Golden Visa Spain 2026: Status and the Alternatives Now Golden Visa Spain closed on 3 April 2025. What existing holders keep, and the 2026 alternatives: the non-lucrative visa at 28,800 euros a year and the digital nomad visa. The Spain Golden Visa is closed, and this year it is not coming back. The programme that granted residence to non-EU nationals who bought property worth 500,000 euros, invested 2 million in Spanish public debt, put 1 million into company shares or launched a qualifying business project ended on 3 April 2025 under Organic Law 1/2025, the justice efficiency law. If you are planning a move to the Costa del Sol in 2026, the question is no longer how to get a Golden Visa. It is which of the routes that replaced it fits your situation and your budget. What the closure actually means All four investment categories closed on the same date, so there is no leftover investment route with a lower threshold. Applications filed before 3 April 2025 continue to be processed under the old rules, so if your file went in on time, nothing about the closure changes your case. If you already hold a Golden Visa, your permit stays valid for the full period it was granted. Renewals remain possible while you keep the original investment intact, but they are now reviewed case by case and carry no guarantees. Holders who have sold the asset are treated like any other non-EU resident, which in practice pushes them towards the standard residence routes. No bill to revive the programme has been tabled, and none of the parties with a realistic chance of leading the next government is campaigning for one. That leaves two main doors into Spanish residency for people who are not taking a local job: the non-lucrative visa and the digital nomad visa. Both are well established, both lead to permanent residence, and both have published income thresholds for 2026. The non-lucrative visa: the 28,800 euro route The visado de residencia no lucrativa is aimed at people who can support themselves without working: pensioners, landlords, anyone living off savings or investment income. You cannot take employment in Spain, and the permit does not formally authorise remote work either, so it suits the genuinely retired or financially independent. For 2026 the numbers are clear. The main applicant must show recurring monthly income of 2,400 euros, which is 400 percent of Spain's IPREM indicator, fixed at 600 euros a month. Over a year that is 28,800 euros. Every additional family member adds 600 euros a month, or 7,200 euros a year per person. Pensions, rent, dividends and interest all count, and consulates accept a strong savings balance alongside the monthly income. The rest of the checklist is practical. You need private health insurance from a company authorised to operate in Spain, with full cover and no co-payments. You need criminal record certificates covering the last five years from every country you have lived in, legalised and translated. You need a medical certificate, and proof of where you will live: a title deed, a nota simple or a rental contract. The process runs through the Spanish consulate in your home country, usually a few weeks of waiting for the visa. Once it is stamped, you enter Spain and have 30 days to start the TIE residence card at the immigration office: a fingerprint appointment first, collection later. The first permit lasts one year, followed by two renewals of two years each. At the five-year mark you can apply for long-term residence, which is the closest thing to a permanent Golden Visa that exists in the Spanish system today. The digital nomad visa: the 2,800 euro route If your income comes from work rather than wealth, the digital nomad visa is usually the better fit. It was built for remote employees and freelancers serving clients outside Spain, and it comes with something the Golden Visa never offered: a genuine tax break. Under the special expatriate tax regime known as the Beckham law, eligible newcomers pay a flat 24 percent on their Spanish-taxable income up to 600,000 euros for six years, instead of progressive rates climbing towards 47 percent. The main condition is that you must not have been a Spanish tax resident in any of the previous five years. The income threshold sits at 200 percent of the minimum wage, and this is where the figures you will read online differ, so here is the honest version. The 2026 minimum wage was set at 1,221 euros a month across 14 payments by royal decree in February 2026. Depending on whether the authority applying the rule uses the 14-payment monthly figure or its 12-month equivalent, 200 percent works out at roughly 2,440 to 2,850 euros a month, around 29,000 to 34,200 euros a year. Because these rules are recent, expect the stricter reading when you apply and treat anything lower as a bonus. A first dependent adds 75 percent of the same baseline, roughly another 1,100 euros a month, and each further dependent adds 25 percent. The professional conditions are straightforward. Employees need a contract of at least three months with a company that has been operating for at least a year, work that is genuinely done over the internet, and no more than 20 percent of their income coming from Spanish clients. Freelancers qualify under the same 20 percent cap, usually with three months of invoices behind them. Health insurance and a clean criminal record are required here too. The first permit runs one to three years depending on where you apply, renewals come in two-year steps, and the same five-year rule opens long-term residence. Which route should you choose If you are retired or living off investments and will not work at all, the non-lucrative visa is the natural fit, and 28,800 euros of provable annual income is the entire financial test. If you are employed or self-employed with clients abroad, the digital nomad visa usually wins: similar income thresholds, remote work made explicitly legal, and a 24 percent flat tax that can save a higher earner tens of thousands of euros over six years. If your plan is to take a Spanish job, neither route is right, and the ordinary work authorisation processed through an employer is the one to ask about. One Costa del Sol detail worth doing in your first weeks after arrival: the empadronamiento, the municipal registration certificate from your town hall. It is free, it takes about half an hour, and the health centre, the school and the police will all ask for it at some point. With that in hand and a residence permit running, the five-year clock towards permanent residence starts quietly ticking. The Golden Visa era is over. The consolation for anyone moving to the Costa del Sol in 2026 is that its replacements cost nothing like 500,000 euros. They simply ask you to prove that you can afford to live here.