Key takeaways
- Royal Decree 1155/2024 replaced Spain's immigration regulation on May 20, 2025, extending most permit renewals to four years, raising the dependent child age limit to 26, and merging residence and work authorization into a single application.
- Spain's Supreme Court annulled the provision that allowed immigration offices to cancel a temporary residence permit after six months abroad. Time outside Spain still counts toward long-term residency, but it no longer ends a permit on its own.
A consultant living in Madrid takes a seven-month contract in Frankfurt. She keeps her flat, keeps paying Spanish social security, and flies back for two weeks at Christmas. Under Spain's previous immigration regulation, an official could still terminate her residence permit when she came home, based on nothing more than the number of days she had been away.
Luckily for all freelancers residing in Spain, that rule is gone. Spain's Supreme Court annulled it, and it has since applied the same reasoning to other permit categories.
It is one of four developments that changed Spanish residency between 2023 and 2026. One of them concerns property investors, another applies to people already living in Spain without documentation, and its application deadline passed in June 2026. The remaining two are the ones that affect a skilled professional planning a move with existing clients or a job offer.
In this article, you will learn which reform applies to your situation, what changed for permit durations and family reunification, how the absence rules work now, and where immigration rules stop and tax rules begin.
A timeline of Spain's immigration changes
Here are the four changes, in the order they happened.
- From June 5, 2023: Spain's Supreme Court began limiting the rule that let permits be cancelled over long absences.
- April 3, 2025: The Golden Visa closed to new applicants.
- May 20, 2025: Spain replaced its entire immigration regulation.
- April 16 to June 30, 2026: A short-lived regularization program ran for people already living in Spain without legal status, then closed permanently.
The Golden Visa closure and the regularization program are both self-contained. Neither affects work residence permits, remote work routes, or family reunification. The Supreme Court doctrine and the regulation rebuild are the two that do, and everything below covers them.
Initial permits, renewals, and long-term cards
The 2025 reform changed how long Spanish residence permits last, and the effect builds up over a five-year stay.
Initial permits are standardized at one year. Under the previous regulation, they lasted anywhere from six months upward depending on the category and the case, which made planning difficult for applicants and employers alike.
Renewals now last four years for most temporary residence categories, up from two. Each renewal means an appointment, a document-gathering round, and a wait in a system where Extranjería offices have run backlogs for years, so halving the number of renewals before the five-year mark becomes relevant.
The non-lucrative visa is an exception. Article 64 of the updated regulation keeps its renewal period at two years, so the four-year figure does not apply to every category.
Long-term residence cards issued to holders aged 30 or over are now valid for ten years instead of five. Long-term status itself was always indefinite. What changed is how often you replace the physical foreigner identity card, with a fresh round of photographs and fingerprints each time.
There is also a procedural change that deserves as much attention as the durations. Legal residence and work authorization are now processed as one combined application instead of two procedures handled by separate offices. Anyone who has waited on one approval before being allowed to start the next will appreciate what that removes.
Family reunification under the new rules
Family reunification got the reform's widest expansion, and more than 42,000 permits were issued in the category during its first seven months.
What changed
The age limit for dependent children increased from 21 to 26. Family members of Spanish or EU citizens can receive a residence card valid for five years, with work authorization from the day it is granted rather than after a qualifying period. Unregistered partners in a genuinely stable relationship are now recognized alongside registered ones, and dependent ascendants (parents and grandparents) are included among the qualifying categories.
Arraigo familiar (family-ties residence) has no minimum prior residence requirement at all. The other four arraigo routes were reduced from three years to two.
What stayed the same
The evidence you need to provide. Applications still depend on documented proof of the family relationship, financial means, health coverage, and a criminal record certificate, with foreign documents legalized and translated into Spanish.
Processing speed still varies between regions. The regulation is written in Madrid and applied case by case in local Extranjería offices, so two identical files submitted in Valencia and Bilbao can take noticeably different amounts of time.
Absences and the six-month rule
Now, remember the consultant serving clients in Frankfurt we mentioned earlier?
Article 162.2(e) of RD 557/2011 was the rule that put her permit at risk. It let authorities cancel a temporary residence permit if the holder spent more than six months outside Spain within a one-year period. If your work meant long stretches abroad, a passport full of stamps could genuinely cost you your work permit at renewal time.
Spain's Supreme Court invalidated that provision in 2023. It reasoned that under the Constitution, freedom of movement is a protected right, and a restriction on it that big, can only come from an organic law passed by parliament, not a regulation. The Court has held to that position ever since, and in 2026 it went further, applying the same logic to EU family member cards by annulling the equivalent rule in Royal Decree 240/2007.
