Spain Visa Requirements

Spain applies the common Schengen visa list, so the answer is the same as for France or Italy. Citizens of these countries can visit visa-free for tourism, business meetings, family visits and short courses:

• North America and Oceania: United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand.
• UK and Europe outside the EU: United Kingdom, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, the Vatican, Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia (biometric passports).
• Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Panama and most of Central America.
• Asia and the Middle East: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao (SAR passports), Brunei, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

EU, EEA and Swiss citizens are not visitors in this sense: they can live and work in Spain freely. UK citizens have been third-country nationals since 2021 and are bound by the 90/180 rule like Americans.

The rolling window is what trips people up. On any day you are in the Schengen Area, count back 180 days: the days you spent anywhere in the 29 Schengen countries in that window must total 90 or fewer. Two months between Madrid, Seville and Barcelona, a week in Portugal and three weeks in Greece is 90 days, and you must then leave the whole area, not just Spain. Use the EU’s short-stay calculator before you book a long trip. Visa-free status does not allow paid work in Spain, though remote work for an employer abroad during a holiday is not checked at the border.

The EES replaced passport stamping for non-EU short-stay visitors. It started at selected border posts on 12 October 2025 and has been fully operational at every external Schengen border, including Spanish airports and ports, since 10 April 2026. On your first entry since the launch, the border guard or a self-service kiosk takes your passport details, four fingerprints and a facial image; children under 12 give a photo only. On later trips a face scan usually confirms you, and the system records every entry and exit automatically.

Three things change for you. First, the first crossing takes longer, so allow an extra 30 to 60 minutes at Madrid-Barajas, Barcelona-El Prat, Málaga and Palma in summer. Second, overstays are now flagged by computer, not by an officer counting stamps: if you leave on day 93, the system knows. Third, your passport stays clean, so keep your own record of dates. The EES applies to visa-free visitors and Schengen visa holders alike; it does not apply to EU citizens or to non-EU residents of Spain with a residence card.

ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorisation System) is an online pre-travel check for visa-exempt visitors from 59 countries travelling to 30 European countries. Once it runs, you fill in a form with your passport, address, job and travel plans and pay €20; most approvals arrive within minutes, and an authorisation lasts three years or until your passport expires. Travellers under 18 or over 70 apply but pay nothing.

As of October 2026, the European Commission states that ETIAS is not in operation and no applications are being collected. The EU has promised to announce the start date several months before launch, and a transition period during which ETIAS is optional is planned after that. Until the official site says otherwise, you do not need ETIAS for Spain, and any site charging you for one now is a scam or a reseller.

Citizens of India, China, South Africa, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Turkey, Russia, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and most of Africa and Asia need a Schengen short-stay visa. Apply to Spain if it is your main destination (the country where you spend the most days) or, with equal days, your first point of entry. Applications go through Spanish consulates or their outsourced centres (BLS International in many countries), up to six months and no later than 15 days before travel.

The fee is €90 for adults and €45 for children aged 6 to 11; under-6s are free. You need a passport issued in the last ten years with at least three months’ validity beyond your departure from Schengen and two blank pages, a return or onward ticket, hotel bookings or a host’s invitation letter, proof of funds, and travel medical insurance with at least €30,000 of cover valid in all Schengen countries. Decisions take 15 calendar days as standard and can stretch to 45; in India and China in spring and summer, appointment slots are the bottleneck, so book them two to three months ahead. Frequent travellers with a clean record can be given multi-entry visas valid for one to five years.

Visa-free visitors face the same core checks as visa holders, even if officers rarely ask for everything. Have these ready on a phone or on paper:

• Passport: issued within the last ten years and valid for at least three months after your planned departure from the Schengen Area.
• Return or onward ticket: a flight, train or ferry out of Schengen within your 90 days.
• Accommodation: hotel or apartment bookings, for example in Granada or Valencia, or a host’s address. A Spanish host can obtain a formal “carta de invitación” from the police if you need one.
• Funds: Spain sets the amount by its minimum wage. In 2026 that works out at roughly €120 per person per day, with a minimum of about €1,100 whatever the length of stay. Cards and a bank statement count.
• Travel insurance: required for visa holders and strongly advised for everyone else; Spanish public healthcare charges non-EU visitors.

Officers can refuse entry if your story does not add up, for example a one-way ticket and no booking. Refusals are now recorded in the EES. Customs rules are standard EU: declare cash of €10,000 or more, and do not bring meat or dairy products from outside the EU.

Spain has always required hotels to record guests’ passports, but Real Decreto 933/2021 extended the rule sharply. Since its reporting obligations took effect on 2 December 2024, every hotel, hostel, campsite, holiday apartment and car-rental company must send the Ministry of the Interior a long list of details within 24 hours: full name, passport or ID number and document support number, nationality, date and place of birth, home address, phone, email, number of travellers, the relationship between adults and any minors, and how you paid. Rental firms also record your driving licence and the vehicle.

In practice, through 2025 and 2026 this means online check-in forms that ask for far more than they used to, reception staff scanning every adult’s passport, and apartment hosts asking for documents before handing over the keys. It applies to every guest over 14. Refusing to provide the details can lead to the property refusing your stay, so have every traveller’s passport ready, not just the lead booker’s. Hotels in Catalonia and the Balearics collect tourist tax at the same time (see our Spain costs guide). Licensed short-term rentals must also show a national registration number on their listing; one without a number may be operating illegally and can be cancelled at short notice.

Extensions of a visa-free stay are almost never granted. Spain’s foreigners’ offices (Oficinas de Extranjería) extend only for serious force majeure, such as a hospital stay or a cancelled flight, and you must apply before your 90 days run out.

Overstaying is an administrative offence under Spain’s foreigners’ law. Fines start at around €500 and can reach €10,000, and serious or repeat cases lead to expulsion with an entry ban of up to five years across the Schengen Area. Because the EES now records exits, even a short overstay can cause trouble on your next trip anywhere in Schengen.

Long stays need a national visa or permit applied for separately. Spain’s digital nomad visa suits remote workers who earn about €2,850 a month from employers or clients outside Spain, and it can be applied for from inside Spain during a legal visa-free stay to receive a three-year residence permit; see our Spain digital nomads guide for the full process. The non-lucrative visa is for retirees and people with passive income and allows no work at all. Spain closed its property-investment golden visa in April 2025. Youth mobility (working holiday) schemes exist for some nationalities, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and South Korea.

Spain’s land borders with France and Portugal are internal Schengen borders, normally with no checks, though police can run temporary controls; carry your passport, as a driving licence is not a travel document. Three crossings work differently:

• Gibraltar: British territory outside Schengen. Walking from La Línea into Gibraltar means a full Schengen exit and re-entry through the EES, and days in Gibraltar do not count towards your 90.
• Andorra: outside Schengen and the EU, with customs checks on the way back into Spain for tobacco and alcohol. Visitors have no separate Andorran entry formalities, but a single-entry Schengen visa is used up when you leave for Andorra, so get a multiple-entry visa if you plan the trip.
• Morocco: ferries from Algeciras and Tarifa to Tangier take about an hour and leave Schengen, as does crossing from Ceuta or Melilla into Morocco. Ceuta and Melilla are in Schengen but keep identity checks on ferries and flights to mainland Spain.