So Exactly How Do We Hope To Legally Migrate To Spain?

Navigating the visa process so we can continue Living The Semi-Retired Life

I spend my fair share of time keeping up on the process—the visa process—me and my partner will have to go through to move to Spain.

Thinking about getting to that point, which we aim to do sometime next year, is equal parts stressful and exciting. But mostly exciting. So I guess not exactly equal parts. In part because—fingers crossed—I think, as it stands at the moment, we should have a slam dunk application. Knock on wood.

Alongside a summary of the specifics of it all, we’ll get to that in a second.

But first …

I’m not one for Facebook groups. However, a few exist that have been and continue to be super helpful in this regard. I wrote an entire Medium article about the downside of these groups:

As a foreigner you can’t expect to just waltz into a new country and have everything handed to you. To seamlessly continue your comfortable American (or British or Irish or Australian or some other English-speaking) life, merely adding on the perks you expect to receive in your new country. Perks you act as if you’re entitled to receive.

Anyhow, read that after you read this.

But—pursuant to the visa discussion—the sense of entitlement starts there. You won’t believe some of the shit people try and think they should be able to pull off when going through the immigration process to move to another country. In this case, Spain.

It starts with people—incessantly—lamenting the bureaucracy around applying for the visa. They can’t believe how slow and antiquated the entire process is. They’re flabbergasted by Spain before they even set up shop there as residents. I think this has less to do with entitlement and more with the fact that most native-born people rarely, if ever have to deal with this type of thing in their home country. I wonder if they know anyone who has.

I do. And I can tell you that applying for a green card and, eventually, citizenship in the United States is not easy. Even for Canadians. And it’s not cheap. I know several people who have been through the process. While I don’t think the Spanish process will be a walk in the park, I don’t need or expect it to be.

The way I look at it—I’m a guest who hopes to get an initial invite, make friends at dinner and get invited back. I intend to take and maintain that attitude from the word go.