dated 17 May 2024). It says the visa is for foreigners who will live in Spain as residents while working remotely for a company or employer outside Spain, using computer and telecommunications systems. Self-employed applicants may also work for a Spanish company, up to 20% of their professional activity. The applicant needs an N.I.E. before the visa file. Hand-in is at BLS Spain Visa Application Centre, 20 St Andrew Street, London EC4A 3AG. The legal decision period is 10 days, extendable if the Consulate asks for more papers or an interview. The visa itself runs at most one year.
The feed’s primary official URL — the Consular Section of the Embassy of Spain in Washington’s Telework (Digital nomad) Visa sheet — is the same programme for the Washington district, not the UK filing desk. A Washington page is the wrong sheet for someone applying from the UK. We already covered that US-district route separately: Spain’s telework visa — Washington goes through BLS. The Spain page already marks the programme active.
The income figure, as the pages give it
The Law Society leaves the money test as “financial stability”. London states the formula without printing a 2026 euro floor: at least 200% of Spain’s monthly national minimum wage (SMI) for the applicant alone, plus 75% of the SMI for the first family member and 25% for each further family member. Its SMI link still points at a 2024 SEPE notice.
Washington is the sheet that prints the 2026 numbers. It gives the SMI as €1,221 for 2026:
- applicant alone: 200% of the monthly SMI — €2,442 a month (the page writes “approx. $ 2900”; that is the consulate’s conversion, not a separate dollar threshold)
- first family member: add 75% — €916
- each further family member: add 25% — €306
We do not invent a figure The Law Society declined to print. The graded conversion — and the known disagreement between consular and in-Spain readings of the same 200% rule — sits on the Spain page.
Open, not a 2023 “recently implemented” notice
Nothing on the London or Washington sheets is a response to a solicitors’ practice note. Both list documents, fees, the BLS address, and a decision clock. Foreigners already legally in Spain can apply for a telework residence permit of up to three years to the Ministry of Inclusion’s Large Companies unit (UGE-CE) without a prior telework visa — the same split The Law Society described in 2023.
A July 2023 guide for UK solicitors recirculating in November 2026 does not change that status. The novelty is in the secondary headline. The consular checklists were already there.
If London rewrites the SMI line or the BLS note, tell us.
Everything above is taken from The Law Society’s 12 July 2023 article, the Consulate General of Spain in London’s Digital Nomad Visa page, and the Consular Section of the Embassy of Spain in Washington’s Telework (Digital nomad) Visa page, checked on 2 November 2026.
The row behind this
Every figure this post relies on lives on a country page with its source and its confidence grade beside it. That is where it gets corrected, and where it stays current after the post stops being news.
- Spain — Digital Nomad Visa (Teletrabajadores)
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