Insurance for a Spanish Visa: What Spain Actually Accepts
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Peter Gratale
CEO & Co-Founder - Citizen Remote
Last update
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You're putting together a Spanish visa file and you need to know which insurance to buy. Here's the part most guides skip: for the two residence visas remote workers actually use, travel insurance is explicitly not accepted. Buy the wrong policy and the consulate rejects the file.
What Spain wants depends on which visa you're applying for, so start there.
The rule that catches people out
Two visas share one rule. For the digital nomad visa and the non-lucrative visa, Spain wants a public or private health policy from an insurer authorised to operate in Spain. It has to stay active for the whole permit. The government's own instruction to consulates puts it plainly: travel insurance policies are not considered valid.
Consulates then apply four more conditions to the policy:
Cover equivalent to what the Spanish national health system (SNS) provides
No copays. Not a small copay, none
No waiting periods, so cover starts the day the policy does
Active for the entire authorised stay, not just the first months
That last one matters more than it looks. A one-year policy for a permit that runs longer gets refused.
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Which visa are you applying for
Short stays of up to 90 days. Americans, Brits, Canadians and Australians don't need a visa for this, and no law makes you buy insurance to visit. If your nationality does need a Schengen visa, the Visa Code sets the bar at €30,000 of medical cover valid across the Schengen area. It has to include emergency care and repatriation. A normal travel policy meets that.
The digital nomad visa (created by the 2022 Startup Act). You need the Spain-authorised health policy described above. Income is the other bar, currently €2,849 a month, which is 200% of the Spanish minimum wage and moves every January. If you're already legally in Spain you can apply directly to the UGE, the large-companies and strategic-groups unit, which has 20 days to decide.
The non-lucrative visa, for people living on savings or passive income rather than working. Same insurance rule, same no-copay and no-waiting-period conditions.
What "authorised to operate in Spain" means when you're buying
It means an insurer registered with the Spanish regulator. In practice most applicants buy from a Spanish insurer that sells a policy built for this, since they'll issue the certificate the consulate wants. Sanitas, Adeslas, Asisa, Mapfre, DKV and AXA all sell visa-specific products.
Two things to ask for before you pay:
A certificate stating in writing that the policy has no copays and no waiting periods, and that cover is full.
A start date that covers the whole authorisation, not just the visa.
Your US, UK or international travel plan almost certainly won't qualify, however good it is. That isn't a quality judgement, it's a licensing one.
If you're British or from the EU
A European Health Insurance Card, or a UK GHIC, covers medically necessary state healthcare during a temporary stay. That's a visit, not a move. Neither card counts as the insurance a residence visa asks for, and using one as your visa document gets the file refused.
If you're an EU citizen you don't need the residence visa in the first place. If you're a UK state pensioner moving permanently, ask about the S1 form, which transfers your healthcare cover to Spain and removes the private policy question entirely.
After year one: the convenio especial
This is the part almost nobody mentions, and it can cut your costs sharply once you're settled.
Spain runs a paid scheme that lets residents without other public cover buy into the national health system. Under Real Decreto 576/2013 it costs €60 a month if you're under 65 and €157 a month if you're 65 or over.
To qualify you need:
One continuous year of actual residence in Spain immediately before you apply
To be registered on the padrón in the region you're applying in
No other access to public healthcare
Regions can charge more where they add services on top of the basic package, so check with yours. It also doesn't replace your visa insurance in year one, because the residence requirement means you can't have it yet. Think of it as the thing you switch to at renewal.
Where travel insurance still earns its place
Travel insurance isn't useless here, it's just the wrong tool for the visa file. It's the right tool for:
The trip itself, before your residency starts
Stays under 90 days, where no residence permit is involved
Trip disruption, lost bags and stolen laptops, which Spanish health policies don't cover
Cover that follows you when you leave Spain for a few weeks
Plenty of nomads carry both, a Spain-authorised health policy for the paperwork and travel cover for everything else. You can compare nomad insurance plans here.
The checklist
Before you submit a Spanish residence visa file, your policy should tick all of these:
Issued by an insurer authorised to operate in Spain
Full cover equivalent to the SNS
No copays
No waiting periods
Valid for the entire authorised period
Certificate in writing, in Spanish, naming you
If your policy can't tick every box, it's a travel policy, and the consulate will treat it as one.
Still choosing between Spanish routes? Our Spain digital nomad visa guide covers the income maths and the Beckham Law question. The job seeker visa is the one to read if you'd rather work for a Spanish employer.
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Author
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Since the inception of remote work visas, I've been captivated by this new space. Remote workers now have the freedom to live where they want, not where they work. Citizen Remote is building a "one-stop-shop" app that allows users to get help with visas, insurance, accommodation, community, and much more. 10+ years experience in marketing, product, and entrepreneurship. I've had the honor to work with many high-growth SaaS companies around the world and am passionate around building products users love.
