Spain's Digital Nomad Permit: The Online Application, File by File
If you work remotely and are already in Spain legally, you apply for the digital nomad permit with an electronic application. It works like any workflow: inputs with validation rules, a payment, status tracking and a final archive. If you have ever set up an automation on your Mac or iPhone, the logic will feel familiar.
Before the form: who signs, under what authority, and the MIT form
What English speakers call the digital nomad visa is, under Spanish law, the residence permit for international remote workers. If you are in Spain legally or on the remote-work visa, you apply for it from here: it lasts up to three years and can be renewed for two-year periods (Article 74 quinquies of Law 14/2013).
The application is filed electronically with the UGE (the Large Companies and Strategic Groups Unit), part of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, and the permit is granted by the Directorate-General for Migration (Article 76). Before you start, decide three things:
Who signs: you or a representative. Signing and filing online requires a digital identity, such as the Spanish digital certificate, the credential used to identify yourself and sign on electronic offices (sedes electrónicas, the government's online registries).
Under what authority: if a representative files, attach the document that authorizes them to sign and file on your behalf.
Which form: the MIT form (modelo MIT), the official application form, signed, properly completed and following its own instructions.
Validation rules for each file: passport, apostille, translation and bank
Here the validator is not a script but a case handler, and a defective file can come back as a request for additional documents (cure of defects): the formal request to complete or correct your application. The UGE's format rules:
Passport: a legible copy of your entire, valid passport, every page.
Foreign public documents, such as criminal record certificates from the countries where you lived in the last two years: apostilled or legalized. The apostille is the Hague Convention certificate that validates a foreign public document. You add a declaración responsable: a statement signed by you affirming that you have no criminal record in the countries where you lived in the last five years.
Translations: a public document that is not in Spanish needs a translation by a sworn translator authorized by Spain's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAEC), not a plain translation. Alternative: a translation reviewed by a Spanish consulate, with its verification stamp, and then legalized by that ministry. Your résumé, on the other hand, can go with a plain translation.
Income: payslips or invoices for the previous three months and a bank certificate for those months, in your name, stamped or signed by the bank, with the payments received highlighted. The amounts are compared, gross, with the 2026 benchmark for the main applicant: €2,849 a month, 200% of the SMI (Spain's minimum interprofessional wage).
Social security: if you are an employee, your foreign company's registration with Spanish social security and the commitment to register you before you start; if you are self-employed, the commitment to register with RETA, the scheme for self-employed workers. If you instead stay in your home country's system and provide its certificate of applicable legislation, it must expressly cover remote work from Spain and be the certificate as issued, not the application for it.
The UGE publishes the official list of files in its documentation for the main applicant, and the page lexmovea.com/servicios/nomada-digital/ summarizes those same requirements, with the 2026 income figure and the 790-038 fee.
The UGE also recommends an explanatory letter, especially if something does not exactly match what is requested, and it can ask for additional documents at any time.
The 790-038 fee and the NRC that ties the payment to your file
The fee is form 790-038 (modelo 790-038): €73.26 per applicant, one for the main applicant and another for each family member applying for their own permit. According to the UGE's FAQ, it is paid online before you file, by card, direct debit or Bizum, Spain's instant mobile payment system.
The payment generates the NRC (número de referencia completo, the full reference number), the code you enter when filing that links that payment to your application. The proof of payment is mandatory when you apply and, if the payment does not appear on the 790 form itself, you also attach the payment receipt.
Someone else can pay it on your behalf, but the payment must carry your details as the applicant. In a family there is one payment per person: save each receipt under that person's name.
Tracking: 20 business days, deemed approval and 10 days to answer a request
Once the application is filed, there is a maximum of 20 business days to decide it (Article 76 of Law 14/2013). It is a legal limit, not a forecast. If it runs out without a decision, the law treats the application as granted (deemed approval through positive administrative silence): a rule for delays, not a reason to file an incomplete application. In the meantime, the application extends your current stay or residence status.
If something is missing or a file breaks the rules, you receive a request for additional documents (cure of defects), which must be answered within 10 business days (Article 68 of Law 39/2015).
A refusal can be challenged with a hierarchical appeal (alzada), an administrative appeal to the body above the one that decided, within one month.
What to archive afterwards: filing receipt, NRC, decision and application
Last step: the archive.
Filing receipt, the registration receipt from the electronic office: it proves that you filed and on what date, which the extension depends on.
NRC and proof of payment for each applicant, which link each fee to its application.
Decision, in the PDF in which you receive it: if favorable, it proves the grant and its dates.
Complete initial application. The permit is renewed for two-year periods if the conditions that gave access to it are still met, which the authorities can check; to prove it, you will again need payslips or invoices and a bank certificate.
Seen this way, the application is a process: inputs, validation, payment and archive. What doesn't get automated is judgment: each file has to meet its rule before it reaches the case handler.
