Self-employed work and residence permit in Spain (cuenta propia)

Official fee

Set by the processing fee for the authorisation, paid before filing

Official name

Autorización de residencia temporal y trabajo por cuenta propia

Forms

—

Steps

13

Documents required

8

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

   Check you meet the same rules a Spaniard would

   The first requirement is not an immigration one. You have to satisfy whatever Spanish law demands of a national opening and running that particular activity — licences, permits, registrations, premises. An activity a Spaniard could not lawfully start under those conditions will not be authorised for you either.

2. 2

   Check the qualification and professional-body requirements

   Where the profession requires it, you must hold the legally required professional qualification or show sufficient proven experience in the activity, and register with the relevant professional body where that is compulsory. For regulated professions this is usually the longest part of the preparation, because foreign qualifications may need recognition before they count.

3. 3

   Document the investment — and know there is no published figure

   You must show the planned investment is sufficient to get the project running, and the effect it will have on job creation, which expressly includes your own. The Regulation sets no amount. There is no €20,000 rule, no fixed capital minimum; there is a test of sufficiency judged against the project you have described. Anyone quoting you a precise threshold is quoting practice or opinion, not the text.

4. 4

   Clear the remaining conditions

   You must not be within a no-return commitment given when voluntarily returning to your country of origin, must not represent a threat to public order, public security or public health, and must have paid the processing fee. On the security point the office obtains the criminal record certificate and a police report itself; a record does not refuse the application automatically, and the office has to assess the individual circumstances.

5. 5

   Apply for the residence visa at the consulate

   A non-resident intending to work for themselves in Spain applies for a residence visa under the general visa rules. The consulate is where the file starts; the decision on the authorisation is taken in Spain, and in an autonomous community holding devolved powers over initial self-employed work authorisations it is taken by the regional government rather than by the state.

   Where: Spanish consulate in your country of residence, with the decision taken in Spain

6. 6

   Wait three months — and note that silence is negative here

   The competent body must decide within three months of receiving the consulate's communication. If that passes with no answer, the application is refused by silence. This is the opposite of the rule on renewal, and the difference is worth knowing before you assume no news is good news.

7. 7

   Enter, then register with Social Security within three months

   The authorisation's effect is conditional on the visa being issued and on your affiliation, registration and contribution to the corresponding Social Security scheme within three months of legal entry to Spain. That registration is what brings the permit to life.

8. 8

   Understand the deadline that removes your right to stay

   If the three months of stay end with no record of your registration with Social Security, you are obliged to leave Spain, and staying is a serious infringement for being in the country unlawfully. This is the hardest deadline in the procedure and the one least often mentioned in English.

9. 9

   Apply for the TIE within one month of registration

   Once registered with Social Security, you have one month to apply in person for the foreigner identity card.

10. 10

    Know the limits of the first year

    The initial authorisation lasts one year and is limited to one autonomous community and one sector of activity. If you want to operate in several autonomous communities during that first year — in the same sector — you need the corresponding work authorisation in each of them, meeting the requirements for the activity in each case.

11. 11

    Renew in the two months before it expires

    Filing in that window extends the old authorisation until the decision, and filing up to three months late still extends it, though it starts a penalty procedure. Renewal is granted where the activity continues, and also where a family member meets the income test to have reunified you, where you have been recognised as entitled to cessation-of-activity protection, where an economically dependent self-employed worker's contract is interrupted or ended through no fault of theirs, and in the protective situations the immigration statute sets out. You must also prove any school-age children in your care are enrolled — if you cannot, the office gives you a month and warns in writing that the permit will not be renewed otherwise.

12. 12

    Social Security arrears do not automatically sink the renewal

    Gaps in Social Security contributions do not prevent renewal provided you can show the activity is genuinely and habitually carried on. The office will report the arrears to the Labour Inspectorate, which is a separate matter with its own consequences, but the renewal is decided on whether the business is real.

13. 13

    The renewal is four years and unrestricted — and silence favours you

    A renewed self-employed authorisation runs four years, unless long-term residence is due instead, and allows both employed and self-employed work anywhere in Spain and in any sector. Its effects backdate to the day after the previous one expired. And if the administration does not decide within three months, the renewal is deemed granted.

Common questions