My dear readers and fellow Spain-digital-nomads-to-be: I want to warn you that becoming a digital nomad in Spain is not for the faint of heart. I’ve been working through this Spain digital nomad checklist for the past two+ months, as we’ve been going through the steps ourselves, and writing it all down has really caused me to reflect on la locura of the whole process.
I really hope that this Spain digital nomad checklist can be helpful, but there are a few disclaimers I want to give. First of all, I lived in Spain as a language assistant through the NALCAP program from 2018-2020. For that reason, I had some advantages when it came to several items. Not only did I already have a Spanish bank account, but I was familiar with the processes for getting a TIE and empadronamiento.
Another thing I should mention is that, because of me already having a bank account, we didn’t necessarily complete all these steps in the order below. (While Matt had never lived in Spain before and didn’t have a Spanish bank account, he was able to skate by with me until we got to the point where he needed to register as autónomo.) Also, we are living in Alicante in the Comunidad de Valencia, and a lot of things will vary based on your community/province.
While I’ve tried to put these Spain digital nomad checklist steps in an order that I think makes sense, the honest truth is that you may feel stuck in a circle of missing documents at some points. For example, you may need a Spanish bank account to set up bills at your apartment. But considering all the necessary documents you need to set up a bank account, it’s unlikely you’d have everything until at least a month after your arrival in Spain. This is just how Spain works. Try not to scream and keep asking for help (perhaps hiring a gestor, which is step #5, would work better as step #1 instead).
With all that in mind, here’s my Spain digital nomad checklist in 10 steps.
1. Find an Apartment
Finding an apartment will likely be your main concern as soon as you arrive in your chosen city in Spain. But unfortunately, the apartment search may not be easy. Finding an apartment can be tough no matter where you are in the world, but finding an apartment as a digital nomad in Spain can be extra tricky.
Many landlords or real estate agents will simply refuse to show you their properties if you don’t have a paycheck coming from a Spanish company. That’s because a Spanish payroll is needed for seguro de impago, or non-payment insurance. If a landlord isn’t able to take out this insurance on their tenants, they may feel the situation is too risky. While we ran into this a few times, explaining our jobs to our landlord when we first met her, and offering to provide our bank statements was enough to make her feel comfortable renting to us.
With all that in mind, here’s what I recommend for finding an apartment in Spain. First, book hotels or Airbnbs for at least your first 10 days in Spain, so you have somewhere to stay while you work on finding an apartment. Then, download Idealista before you even leave your home country, and start looking at what’s available in your preferred city. Take note of the prices as well.
A couple of days before you come to Spain, use the Idealista app to start reaching out about scheduling apartment viewing appointments. That way, you can hit the ground running soon after you arrive. Be sure to cast a wide net with your apartment search and don’t get your heart set on one place. While it can take some time to find an apartment, eventually something will work out. If you have to stay in an Airbnb for a while, it’s not a big deal. You can use a temporary address on your TIE.
2. Buy a SIM Card + Set Up Wi-Fi
Once you have an apartment, it’s time to get set up so you can do your job. Oh yeah, that thing that you promised the Spanish government you have, that makes you money, that made it legal for you to get here in the first place.
Anyway, you probably need Wi-Fi! It took us a few days to get it set up, so we actually continued working from our hotel for a few days even once we’d moved into our new place. Internet and cell service is really cheap in Spain compared to the U.S., and I recommend getting a Spanish SIM card at the same time you sign up for your internet provider.
On a daily basis, I typically use my American phone and T-Mobile cell service, and Matt uses his American phone with an Airalo e-SIM card. But I also brought an old iPhone from home, unlocked it, and put a Spanish SIM card in it. It’s really useful to have a Spanish phone number for a variety of reasons. There are so many online forms you need to fill out for various things, and when they ask for a phone number, they don’t always accept non-Spanish phone numbers. And then you can’t move forward without entering one.
Our phone/internet provider is Simyo. I think you can sign up online, but I signed up in person and set everything up that way. For €35.99 a month, we’re getting super-fast internet (1Gb), 20 gigs of cellular data (and unused data rolls over to the next month), and unlimited phone calls. Considering we pay about $77 for just internet at home… this is a crazy good deal!
3. Schedule & Attend Your TIE Appointment
If you worked with a lawyer to get your digital nomad visa, like we did, they may help you with this next step on my Spain digital nomad checklist. While I had gone through the process of applying for my TIE, or Tarjeta de Identidad Extranjero, when I lived in Madrid before, appointments seem really tough to come by these days. So when our lawyer, David, told us he could schedule our appointments for us for an added fee, we went with it.
David provided all the forms we needed to bring to our TIE appointment, but there are a few things you’ll need to take care of on your own. First, you’ll need to bring two passport-size, passport-style photos. You can either take and print them yourself before you arrive (like we did), or you can find a “fotos de carnet” photobooth somewhere near you, and pay €5 for the machine to take and print your photos automatically.
