Family Reunification Visa for Spain

If you already live in Barcelona with a residence permit and want your spouse, partner or children to join you, the process runs in two countries at once. You apply here, at the Oficina de Extranjería, for your family’s residence authorisation; they then collect a visa at the Spanish consulate where they live. We run both halves: we build your file in Barcelona, prepare theirs abroad, and plan the month after they land, when the TIE card deadline starts.

Our fee for the whole file, with one family member. Case study included: if you paid it first, its 100 € + VAT is deducted. Each additional family member: 100 € + VAT. After arrival, the TIE card (120 € + VAT) and the empadronamiento (60 € + VAT) are booked separately. Official fees, consular visa fees, apostilles and sworn translations are paid separately.

First check: is this the right route for your family?

Family reunification is the route for relatives of a foreign resident. If the person already in Spain is Spanish, or an EU citizen, the rules are different and the file is built differently:

Filing a relative of a Spanish citizen as a reunification case, or the reverse, is the most expensive mistake in this area: months of document gathering for a route that does not apply.

Who can join you

• Your spouse, or your registered or stable partner. A stable partnership has to be evidenced, not declared.
• Your minor children, and your partner’s, and in some cases older children who still depend on you.
• Your parents or your partner’s parents, when they are over 65, depend on you and there are reasons that justify their move. Below that age, only on humanitarian grounds. It is the hardest case, and our guide to bringing your parents to Spain explains why.

What you, as the sponsor, have to show

• Your own residence. You need to have held residence for a minimum period and hold a permit valid for at least another year. Long-term residents, Blue Card holders and Law 14/2013 profiles follow faster rules. If your own renewal is pending, that goes first: our residence renewal guide covers it.
• Means. Fixed and regular income calculated as a percentage of IPREM that rises with each family member. IPREM is updated every year, so the figure is checked on the date you file.
• Housing. An informe de vivienda adecuada, the housing adequacy report issued by the Ajuntament de Barcelona for your address. It looks at the size and conditions of the home against the number of people who will live there.
• Health care cover for you and the family, through Social Security or a private insurer authorised in Spain. Our health insurance service can arrange a policy that meets it.

How we run your file

1. Case study. The regime that applies, which relatives qualify, the means your household size requires and whether your own permit leaves enough time.
2. Housing report. We request it from the Ajuntament early, because the appointment and the inspection are the slowest step in Barcelona.
3. Foreign documents in parallel. Marriage and birth certificates, partnership evidence and criminal records from the countries lived in during the last five years, each apostilled or legalised and translated by a traductor jurado.
4. Sponsor application. We file with the Oficina de Extranjería de Barcelona and follow it until the decision.
5. Visa at the consulate. Once the authorisation is granted, your family has a short deadline to request the visa in person at the Spanish consulate for their place of residence. We prepare that appointment file.
6. Arrival in Barcelona. TIE cards within one month of entry (EX-17, fee 790-012, fingerprints), empadronamiento at your address, and the next steps for school or work. Our TIE card service covers the appointments.

Mistakes we see most

• Filing for the family before the sponsor’s own permit is renewed, so the authorisation cannot be granted for long enough.
• A housing report requested for a flat that is too small for the family once the children arrive.
• Income shown for the current month only, when the file asks for fixed and regular resources.
• Civil-status certificates that were apostilled but not translated, or translated by an ordinary translator.
• Letting the visa deadline pass after the authorisation was granted, which forces a new application.

Frequently asked questions

Can my spouse work once in Spain? Yes. A reunified spouse, partner or child of working age can work, employed or self-employed, without a separate procedure. Reunified parents do not get the same automatic access.

Can my family travel to Spain as tourists and apply from here? Not as a rule. Family reunification is designed to end in a visa collected abroad. Entering on a short stay and staying on does not convert into reunification.

What if I am Spanish, or become Spanish later? Then your family uses the Spanish-citizen regime, which covers more relatives on different conditions. If you are close to nationality, whether to wait or to file now is part of the case study.

Can you compare this with other visas? Yes: our page on Spanish visas from abroad sets family reunification next to every other long-stay visa.

IPREM, the means percentages, housing report procedures and consulate requirements change and differ between consulates, so we confirm the ones in force for your case before you file.