What it costs to hire a foreign worker in Spain in 2026

Orden PJC/617/2025 of 13 June sets the initial work authorisation fee at 203.84 euros where pay is below twice the Spanish statutory minimum wage, and at 407.71 euros where it equals or exceeds it. The national long stay visa costs 90 euros.

The administrative fees of a non EU hire are fixed and public. That order replaced Orden PRE/1803/2011 with effect from 16 June 2025 and aligned the fee table with the Reglamento approved by Real Decreto 1155/2024. Under its article 1.2, the amounts rise at the start of each financial year by whatever the annual state budget act provides.

The full table, item by item

The minimum wage that separates the two work authorisation brackets is fixed each year by royal decree. Real Decreto 87/2025 of 11 February set it at 1,184 euros a month for 2025, so twice the minimum wage sat around 2,368 euros a month that year. A skilled operative post usually falls below the line and pays 203.84 euros; a well paid technical post crosses it and pays double.

Who pays what, by law rather than by habit

Article 46.1 of Ley Orgánica 4/2000 makes the taxpayer the person in whose favour the authorisation is granted, except for work authorisations for employed work, where it is the employer. The only exception is part time or discontinuous domestic service, where the worker pays.

Paragraph 2 of the same article goes further: any agreement by which an employed worker takes on the obligation to pay all or part of the fees is void. It admits no nuance and no split. In a corridor where the agent at origin hands the candidate a sheet of costs, that provision is what lets the Spanish employer insist the fee does not appear on it. The principle matches the zero cost standard of ethical recruitment described in ethical recruitment from Nepal.

There is also a little known exemption. Article 47 of the same act exempts from work authorisation fees the nationals of Ibero American states, the Philippines, Andorra and Equatorial Guinea, Sephardic Jews, the children and grandchildren of a Spaniard by origin, and foreign nationals born in Spain. For an employer comparing corridors, a Filipino or Colombian hire carries no work authorisation fee, while a Nepali or Indian hire does. Across a group of twenty people the difference is 4,076.80 euros, which will not decide a corridor but will move a budget.

What is not in the table and weighs more

The fees are the small part. In a seasonal authorisation, article 102 of the Reglamento obliges the company to take out health insurance covering the worker from the start of the journey until Social Security registration, and article 107.1.c) to organise and pay for the arrival journey and also the return unless the commitment document says otherwise expressly, plus the transfers between the border crossing, the accommodation and the workplace. Accommodation is to be offered free as the preferred arrangement and, if rent is charged, it may not exceed 15 per cent of the IPREM.

The most common budgeting error is not underestimating the fees, it is paying the same one twice. An authorisation that lapses because nobody applied for the visa inside the one month window in article 40.1.b) does not refund the 203.84 euros: the file restarts in full and the fee is settled again, along with the public employment service certificate, which also expires. The order of the deadlines is in the employer procedure for the initial authorisation and the consular stage in the Spanish work visa and the consulate. How Werklist presents the cost breakdown to an employer before the process opens is on our employers page.

A single arrival in Spain runs at roughly 320 euros of fees across authorisation, residence, visa and card. What decides the real cost of a project is how many times that cycle has to be repeated.