Spain's initial work and residence authorisation, the employer procedure

The employer applies, not the worker. The file goes to the immigration office of the province where the workplace sits, under article 77 of the Reglamento approved by Real Decreto 1155/2024. The administration has a maximum of three months to decide, and if it does not decide the application is treated as refused.

That Reglamento came into force on 20 May 2025 and replaced the one approved by Real Decreto 557/2011. Real Decreto 316/2026 of 14 April amended it later, but left the articles governing this authorisation untouched. Anyone planning an arrival for 2026 is therefore working with article 77 as published.

What the employer files and what the office checks

Article 77.2 sets the documentation as a closed list: the tax identification number and the public deed of legal representation, a copy of the employment contract on the official form, evidence of the economic, material and staffing means required by article 76, a full copy of the worker's passport, proof of the professional capacity or qualification legally required for the occupation, the documents supporting any exemption from the national employment situation, and the public employment service certificate on the insufficiency of jobseekers where it applies.

Article 76 is the part that delays most files. The employer must hold means sufficient for its business and for the obligations of the contract, and that amount must include the gross salary written into the contract on file. A natural person employer must also show means for its own household, calculated as percentages of the Spanish minimum wage: 50 per cent with no dependants, 100 per cent for a two member household, and a further 25 per cent for each additional member.

If the file is incomplete the office gives ten days to cure the defects and closes the file if the request is ignored. Once admitted, reports are requested from the tax agency, the Social Security treasury, the central criminal records register and the police services, all issued within seven days. A police record is not automatic grounds for refusal: article 77.5 requires an individual assessment.

The real calendar, from filing to Social Security

The authorisation has no effect until the worker is registered with Social Security. Until that moment the employer holds a document, not a member of staff.

What it costs and who pays it

The work authorisation fee is 203.84 euros where the agreed pay is below twice the Spanish minimum wage and 407.71 euros where it equals or exceeds it, under the annex to Orden PJC/617/2025 of 13 June. The minimum wage itself is fixed each year by royal decree: Real Decreto 87/2025 set it at 1,184 euros a month for 2025. The residence element costs 10.94 euros and the first foreigner identity card 16.08 euros.

For employed work the taxpayer is the employer, under article 46.1 of Ley Orgánica 4/2000, and paragraph 2 of the same article declares void any agreement by which the worker takes on that payment in whole or in part. In a Nepali or Indian corridor, where the split of costs is usually the opaque part of the deal, that rule is what frames the conversation with the agent at origin. The full fee schedule sits in the cost of hiring in Spain.

The failure that costs the project

The recurring error is not at the immigration office. It is in the month that follows. Article 40.1.b) counts the one month visa window from notification of the grant to the employer, not from the day the employer passes the news to the worker in Kathmandu or Manila. An electronic notification that nobody opens for three weeks leaves seven days to assemble a passport valid for at least a year, a medical certificate under the International Health Regulations of 2005 and criminal record certificates covering the last five years of residence. When the window closes, a granted authorisation goes unused and the file starts again.

Before anything is filed, the prior question has to be settled: whether the occupation appears in the catalogue of hard to fill occupations or whether the national employment situation has to be evidenced through the certificate route. The consular stage, with its own deadlines and its own fee, is set out in the Spanish work visa and the consulate. How Werklist sequences those two pieces before selection opens is described on our employers page.

Three months to decide, one month for the visa and three months to register look like a comfortable margin on paper. In practice the calendar is set by the slowest link, and that is almost always the consular appointment in the origin country.