Immigration
Non-Lucrative Visa.
Spanish Residency, On The Condition You Don't Work.
Officially the Non-Lucrative Residence Visa — Visado de residencia no lucrativa, and in practice Spain's retirement route. It grants residence to non-EU nationals living on passive income from outside Spain: pensions, rent, deposits, shareholder profits. No property to buy, no capital to invest, no business to start. And no work of any kind, which is the trade.
The Clue Is In The Name.
“No lucrativa” — non-profit-making. Spain grants this residence precisely because you will not be earning there, and the whole application is an exercise in proving you do not need to. It is the right answer for retirees and the financially independent, and the wrong one for anyone who intends to work.
No Work. No Professional Activity. At All.
This is not a restriction on where you may work, like the Digital Nomad Visa's 20% cap. It is a prohibition on working. You may not act as a managing director or be actively involved in business operations — though board membership and passive shareholding are permitted.
Legal Residency Without Investment
Residency granted on financial self-sufficiency alone: no property to purchase, no capital to invest, no business to establish.
Family Stability and Reunification
A spouse or partner, dependent children under 18, and elderly parents may all reside in Spain under the same residence framework — the widest family scope of Spain's four routes.
Income From What You Already Have
Pensions, rental income, bank deposits and shareholder profits all count. The money does not have to be earned — it has to exist, and be evidenced over six to twelve months.
Visa-Free Travel Across Schengen
A Spanish residence permit allows visa-free travel to the other Schengen countries for up to 90 days in any 180-day period.
A High Quality of Life
A high standard of living, a favourable climate, excellent private healthcare, strong education options and a diverse cultural life.
A Pathway to Residency, Then Citizenship
Permanent residency after 5 years of continuous legal residence, and eligibility for Spanish citizenship 5 years after that, subject to statutory requirements.
The Cheapest Spanish Route Is The One That Forbids Earning
At EUR 10,500 this is the least expensive of Spain's four routes to instruct, and at EUR 2,400 a month it has the lowest income test. Both of those facts follow from the same condition: you will not be working, so Spain is not assessing you as a worker. Compare the four on cost alone and you land here.
If you intend to earn in or from Spain, this is the wrong page. Working remotely for a foreign employer is the Digital Nomad Visa. Running your own business or franchise is the Work Visa. Both cost more to instruct, and both let you work.
Where The Line Between Passive and Active Sits
Shareholding is fine. Running the company is not. The source is specific: the applicant must not act as a managing director or be actively involved in business operations, while board membership or passive shareholding is permitted. Dividends from a company you own are acceptable income; managing that company is not acceptable activity. If your income depends on your continuing to run something, that dependency is the problem rather than the income.
Both financial tests apply at once. EUR 2,400 a month and roughly EUR 30,000 in accessible savings, plus EUR 600 a month and EUR 10,000 for each dependent. The savings are not an alternative to the income — the term sheet shows them as two separate schedules for that reason. Funds must be available at application and maintained throughout the residency.
Six Months Of Evidence, In One Place
This route is decided on paper: bank letters, pension confirmations, title deeds, rental contracts, statements going back six to twelve months. The Bayat Group panel holds all of it, shows what is still missing, and keeps your advisor a message away.
Three Schedules. Only One Is A Bill.
This route asks you to prove two things and pay a third. The income you must show and the savings you must hold are far larger than the fees — and neither is money anyone takes from you.
Non-binding estimate
A spouse or partner, children under 18, and — unusually for a Spanish route — elderly parents. All three schedules below scale with the count.
2 people on one application.
All in euros, and this is the only one of the three schedules that leaves your account.
The source publishes a table headed Professional Fees showing EUR 28,800 a year for the main applicant and EUR 7,200 per family member. Those are not fees. EUR 2,400 a month is 400% of IPREM — the income you must demonstrate — and the line beneath the table confirms it: the funds must be available at application and maintained throughout the residency. The real professional fees are EUR 10,500 and EUR 2,500, priced below. Both figures appear in their proper schedules on this sheet.
Two separate tests, both evidenced and neither transferred. Deliberately outside the total above.
The source page publishes its income requirement under the heading Professional Fees, and its actual professional fees under a second heading of the same name further down. This sheet separates them: EUR 28,800 a year is the 400%-of-IPREM income test, shown in Article III; EUR 10,500 is the professional fee, shown in Article II. Both figures are the source's own — only the labels are corrected. The savings test is published as approximate ("typically around EUR 30,000"), and IPREM itself is revised, so both tests move. The service fee is treated as once per application because it sits beneath a line explicitly marked "Per Person" and is not itself marked. Financial evidence must cover the past six to twelve months and show that funds are stable, accessible and sufficient. The applicant may not act as a managing director or be actively involved in business operations; board membership and passive shareholding are permitted. Figures are indicative, non-binding, and confirmed during due diligence.
Five Steps to a Spanish Residence Permit
Select a step to see what happens. Step one exists so that a file which cannot clear IPREM is stopped before you have spent anything on it.
Internal Due Diligence and Eligibility Assessment
Bayat Group's compliance team runs a full due diligence review: background checks, KYC documentation, an assessment of your financial resources, and an initial eligibility evaluation against this route specifically. This is where we confirm you clear Spain's IPREM thresholds before anything is spent.
Talk It Through. Then Begin.
Our concierge answers your Non-Lucrative questions in minutes — starting with the one that matters most, which is whether you can genuinely live in Spain without working. When you are ready it opens your application where the conversation ends.
Sending opens your secure Bayat Group account, where an advisor picks the thread up.
Assessed against your own circumstances, in about five minutes.
- It asks about your circumstances, not your paperwork
- It names the trade-offs before you commit to a route
- It ends with the programs you actually qualify for
A scripted example. Your own assessment is private, and takes about five minutes.
Assessment
An adviser that reads your circumstances, then the rulebook.
40+ official programs, each with its own arithmetic. The assessment maps those rules to your situation in a short conversation and tells you where you actually stand.
- It asks about you, not about paperworkWhere your family is going, what your work needs, what you would not give up. Navigating the rules is our business, not your burden.
- Clear, unbiased reasoningWhen options pull in different directions, it calls out the compromise, detailing what each path costs you before you decide.
- A shortlist tailored to youNo generic marketing. Just the programs your profile actually unlocks, with realistic timelines and capital commitments.
Step one of three
Where should we send your code?
One address, one five-digit code. No password to invent, and nothing sent to you that you did not ask for.
Step two of three
Check your email
We sent a 5-digit code to . It expires shortly, so it is worth doing now.
Setting up your assessment…
One moment.