Which judgment applies to you
This happened over three years rather than in a single decision. If your permit was terminated because of an absence at any point since 2023, that history may give you grounds for appeal, and the termination date determines which judgment applies to your case.
What the ruling didn't change
Two limits are important here.
Physical presence still counts toward long-term residence and citizenship applications. Every permit category keeps its own conditions on income, activity, and health coverage. The ruling removed an automatic penalty without making your time in Spain irrelevant.
The second limit concerns durability. The annulled provision was written into a regulation rather than an organic law, so parliament could still pass something similar at the higher legislative level the Court now requires. The Court itself even suggested lawmakers might want to. Immigration specialists treat the position as unsettled, so keeping your own record of days in and out of Spain is still a good idea.
Immigration rules vs. tax rules
The absence rule was an immigration rule. It governed whether an immigration office could cancel your permit and nothing more. Tax residency is decided by different authorities under a completely separate test, and the Supreme Court judgments did nothing to it.
You can now spend seven months abroad without risking your residence permit and still find your Spanish tax position works out differently than you expected. The tax side, including how days are counted and what triggers residency, is covered in the guide to tax residency in Spain.
A note on sources and reliability
A note on how reliable these figures are, since the rules here keep changing.
The permit durations, the arraigo restructuring, and the family reunification changes come from the text of RD 1155/2024. The Supreme Court judgments are identified by number and date in professional legal commentary.
The 42,000 family permit figure and the ten-year long-term card provision don't come from a single consolidated Spanish government portal. They come from immigration law firms instead, and multiple independent sources back them up. If you have a filing deadline approaching, confirm the current requirements with your "Extranjería" office or a licensed gestor before acting.
How Hightekers can help
The reforms made Spanish residency more workable for people whose work moves them around. But these reforms didn't change the requirement underneath every permit category: documented income, valid health coverage, and social security contributions that pass review when your renewal file comes up
Those are the first things to go wrong when you relocate as a freelancer and handle registration, contributions, and insurance yourself alongside a full client workload. A month without coverage or a late contribution during a quiet quarter can easily become a document problem two years later, at the least convenient moment.
Hightekers employ freelancers in Spain directly, so contributions and coverage go through payroll instead of being assembled by hand before a renewal. You keep your own clients and set your own rates. Hightekers issues the employment contract, handles invoicing and compliance, and operates in Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UAE.
Another angle to be aware of is tax, which depends on the same thing: being an employee rather than self-employed. Spain's special expat tax regime, commonly known as the Beckham Law, lets qualifying newcomers pay a flat 24% rate on Spanish-sourced income up to €600,000, instead of the standard progressive rates that can go up to 47%, for the year of arrival plus the following five years. Beckham Law is designed for employees and company directors, but ordinary freelancers are excluded from it. Working through an employment contract makes the regime relevant in the first place, but whether you're eligible or not still depends on your specific situation, including where you lived for the five years before you moved.
See what employment through Hightekers looks like in Spain, and get a simulation of your day rate before you commit to a start date.
FAQ
What are the new rules for residency in Spain?
Initial residence permits are now granted for one year. Most renewals get four years instead. Non-lucrative visas stay at two years, and permanent residence cards go to holders aged 30 and over, valid for ten years. Separately, Spain's Supreme Court annulled the provision that allowed permits to be cancelled after six months abroad.
Can I lose Spanish residency by spending six months abroad?
Not automatically. The Supreme Court invalidated the provision that let immigration authorities terminate a temporary residence permit over absence alone. Time outside Spain still counts toward long-term residence and citizenship applications, and every other permit condition still applies.
How long does a Spanish residence permit last now?
Initial permits are granted for one year, and most renewals for four. The non-lucrative visa stays at two years, while long-term residence cards issued to holders aged 30 and over are valid for ten.
Can I bring my adult children to Spain?
The dependent child age limit went from 21 to 26 under the reform, so children up to 26 can qualify if you can show they depend on you financially. Family members of Spanish or EU citizens also receive a five-year card with immediate work rights.
Is the Golden Visa still available?
Not anymore. Organic Law 1/2025 closed it to new applicants on April 3, 2025. Existing holders can renew under transitional provisions, but the property investment route is unavailable to anyone applying now.
Does the 2026 regularization still accept applications?
No. Royal Decree 316/2026 opened applications on April 16, 2026, and closed them for good on June 30, 2026, applying only to people who could show they moved to Spain before January 1, 2026.
