Spain · Business & founder
Entrepreneur Residence Visa (Article 70, Law 14/2013)
Open
Last verified July 2026
Open and unaffected by the Golden Visa abolition — it sits in a different part of Law 14/2013 and was strengthened by the Startups Law (Law 28/2022). This is the route Spain wants investors to use.
With the Golden Visa gone, this is the only Spanish route that accepts capital as its premise — but it inverts the deal: Spain no longer sells residency for money, it grants residency for a business it judges innovative. The absence of a capital minimum is not generosity; it means the discretion sits entirely with ENISA and cannot be bought.
Qualifying routes
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Innovative and scalable business project
No statutory minimum capital. Eligibility turns entirely on a favourable ENISA report assessing innovation and scalability.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- EUR 10–40k in legal, business-plan and structuring costs, plus whatever the business genuinely requires; the ENISA report is the gate, not the cheque
- Timeline
- 3–9 months — ENISA evaluation typically 4–8 weeks; UGE-CE decision within 20 working days with positive administrative silence
- Physical presence
- substantive — you are expected to run the business from Spain
- Family
- spouse or unmarried partnerdependent childrendependent ascendants
- Permanent residency
- 5 years
- Citizenship
- 10 years (2 for Ibero-American, Andorran, Filipino, Equatorial Guinean, Portuguese nationals and Sephardic Jews)
- Language test
- DELE A2 plus the CCSE test
- Dual citizenship
- Not permitted — you would have to renounce
- Requirements
- favourable ENISA report certifying innovative and scalable entrepreneurial activitydetailed business plan with financial projections and job creationsufficient funds to support the applicant and familyclean criminal record for the last 5 yearshealth insuranceprofessional profile relevant to the project
What can go wrong
- The ENISA favourable report is an absolute prerequisite — no report, no visa, no exceptions. It is a substantive assessment of innovation and scalability, not a formality, and rejections are common.
- A serious ENISA submission is a 20–40 page business plan with financials, market analysis and team. Recycled templates fail.
- There is no capital minimum, which means there is no way to compensate for a weak project with a bigger cheque. This route cannot be bought.
- A holding company, property vehicle or passive investment structure will not pass — 'innovative and scalable' is enforced.
- Full Spanish tax residency follows, with wealth tax and Solidarity Tax exposure unless Beckham applies.