Changing from one Spanish permit to another (modificación de situación)

Official fee

Processing fee for the permit being applied for. Where a student moves to an employed work permit, the employer pays it

Official name

Modificación de las situaciones de las personas extranjeras en España

Forms

—

Steps

12

Documents required

6

Source: Boletín Oficial del Estado — Real Decreto 1155/2024, por el que se aprueba el Reglamento de la Ley Orgánica 4/2000 (texto consolidado). Checked 27 August 2026.

Every immigration fee, with the official Spanish wording

Step by step

1. 1

   From student to work: no visa, no trip home

   A student holding a long-stay study authorisation may move to residence and work, employed or self-employed, or to residence exempt from a work permit, without applying for a visa. There are two conditions attached to the person rather than the job: you must have obtained the qualification or certificate for the studies you came to do, and you must not have been on a scholarship or grant from a public or private body under a Spanish or home-country development or humanitarian programme. Specialised health training in Spain is covered by the same route.

2. 2

   The labour-market test does not apply to you

   For an employed permit you must meet the requirements of article 74 — contract, collective-agreement terms, employer solvency, qualification, no criminal record — with one exception: the national employment situation. Your job does not have to be in the Catalogue of Hard-to-Fill Occupations and your employer does not have to advertise the vacancy through the employment service. That single exception is what makes this route worth using, and it is the part most often missed.

3. 3

   Either of you can file it, but the employer pays

   The application may be presented by the employer or by the holder of the student authorisation. In every case the employer bears the processing fee. For a self-employed permit you meet the requirements of article 84 instead; for residence exempt from a work permit, those of article 89.2.

4. 4

   Mind the window: two months before, three months after

   You may apply in the two months before, or the three months after, either the expiry of the student authorisation or the date you obtained your qualification. Filing inside that window extends the validity of the old authorisation until the decision is notified. This window was widened by Royal Decree 316/2026, in force from 16 April 2026 — anything published earlier describes a narrower one.

5. 5

   Once it is admitted, you may work full time

   From admission until the decision, your study authorisation becomes a provisional residence and work authorisation — employed, self-employed, or exempt, matching what you applied for. The admission decision itself has to state this, with express mention of the authorisation to work full time. If the application is refused, the provisional authorisation simply lapses; no further administrative act is needed.

6. 6

   Your family in Spain can move with you

   You may at the same time apply for residence for family members who are in Spain on a stay authorisation and living with you when you apply, provided you can show sufficient income and adequate housing. What they get is family reunification residence, and its validity is tied to yours.

7. 7

   What the new permit is worth

   It runs for one year, but its effects are those of a renewed permit of that type rather than an initial one — which matters, because renewed permits are not tied to one occupation or one region. It takes effect on your registration with Social Security, and you have one month from then to apply in person for the TIE.

8. 8

   Graduates at EQF level 6 or above have a second option

   Anyone who has completed studies at a higher-education institution reaching at least level 6 of the European Qualifications Framework may instead apply for the student residence permit to look for work or to start a business, under the seventeenth additional provision of Ley 14/2013. That is a different route with its own rules, and it does not require a job offer.

9. 9

   From a residence permit to a work permit: how long you have been here decides

   If you hold temporary residence, you can move to residence and work with no visa, and the terms depend entirely on how long you have been resident. Under a year: you must meet every requirement of article 74, and the permit lasts one year and counts as an initial permit. A year or more, where your existing permit already allowed work: you meet the renewal requirements instead, and the new permit runs four years. A year or more, where it did not allow work: article 74 applies minus the labour-market test, the permit runs one year, and you must register with Social Security within a month of being notified.

10. 10

    Some permits cannot be converted at all

    You cannot apply for this change from a cross-border worker permit, from certain exceptional-circumstances residence permits, or from family reunification residence, which has its own rules. Holders of an EU family member residence card, or of residence as the family member of a Spanish national, who have ceased to hold that status can move to non-lucrative residence, to residence and work employed or self-employed, or to residence exempt from a work permit, for a period matching the document they held — again with no visa.

11. 11

    Changing the scope of a permit you already hold

    During the first year of an initial work permit you may ask to change its occupation, sector of activity or territorial limit. The competent body is the one for the place where the new job or activity will start. For an employed permit the labour-market test is taken into account here. The decision is due within one month, and if it does not arrive the change is deemed granted.

12. 12

    Moving from employed to self-employed

    Holders of an employed work permit may move to a self-employed one by applying for it. Note what this does not do: the new permit does not extend the validity of the one it replaces. You keep the expiry date you already had.

Common questions