Immigration
Work Visa.
Your Own Business, On An Approved Plan.
Officially the Self-Employment Work Visa — Visado de trabajo por cuenta propia. It grants residence and work rights to non-EU nationals who submit a viable business plan and can fund it: freelancers, entrepreneurs, business owners and franchisees. Two stages, EUR 30,000 to demonstrate, and a year to renew four more times.
Spain Approves The Business Before It Considers You.
This is the only Spanish route that runs in two stages. First ATA — the Asociación de Trabajadores Autónomos — validates your business plan for residency purposes. Only then does a residence visa application exist to be made. Six to nine months in total, and the first stage is a gate rather than a queue.
Your Spouse Waits A Year
Children under 18 may be included in the main application. A spouse or partner and other eligible family members may apply for residency only after one year of the main applicant's residence. Every other Spanish route admits a spouse from the outset.
Legal Residency and Work Rights
Live and work in Spain legally while running your own business or franchise, with automatic enrolment in the Spanish Social Security system, subject to statutory contributions.
Access to European Markets
A business established in Spain reaches the European Union market, with the room for regional expansion that implies.
New Business Or Approved Franchise
Start something of your own or invest in an approved franchise model — the route accommodates both entrepreneurial profiles, though only the franchise path carries published pricing.
Visa-Free Travel Across Schengen
A Spanish residence permit allows visa-free travel to the other Schengen countries for up to 90 days in any 180-day period.
A High Quality of Life
A high standard of living, a favourable climate, excellent private healthcare, strong education options and a diverse cultural life.
A Pathway to Residency, Then Citizenship
Permanent residency after 5 years of continuous legal residence, and eligibility for Spanish citizenship 5 years after that, subject to statutory requirements.
If You Are Moving As A Couple, Read This First
The spouse or partner cannot come with you. Children under 18 join the main application; a spouse, partner and other eligible family members may apply for residency only after one year of your own residence in Spain. Add the 6–9 month processing time in front of that and a couple starting today is looking at well over eighteen months apart, or eighteen months of the spouse living on some other basis.
Nothing in the route's name suggests this, and it is the single most consequential difference between the four Spanish routes for anyone with a partner. If moving together matters more than self-employment does, the Digital Nomad Visa admits a spouse immediately.
Two Things About The Two Stages
ATA can stop the route before a consulate ever sees it. The Asociación de Trabajadores Autónomos assesses business and self-employment applications, including validating the business plan for residency purposes, and takes an estimated 1–2 months. A plan ATA will not approve is not a slow application — it is no application. That is why the business plan, not the paperwork, is where the real work of this route sits.
The reservation fee falls before either approval. It is paid at the business-structuring stage, it is non-refundable, and it is EUR 4,500 or EUR 5,780 depending on the franchise. Neither ATA nor the consulate has decided anything at that point. Ask exactly what it secures and under what conditions.
Two Stages, Tracked Separately
ATA approval and the visa application are two different submissions to two different bodies, and conflating them is how timelines slip. The Bayat Group panel tracks each as its own milestone, with the business plan at the centre.
Eleven Lines, And One Is Non-Refundable.
The most itemised fee table of Spain's four routes, all in euros, so it totals honestly. The reservation fee is the line to read twice — it does not come back.
Non-binding estimate
The published pricing is for franchise-based businesses, and the reservation fee depends on which one.
Children join the main application. A spouse or partner cannot — see below — but is priced here because the source prices them.
2 people filing now.
One currency throughout, so the fees do total — but the funds test does not belong in that total.
The source states it plainly: the reservation fee is non-refundable. It is EUR 4,500 for VTC, BFT and Emapanda and EUR 5,780 for Lawash, and it is the only non-refundable line in any fee table we publish. It falls at the business-structuring stage — before ATA has approved anything and long before a consulate has decided anything. Understand what it reserves, and on what terms, before you pay it.
A minimum of EUR 30,000 for the main applicant and EUR 10,000 for each family member, covering both investment capital and one year of living expenses. This is money you evidence, not money anyone takes, so it sits in its own schedule outside the total.
The source states that this pricing structure applies to franchise-based businesses — VTC, BFT, Lawash and Emapanda — and publishes no pricing at all for an independent business concept, which the same page offers as an equal option. If you intend to start your own business rather than buy into a franchise, treat this sheet as indicative of shape only and ask us to quote. The professional-fee table reads "Child/ren EUR 2,500"; this sheet charges it per child, matching how the Digital Nomad page on the same site prices children, but the label is ambiguous and worth confirming. The consular visa fee counts only those filing now — the spouse's EUR 90 falls due with their own application after your first year. The service fee is treated as once per application because it sits beneath a line explicitly marked "Per Person" and is not itself marked. The ATA tax and the bank-statement translation are published as approximate. Figures are indicative, non-binding, and confirmed during due diligence.
Five Steps Across Two Stages
Select a step to see what happens. Step three is the gate — nothing beyond it exists until ATA has approved the business plan.
Internal Due Diligence and Eligibility Assessment
Bayat Group's compliance team runs an internal due diligence review: background screening, KYC documentation, a source of funds assessment, and an initial eligibility and qualification review against this route specifically.
Talk It Through. Then Begin.
Our concierge answers your Work Visa questions in minutes — starting with the two that decide it, which are whether the business plan will clear ATA and who needs to travel with you. When you are ready it opens your application where the conversation ends.
Sending opens your secure Bayat Group account, where an advisor picks the thread up.
Assessed against your own circumstances, in about five minutes.
- It asks about your circumstances, not your paperwork
- It names the trade-offs before you commit to a route
- It ends with the programs you actually qualify for
A scripted example. Your own assessment is private, and takes about five minutes.
Assessment
An adviser that reads your circumstances, then the rulebook.
40+ official programs, each with its own arithmetic. The assessment maps those rules to your situation in a short conversation and tells you where you actually stand.
- It asks about you, not about paperworkWhere your family is going, what your work needs, what you would not give up. Navigating the rules is our business, not your burden.
- Clear, unbiased reasoningWhen options pull in different directions, it calls out the compromise, detailing what each path costs you before you decide.
- A shortlist tailored to youNo generic marketing. Just the programs your profile actually unlocks, with realistic timelines and capital commitments.
Step one of three
Where should we send your code?
One address, one five-digit code. No password to invent, and nothing sent to you that you did not ask for.
Step two of three
Check your email
We sent a 5-digit code to . It expires shortly, so it is worth doing now.
Setting up your assessment…
One moment.