The other thing you’ll need to do — and this could be tricky if you haven’t set up your bank account yet — is pay a tax, Tasa Modelo 790 012, in person at a bank near you. Here’s why it kind of sucks: if you don’t have a Spanish bank account, and you go to a bank where you aren’t a client, you can only pay this tax during certain hours on certain days. Normally, it’s something like “before 10 a.m. on Tuesdays or Thursdays.” Definitely don’t put this step off until the last minute, because (like all bureaucracy in Spain) there’s a good chance you’re not going to be able to accomplish a task the first time you try. Be sure to do your research about the hours of availability for this type of service.
Once you’ve attended your TIE appointment, you’ll have to come back to the same office about four weeks later to pick up your TIE card. In some communities, you may need to make an appointment for pickup.
One other note — don’t worry if you’re still living in an Airbnb or hotel when you register for your TIE. While most types of visas require you to have your empadronamiento for your proof of address with your TIE, the digital nomad visa does NOT require that. We had our TIE appointment before we got our apartment, so we just used our Airbnb address on our cards. You could even use a hotel address. It’s not a big deal.
4. Get Your Empadronamiento
While you may be able to get your empadronamiento without your TIE, I waited until I knew we would have ours before I scheduled our appointment, so your mileage may vary. With this step, you’re essentially registering yourself as a resident of your community with the city/town hall. Not only is an empadronamiento necessary for you to access public services, but it also the way that Spain conducts its census. So all residents of Spain — foreigners and locals alike — must register themselves any time they move to a new address.
We scheduled this appointment ourselves through Alicante’s government portal, and each city’s portal will look a little bit different. But typically, you’ll need to bring your application form, your ID (passport and TIE card), a copy of your rental contract, and a copy of your landlord’s ID card. When we went to our appointment, we didn’t have the copy of our landlord’s ID card. Luckily, the police officer said we could send it via email as soon as we got it, so I texted our landlord and asked for a copy. I sent it over later that night, and the next day, we received our official empadronamiento documents via email.
5. (Optional, but recommended) Hire a Gestor
Here’s a fun fact about Spain that you might not know, but will definitely be like “yeah, that makes sense,” once I tell you. In Spain, there is so much bureaucracy that there is a special job that exists for people to take care of it for you. A gestor is not an accountant, and they’re not a lawyer, but you can hire one for a monthly fee to essentially be your personal administrator.
After doing some research about all the obligations of autónomos from a legal status and tax perspective, I decided it would be better to bite the bullet and hire a gestor. We ended up going with a company called “Entretramites,” which was recommended by other autónomos in a Facebook group I’m in. Their monthly fee is €35 + VAT. We were matched with our own personal gestor who helped us complete the autónomo registration and get our digital certificate; she’ll also help ensure we’re doing things right when it comes to taxes.
While we may not use a gestor forever, I think it’s a good idea as we get started here in Spain and try to figure out the way of the world. In the future, we may feel like we know what to do on our own. But for now, I’m glad to have someone holding my hand.
6. Open a Spanish Bank Account
If you’re from the U.S., you may be surprised to find upon your arrival to Spain that many things can only be paid for with a Spanish or European bank account. Again, I’m lucky that I already had a Spanish bank account from when I lived in Madrid, so my return to Spain has been smooth from a banking perspective.
If you’re in Madrid, I highly recommend CityLife Madrid to help you get set up with a Banco Sabadell account — they’ll help you schedule an appointment with an English-speaking banker. This is what I did all those years ago, and I had a great experience! Just scroll down about 2/3 of the way down the CityLife Madrid page, fill in your details, and they’ll contact you via email to facilitate an appointment.
Otherwise, you may need to head into the branch of a bank near you to set up your account. I went with Matt to Banco Santander, which I heard from some people in my Spanish class was best for people over age 30 as they don’t charge any maintenance fees (banking under age 30 is typically free).
In order to open an account, he needed to bring his TIE, empadronamiento, and a translated copy of our client contract that we used when applying for our digital nomad visa. However, the banker did tell us that once Matt registered as autónomo, he would need to submit his autónomo registration form. They called and emailed us almost every day for two weeks before we finally completed steps #7 & #8 and were able to send it to them.
7. Get Your Digital Certificate
I had a vague familiarity with the concept of a digital certificate from when I lived in Madrid before. Essentially, a digital certificate is a an electronic ID that verifies your identity when you’re working through government processes online. For example, when you submit your taxes. But the first step to getting your digital certificate is by presenting in person at an office with your passport and TIE to prove your identity.
In Madrid, I needed to get my digital certificate to pay taxes for the first time in spring of 2020, but there were no in-person appointments due to the pandemic. I did some sort of video call where I had to hold up my passport and TIE to the camera.
This time, the experience was obviously quite a bit different. Our gestor, Melissa, scheduled us our digital certificate appointments, and we had to go to a customs office (Aduana) here in Alicante. Besides our passports and TIEs, we had to bring a code that our gestor had sent us via email. But as far as the appointment itself, the whole thing was pretty chill for Spanish standards, and it only took about 5 minutes.
If you schedule your own digital certificate appointment, you’ll receive a code via email that you’ll need to use to activate your computer as your digital ID. Our gestor received all the info and passed it along to us, along with some handy set-up videos in English.
