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For members

VISAS

Can you move to Spain to live with your adult children?

Do your adult children live in Spain and are you looking to move there to live with them? Find out if it’s possible and what type of visa you need to apply for in order to gain residency rights.  

Can you move to Spain to live with your adult children?
Find about whether it will be possible for you to join your children (and perhaps grandchildren in Spain) depending on your nationality and other factors. Photo: Ashwini Chaudhary/Unsplash

Perhaps your adult son or daughter is planning on moving to Spain and you want to be able to move with them, or maybe they already live here and you want to be closer to the grandkids? It may be that you’re dependent on your children due to health or financial reasons.

So is it possible to move to Spain to be with your adult child?

Here we look at all the options, depending on your individual circumstances. 

You and your child are both EU citizens

If you and your children are both EU citizens, then it’s very easy for you to move from one EU country to another via the Freedom of Movement Act, allowing you to live, work or retire in another EU country. You will need to officially register and apply for a green residency card within three months of living in Spain.

Most likely you will have to prove why you want a residency card, whether that’s to buy a house or a car, to retire or get a job. You may also have to show savings to be able to support yourself, as well as private health insurance or a firm job offer.

Your child is an EU citizen but you are not   

If your child is a Spanish or EU citizen, perhaps through marriage or because they were eligible to change their nationality, but you are from a non-EU country, then what are your options if you want to move to Spain to be with them?

In this case, you can apply for a residence card of a family member of a European Union citizen or tarjeta de residencia de familiar comunitario.

However, to be eligible, you must be dependent on your child either because of financial or health reasons and you must be able to prove this.

Your offspring must also prove that sufficient means to be able to look after you.

The card must be applied for during the first three months of arriving in Spain to be able to continue living here.

The initial residency card will be valid for five years.

You can then renew this for a permanent 10-year residency card. After this, your card will need to be renewed every 10 years. This will also allow you to work in Spain, if you are able to. 

READ ALSO – Q&A: Can EU nationals bring non-EU family members over to Spain?

Non-EU citizens

If both you and your child are third-country nationals, it may be trickier to gain Spanish residency, but it is still possible under specific circumstances.

If your child is a non-EU citizen living in Spain and has a residency permit, such as a TIE card, then they are able to bring you to live with them via the Family Reunification Visa.

However, to be eligible you must be over the age of 65 (or younger in exceptional cases). Your child must also have a long-term residence document, meaning that they must have lived in Spain for over five years.

Your offspring must also be able to demonstrate that they have an amount equivalent to or greater than 150 percent of the IPREM (Public Multiple Effects Income Indicator) for one relative or more if both parents intend to come. For 2023 the yearly IPREM is €7,200.

This means that they will have to prove they have €10,800 for the year to be able to support you.

READ ALSO: How can non-EU nationals bring family members to live in Spain?

Be aware that if you want to move to Spain to be with your child who is a minor and under the age of 18, then you can do so via the arriago familiar.

This is available for parents of children who are EU citizens and allows you to live and work in Spain for up to one year and then exchange your residency for another type of residency document such as one where you are employed by a company or self-employed. 

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For members

ECONOMY

Visas and benefits: How Spain’s budget freeze affects foreigners

By postponing its budget for 2024, the Spanish government will not update an important income index that could have two big impacts on foreigners living in Spain.

Visas and benefits: How Spain's budget freeze affects foreigners

The Spanish government has decided to not move forward with its budget for 2024, reasoning that the calling of early elections in Catalonia will disrupt the legislative agenda. Instead, the Socialist-led government will now work on the budget for 2025.

Spain’s Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, told Cadena SER that postponing the budget is “the sensible thing to do” in light of the electoral climate. This is especially true when the Catalonia campaign will likely take up a huge amount of political capital for the government as it seeks to rally support around its controversial Amnesty Law for separatists.

READ ALSO: Spain finally passes controversial amnesty law for Catalan separatists

According to Spanish law, when a government doesn’t present a budget the previous year’s budget is automatically extended. But how, if at all, does this affect foreigners in Spain?

Financial aid and benefits

There are two main impacts, depending on your situation. The first is that some aspects of the budget are used as benchmarks for state aid and benefits. One potential impact for foreigners in Spain is that because an income index used as a reference for allocating aid and benefits in Spain (known as IPREM) will not be increased as it usually would on an annual basis, state benefits will also not increase. The IPREM currently stands at €600 per month.

For example, currently in Spain the amount of unemployment benefit is 80 percent of the monthly IPREM (€480). By freezing the budget and therefore not updating the IPREM, the amount given out in state aid like unemployment benefit (known as el paro in Spanish) will, when considered against inflation, essentially be cut in real terms, something that will affect more than one million people in Spain.

By not updating IPREM, the government also pushes back an adjustment to personal income tax (IRPF) to prevent minimum wage earners from having to pay it.

As a result of the government’s decision to delay the budget, trade unions have criticised the move and called for the IPREM to be updated in line with the CPI.

Visa income requirements

Another way that the IPREM can impact foreigners is in terms of visas. Much like how the index is used as a reference for benefits, in Spain there are several visa options (namely the non-lucrative visa, the study visa, and the family unification visa) that require you to demonstrate economic solvency according to the IPREM measure.

READ ALSO: 

For example, when applying for a non-lucrative visa (NLV) you must demonstrate financial solvency of 400 percent of the IPREM. For most student visas in Spain, you must have 100 percent of the IPREM.

For some visas, to bring dependent family members with you to Spain you must have 75 percent of the IPREM for the first family member, and then 50 percent of the IPREM for every other dependent.

So put simply, the government’s decision to freeze its budget for 2024 means the IPREM will not be increased, which can in turn impact foreigners in Spain in two main ways: firstly, those on government benefits will likely see a real terms fall in the value of their aid versus inflation; and secondly, those living in Spain on certain types of visas will not see their income requirements increase annually, as they usually do.

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