The income and health-cover requirement: what Spain wants to see before you may stay

The Spanish route has no points system and no visa, but it does have one test — and it comes at registration. If you stay longer than three months and don't work in Spain, article 7 of Real Decreto 240/2007 asks you to demonstrate two things: sufficient means for yourself and everyone who comes with you, and health insurance that covers all risks in Spain.

This article is about what those two requirements involve exactly. Where they fall in your process is in the article on the registration certificate; that you have them at all, you discovered in the orientation.

First: does the requirement apply to you at all?

Article 7 has four grounds of residence, and only one of them carries this homework. If you work in Spain — employed or as an autónomo — you fall under Spanish social security and there's nothing to demonstrate: your employment contract or registration is your evidence.

For two groups there's a lighter route. Pensioners demonstrate with the S1 form that the Netherlands continues to bear their healthcare — with that the health-cover requirement is met, and the pension itself is the income. Note: the S1 is expected to be open from 1 November 2026 only to new registrants with a statutory benefit such as AOW (the Dutch state pension) or WIA — with only early retirement you then bear the full health-cover requirement. Students may make do with a declaration about their means and a European Health Insurance Card that covers the whole period of study.

The full requirement therefore applies to whoever comes without Spanish work: working remotely for a Dutch employer, living off assets, or between two lives.

What "sufficient means" means — and why there's no figure here

The test amount is set annually in the Spanish budget act and the assessment is moreover individual: your family situation counts. Writing down an amount that's no longer right next year is worse than no amount — you'll find the current threshold through the sources under this article.

What is stable is which evidence counts. The implementing regulation names among other things a title deed, certified cheques, and proof of income from assets — in practice a recent bank certificate is the usual route. And that's where it often goes wrong on form:

A screenshot of your balance is not a bank certificate. Ask your bank for a signed or certified statement, freshly dated — counters want to see that the money is there now, not that it was there once. Arrange this just before your registration appointment, not months earlier.

The health-cover requirement: complete, and without an end date halfway

The insurance has to cover all risks in Spain, public or private, taken out in Spain or elsewhere. Two things fall outside that, and both are regularly tried: a European Health Insurance Card (that's for temporary stays and hangs on a Dutch insurance that ends precisely on emigration), and travel insurance. What you need is a policy that looks like what it is: a fully-fledged health insurance for a resident of Spain.

Why this belongs in the orientation phase

Because the answer steers your whole preparation. Whoever knows they bear the full requirement arranges their policy and their bank-certificate-on-call before departure; whoever falls under the S1 applies for that form while still in the Netherlands. And whoever only discovers it at the counter loses an appointment that took weeks — to a file that could have been complete in one evening.