8. Register as Autónomo
Once you’ve got your digital certificate, you can officially register as autónomo. (I think?) Again, this is something Melissa took care of for us. When she sent us all the official forms, I didn’t understand what any of it meant, so I’m really glad I didn’t have to figure out how to do it on my own.
If you don’t hire a gestor, I truly have no idea what steps you’d need to take. I wouldn’t recommend trying to do it on your own unless you’re fluent in Spanish legalese. Even if you don’t want to hire a gestor “full time,” some companies offer a one-time registration service. For example, Entretramites offers simple autónomo registration for €58 + VAT.
Now, once you’re registered as autónomo, it’s time to start making your monthly estimated tax payments and Social Security contributions. We’re just now getting into that, and maybe it will be another blog post sometime soon, but for now I’m just trying to keep my head above water as we figure it all out. 😅
9. (Optional) Sign up for Private Health Insurance
I didn’t originally plan to sign up for private health insurance, as I knew we’d be covered under the public system. (Eventually.) But when I started researching how we could get health coverage during visits back to the U.S., I found out that it was way more cost effective to just pay for a private health insurance plan in Spain. That’s because a year’s worth of health insurance in Spain — which includes coverage in the U.S. with the U.S. health care add-on — was about the same cost as paying for a separate travel insurance plan each time we went back to the U.S. for a visit. (I wrote a whole blog about getting private health care in Spain.)
We ended up getting a plan through Sanitas, which is one of Spain’s biggest health insurance providers. They have English-speaking insurance reps which made the process a lot easier, and we were even able to get a special plan for self-employed workers that is about $35/month per person. Not only does it provide us access to the whole private health network of providers and services, much quicker than we could access the public ones, but we’ll have coverage in the U.S. when we visit.
The process actually took kind of a long time because we started the application before we had all of our self-employed/autónomo registrations complete, and they needed that information to officially set up our plan. We had to fill out some health questionnaires, provide copies of our passports/TIEs, and I also had to talk on the phone about a previous health condition before our health insurance registration was complete. We also needed a Spanish bank account for this type of policy, which wasn’t a problem, but it’s something to keep in mind.
Once we were registered, I was able to schedule a next-day video appointment to get a Spanish prescription for a medication I’ve been taking for years. The whole process took less than 24 hours and was covered by my new health plan. (Fun fact: Trying to accomplish the same thing in the U.S. last spring took me five months to get an in-person appointment, and then the 10-minute visit cost me $400 even though I had insurance. 🙃)
10. Register for Public Services
Out of all the steps on this Spain digital nomad checklist, this is the one that’s probably going to vary the most based on the autonomous community you’re living in. That’s because the public services, such as health care, are administered by communities — not the federal government. (And remember, the autonomous communities are similar to states in the U.S.)
Residents of the Comunidad de Valencia can get a “SIP card,” which is short for Sistema de Información Poblacional. After several emails to the SIP card department of the Valencian government, they were unable to give me a list of documents I would need to bring to my local health center to register for the card. One day when I was in a good mood, I decided I was going to give it a shot in the dark.
I got a copy of my empadronamiento printed, as well as my Modelo 036 (autónomo registration form) and a document from the Social Security office that Melissa had sent along with the Modelo 036. I also grabbed my passport, my TIE, and a photocopy of each. So I found my “Centro de Salud”– health center — nearest me, took a deep breath, and went in.
Upon entering, there was a sign saying “Tarjetas de SIP” with an arrow pointing to an office. And behind the workers’ desks was a sign stating that SIP cards are only issued between 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. I checked my phone, and it was 1:20 p.m. Lucky me! And it turned out that the only documents I needed were my TIE and my empadronamiento. I handed them over, they made some copies, and two minutes later they were printing my brand new SIP card!
How To Get a SIP Card in Valencia for Americans
I wanted to give a quick note about this because I was definitely expecting the process to get a SIP card in Valencia to be way worse. And I think one reason for that is the fact that most information you can find on blogs is geared toward British retirees. So when it says you need to bring an S1 form to your appointment, you’re like… What’s that?!
For Americans on the Spain digital nomad visa, as long as you wait until you have your TIE, empadronamiento, and Modelo 036 form, I would expect you to be in good shape. Just keep in mind that my experience was in Alicante, at the Centro de Salud in Alicante city center, so your experience may not be exactly the same. I suggest bringing the documents I mentioned above, as well as anything else you think may bolster your case/help prove that you’re paying Social Security in Spain, and choose a day that you’re in a good mood to go on an investigative mission. In the best case scenario, you’ll get your card that day. In the worst case, you’ll hopefully know exactly what to bring next time. 🙂
Find your Centro de Salud in Communidad de Valencia.
Okay my friends. There you have it: your Spain digital nomad checklist in 10 steps to get fully established as a resident and functioning member of society in Spain. Looking at that list, what do we think… is it vale la pena? Is it worth it? 😂
Now that I have all that stuff out of the way… I think it’s a yes for me.😉
-Cathy
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