Spain forms part of the European Union; in other words, it is a member of the “Schengen Convention.” Any legal resident from a Schengen country, plus citizens of the UK, Ireland, Iceland & Norway, do not need a visa to enter the country.

If you are from a member-country of the Schengen agreement - Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, plus Iceland and Norway (which are not EU members)- you do not need a passport to enter Spain. An official national ID card will suffice.

Citizens from EU countries that do not form part of the Schengen agreement must carry a valid passport to enter Spain. No visa is necessary though. These are the UK and Ireland, as well as new members of the EU that do not yet participate in Schengen are Cyprus (joined in 2004) and Bulgaria and Romania (joined in 2007).

Citizens of many other countries do not need a visa to enter for a stay of less than 90 days: Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and the US are among them. If you are planning on staying for longer than 90 days, you must check with the Spanish consulate nearest you.

Student visas are not that difficult to obtain, provided that your program provides the necessary paperwork. Even in this case, however, you can plan on the process taking at least a month. (Spanish bureaucracy can be frustrating, to say the least).  In order to work in Spain it is necessary to have an official offer from a company in Spain. These types of visas are not easy to get for non-EU citizens.

Any member of a country not mentioned above should check their local consulate for visa requirements.

Most countries’ Spanish embassies are located in Madrid, however many have consulates in either Alicante or nearby Valencia. Here is a list of some of them:

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