Spain Spain — entry & visa requirements

General information

Spain sits inside the Schengen short-stay system, so the archived entry rules come from EU visa law rather than a separate Spanish visitor scheme. The material describes the Schengen visa, the 90-day stay limit and the principle that a visa never guarantees entry. It does not say which nationalities are visa-exempt.

• It covers tourism, business, family visits, medical treatment, study, unpaid internships or volunteering up to 90 days, plus territorial and airport transit.[1]
• Stays are limited to 90 days in any 180-day period.[1]
• The visa allows travel to any Schengen state but gives no automatic right of entry; border officers can refuse you if you cannot prove your trip's purpose and conditions.[1]
• If refused because of a Schengen entry ban, you can exercise access, correction and deletion rights over your SIS data via Spain's Interior Ministry.[1]

Required documents

For a Schengen short-stay visa you must submit a passport, a photograph, travel medical insurance with at least €30,000 of cover, evidence of your travel itinerary and the €90 visa fee. The source states that meeting the passport, insurance, fee and itinerary requirements is indispensable for a visa application to be admissible. The consular office may also ask for additional documents or a personal interview.

• Show proof of residence in the consular district and your full itinerary, including the Schengen entry point and inbound and outbound flights.[1]
• Travel medical insurance must cover at least €30,000, including repatriation and urgent or hospital care throughout the stay and across the Schengen area.[1]
• Applicants aged 12 and over pay a visa fee of €90 under Article 16 of the Visa Code.[1]
• Your passport must remain valid three months past your Schengen exit, have two blank pages, be under 10 years old, plus a data-page copy.[1]
• Bring a recent passport-size colour photo on a light background, front-facing, with no dark glasses, reflections or anything covering the face.[1]

How to apply

Applications are lodged with the Spanish consular office, which takes your biometrics and gives you a receipt with a tracking code. The legal decision deadline is 15 calendar days, extended to 45 when extra documents or an interview are needed. A refusal can be appealed within one month to the consulate or within two months to the High Court of Justice of Madrid.

• Your facial image and fingerprints are taken when you apply; under-12s and anyone fingerprinted in the last 59 months are exempt.[1]
• The consular office may ask for missing or additional documents, or call you to a personal interview.[1]
• The legal deadline for a decision is 15 calendar days from application, extendable to 45 days if extra documents or an interview are requested.[1]
• You receive a receipt with a code to track your application at https://sutramiteconsular.maec.es/Home.aspx.[1]
• If refused, you can lodge a reposición appeal with the consulate within one month, or go to the High Court of Justice of Madrid within two months.[1]

Notices & things to watch

The archived material for this tab contains no traveller-facing notices: it consists of consular menu items, a site legal notice and an automatic-translation disclaimer. The sources are thin here, so nothing operational can be reported beyond the legal basis below.

Legal basis

The only legal-basis material archived concerns document legalisation rather than visa law. It sets out an EU exemption for certain public documents and the rule that only originals or certified copies can be legalised.

• Certain public documents issued by EU member-state authorities on specified matters are exempt from legalisation or an apostille under EU Regulation 1191/2016.[5]
• Photocopies and laminated documents are not legalised, and a document is accepted only as an original or a certified copy from the body that issued it.[5]

Frequently asked questions

The archived FAQ page is general consular guidance on health cover and paperwork rather than a visa question-and-answer list. It stresses that medical treatment abroad can be very expensive and should be insured, and explains what the European Health Insurance Card does. Most other items on the page address Spanish nationals handling documents abroad and are not reproduced here.

• If you travel without adequate medical cover, hospital costs can fall on you and may be very high, so insurance should cover illness or accident during the trip, including medical evacuation.[7]
• Travellers with a European Health Insurance Card can use public health systems in the EEA and Switzerland on the same terms as nationals, including any co-payment or reimbursement rules.[7]