After you graduate
Rules read 19 Aug 2026
What Spain's own immigration authority currently publishes. Not a ranking, not a guarantee, and not the same as what any agent or forum will tell you. Whether someone actually obtains residence depends on occupation, points, funds and policy that can change between application and graduation.
Money you must prove before the visa
€600per month
Shown as a balance in a bank account. You keep control of it.
Figure published for: 2024 This amount is revised regularly, so check it again before you transfer anything.
Set at 100% of Spain's IPREM (Indicador Público de Renta de Efectos Múltiples), a national economic indicator revised most years — this consulate document, itself last updated January 2025, still cites the 2024 IPREM value, so check the current IPREM before relying on this figure for an exact date. The amount required is per month of the whole stay in Spain, and money set aside for tuition costs does not count toward it — that has to be shown separately. Accompanying family need their own funds too: 75% of IPREM for the first family member (EUR 450/month in 2024), 50% of IPREM for each additional one (EUR 300/month).
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Spain also requires proof of health cover for this visa. See what's required →
Work during study
Spain's Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations states that a long-duration stay authorisation obtained for higher education studies automatically authorises the holder to work, employed or self-employed, without any additional procedure, provided the activity is compatible with completing those studies. Across all study-purpose long-duration stays generally, the Ministry caps the activity at 30 hours a week (except intensive vocational training, governed by its own sector rules) and confines it geographically to a single autonomous community (with an exception for bordering municipalities in a neighbouring community); exceeding the 30-hour limit is itself grounds for the stay authorisation to be terminated.
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Post-study work visa
Autorización de residencia para búsqueda de empleo o inicio de proyecto empresarial (job-search / business-startup residence authorisation) . Up to 2 years
A graduate may stay in Spain for a non-extendable 24-month period to look for employment matching the level of their completed studies, or to start a business. The Ministry states plainly that this authorisation does not itself grant the right to work — 'during the validity of the residence authorisation for job-search or business-startup, one is not authorised to work' — it only permits the holder to remain in Spain while searching; once a suitable job or business is actually found, the graduate must separately apply for one of the work authorisations under the Immigration Law (Ley Orgánica 4/2000) or the entrepreneurs' law (Ley 14/2013). Family members who already accompanied the person during their studies may accompany them on this permit too, but are likewise not authorised to work.
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Route to permanent residence
The Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations states the conditions for EU long-term residence (residencia de larga duración-UE) directly: the applicant must have resided legally and continuously in Spanish territory for the 5 years immediately before applying (continuity survives absences of up to 6 continuous months, provided the total doesn't exceed 10 months within the 5 years, or 18 months total if the absences were for work reasons). Crucially for this dataset's readers, the Ministry states that time spent on a study-purpose, student-mobility, voluntary-service or training-activity stay counts toward those 5 required years, but only at 50% of its actual duration, and only provided the applicant is still in a residence situation in Spain at the time of applying — so study years advance the clock, just at half rate, rather than being excluded entirely as in some other countries in this dataset.
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Route to citizenship
Spain's Ministry of Justice states that ordinary naturalisation by residence (nacionalidad por residencia) requires 10 years of legal, continuous residence in Spain immediately before applying (shorter periods apply to specific categories such as refugees, or nationals of certain countries, which this dataset did not separately verify). On dual nationality, the Ministry states the rule plainly and by name: naturalising applicants who are nationals of Ibero-American countries (defined for this purpose as countries where Spanish or Portuguese is an official language), Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, or Portugal do not need to renounce their original nationality when acquiring Spanish nationality. For everyone else, renunciation of the original nationality is required to naturalise as Spanish. The Ministry adds a specific clarification: for this purpose Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana do not count as Ibero-American, while Puerto Rico does.
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New entry added 19 August 2026. Two Spanish government domains added to IMMIGRATION_DOMAINS in scripts/verify.mjs: inclusion.gob.es (Ministerio de Inclusión, Seguridad Social y Migraciones, Spain's immigration/residence authority) and mjusticia.gob.es (Ministerio de Justicia, the naturalisation authority). The 10-year residence figure for citizenshipRoute comes from a second mjusticia.gob.es page (modos-adquisicion, snapshot 7f092a57a074cd04, retrieved 2026-08-19T13:26:39.401Z) — quoted in this entry's value prose rather than independently re-cited as a second provenance object, consistent with how other entries in this dataset describe more supporting detail in prose than a single quote can carry. inDemandOccupations is left null: no shortage-occupation list was found tied to these routes on inclusion.gob.es. naturalisationStatus set to 'published-route': the Ministry of Justice publishes a real, numbered 10-year ordinary residence route and a specific, named list of countries exempted from the renunciation requirement — per the doc comment on ResidencyPathway.naturalisationStatus this field records only whether criteria are published, not how demanding Spain's 10-year route is for a graduate with no Ibero-American, Andorran, Filipino, Equatoguinean or Portuguese tie. This entry chains unusually well end-to-end: study (30hrs/week work, counting at 50% toward long-term residence) to a 24-month job-search permit (itself carrying no work right) to employment-based residence to 5-year EU long-term residence to 10-year ordinary citizenship, with the renunciation requirement depending entirely on the applicant's own nationality. citizenshipTerms cites the Ministry of Justice’s own modes-of-acquisition page (snapshot 7f092a57a074cd04), which states the ten-year period; the dual-nationality page cited by citizenshipRoute states the renunciation rule. dualCitizenshipAllowed is false as the general rule: the Ministry requires renunciation of the original nationality except for nationals of Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea and Portugal, for whom the answer is the opposite — see citizenshipRoute for the Ministry’s own definition of which countries count.
Open the immigration authority's own page ↗