Intra-company transfer permit in Spain (traslado intraempresarial)

Official fee

Processing fee for the authorisation. Companies registered with the Unit are exempt from evidencing three of the requirements when they apply

Official name

Autorización de residencia por traslado intraempresarial

Forms

—

Steps

11

Documents required

5

Source: Boletín Oficial del Estado — Ley 14/2013, de apoyo a los emprendedores — sección de movilidad internacional, arts. 61 a 76 (texto consolidado). Checked 14 September 2026.

Every immigration fee, with the official Spanish wording

Step by step

1. 1

   The three months that catch people out

   Among the requirements is a prior and continuous employment or professional relationship of three months with one or more of the group's companies. Someone hired last month cannot be transferred this month, however senior the role or however urgent the project. This is the requirement worth checking before any date is promised to anyone.

2. 2

   The other three requirements

   Real business activity on the part of the company and, where relevant, of the group. A higher qualification equivalent to at least level 1 of the Spanish Framework for Higher Education, or knowledge and competences backed by at least three years of professional experience considered equivalent to it. And company documentation evidencing the transfer itself.

3. 3

   Which of the two permits applies to you

   The ICT EU permit covers temporary transfers from a company established outside the European Union to an entity of the same company or group established in Spain, to work as a manager, a specialist, or in training. The national intra-company transfer permit covers everything else — and, importantly, picks up once the EU permit's maximum duration has run out.

4. 4

   Manager, specialist, trainee — the law defines all three

   A manager is someone whose functions include directing the company or a department or subdivision of it. A specialist is someone with specialised knowledge related to the entity's activities, techniques or management. A trainee worker is a university graduate transferred in order to obtain training in the entity's techniques or methods, and who is paid for it. Which of the three you are decides how long you can stay.

5. 5

   Three years, or one

   The maximum duration of the transfer under the EU permit is three years for managers and specialists, and one year for trainee workers. The national permit runs three years, or the length of the transfer where that is shorter, and is the route once the EU maximum has been reached.

6. 6

   Working in other EU countries on a Spanish permit

   Holders of a valid Spanish ICT EU permit may enter, reside and work in one or more member states after notifying or applying to those states' authorities under their own rules implementing the European intra-corporate transfer directive.

7. 7

   And coming to Spain on another state's permit

   Entities established in other member states may move holders of an ICT EU permit issued there to Spain during that permit's validity, after notifying the Large Companies and Strategic Collectives Unit. The Directorate-General for Migration can object with reasons within twenty days — where the conditions are not met, where documents were obtained fraudulently, falsified or manipulated, or where the maximum duration of the transfer has already run. If it objects, the first state must let the person and their family back in without further formalities, and if the move has not happened yet, the refusal prevents it.

8. 8

   Moving people in bulk: the simplified procedure

   Companies and groups can apply to process authorisations collectively, on the basis of planned management of a temporary quota of permits. To do that they register with the Unit, and registration lasts three years, renewable. A registered company is exempt from evidencing three of the requirements at the time of applying — the real business activity, the qualification, and the three months of prior relationship.

9. 9

   The exemption is not unconditional

   The administration can still check those requirements on its own initiative, so the company must hold the supporting documents. And the simplified route is not available at all to companies or groups that, in the three years immediately before the application, have been sanctioned for a serious or very serious immigration infringement, or have failed to evidence compliance in checks the administration carried out.

10. 10

    The procedure: twenty days, silence granting

    Processed electronically by the Large Companies and Strategic Collectives Unit and granted by the Directorate-General for Migration, with a maximum of twenty days to decide. Silence grants the authorisation. Filing extends whatever residence or stay the person already held until the procedure is decided, so a transfer applied for from inside Spain does not leave a gap.

    Where: Unidad de Grandes Empresas y Colectivos Estratégicos, electronically

11. 11

    Renewals, the card, and Social Security

    Renewals run two years while the conditions that created the right still hold, filed electronically, and filing extends the permit until the decision — as does filing within the ninety days after expiry, though that opens a penalty procedure. Where the permit runs more than six months, the foreigner identity card must be applied for. And for the first six months a passport alone is enough to register with Social Security where the person has no foreigner identity number yet, which is what keeps a start date from waiting on a NIE appointment.

Common questions