None of these is a Golden Visa
Say that plainly before anything else, because agent copy keeps blurring it. Ley Orgánica 1/2025, Disposición final vigesimoprimera, emptied Articles 63 to 67 of Ley 14/2013 with effect from 3 April 2025. Those five articles were the whole investor chapter: property at €500,000, shares, funds and deposits at €1,000,000, government bonds at €2,000,000, and the general-interest business project. There is no remaining property-only or funds-only Golden Visa, and nothing below revives that chapter.
What is left is three visas built for people who intend to actually live in Spain: the non-lucrative visa, the digital nomad visa, and the entrepreneur visa. Our Spain country page already says the Golden Visa is closed and names these three as the live alternatives. This page is the next step down: the statute for each, the current-year money test, and a tool that tells you which one your numbers actually fit.
Three legal spines, three different tests
The non-lucrative visa runs on LO 4/2000 Articles 30 bis and 31, and on RD 1155/2024 Articles 60 to 63 for the initial grant and Article 64 for renewal. It is built for someone with passive income or savings who will not work and will not telework in Spain. The consular note used by the New York consulate says that in one sentence: "This type of visa does not allow teleworking." That sentence is the whole difference between this visa and the next one.
The digital nomad visa, formally the teletrabajador internacional permit, runs on Article 74 bis of Ley 14/2013, inserted by the 2022 Startups Law, Ley 28/2022. It is built for someone who keeps working for a non-Spanish employer or non-Spanish clients while living in Spain. The UGE, the Unidad de Grandes Empresas y Colectivos Estratégicos, runs both the FAQ and the filing portal for it.
The entrepreneur visa runs on Articles 68 to 70 of the same Ley 14/2013. Those three articles sat right next to the investor chapter and were not touched by the 2025 repeal. Only Articles 63 to 67 died. The entrepreneur visa has no statutory euro minimum, but it does have a gate: a favourable report from ENISA, the state innovation-finance agency, on an innovative business or one of special economic interest.
The comparison table a former Golden Visa shopper can use
| Closed Golden Visa | Non-lucrative | Digital nomad | Entrepreneur | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open to a new applicant? | No, since 3 Apr 2025 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Legal spine | Ley 14/2013 Arts 63-67, as they stood at grant | LO 4/2000 + RD 1155/2024 Arts 60-64 | Ley 14/2013 Art. 74 bis, Ley 28/2022 | Ley 14/2013 Arts 68-70 |
| Who it is for | Already holding or filed before 3 Apr 2025 | Passive income or savings, no work, no telework | Remote work for a non-Spanish employer or clients | Innovative business with ENISA blessing |
| Money test, 2026 | Keep the original qualifying asset | 400% IPREM = €2,400/mo, +100% IPREM per dependent | 200% SMI = €2,849/mo, +75% first dependent, +25% each further | No statutory minimum, means for self and family |
| Work in Spain? | Yes, old Art. 65 | No | Yes, for the foreign employer or as remote professional | Yes, in the ENISA-blessed project |
| Must you live here? | Practice: about 1 visit a year | Yes, over 183 days a year to renew | Yes, a relocation visa | Yes, active business |
| Tax overlay | No special regime, 183 days → worldwide IRPF | 183 days → worldwide IRPF | Possible Beckham / Art. 93 LIRPF overlay, confirm current text | Same 183-day rule, Beckham only if independently qualified |
| Family | Existing family cards renew | Same money test extended to dependents | Spouse or analogous, dependent children (UGE FAQ 16) | Family filing via sede.inclusion.gob.es |
Read the "must you live here" row twice. It is the actual answer to why none of these three replaces the old card. The Golden Visa's appeal to most buyers was never the investment size, it was that you could keep it valid without rearranging your life around Spain. Every live route left removes that feature.
The dependent uplift, because it is not the same formula twice
| Family member | Non-lucrative (400% IPREM base) | Digital nomad (200% SMI base) |
|---|---|---|
| Titular alone | €2,400/mo, €28,800/yr | €2,849/mo, €34,188/yr |
| First dependent | +100% IPREM = +€600/mo | +75% SMI = +€2,137/mo (approx.) |
| Each further dependent | +100% IPREM = +€600/mo each | +25% SMI = +€712/mo each (approx.) |
The non-lucrative uplift is flat, the same €600 a month for the second dependent as for the fifth. The digital nomad uplift is front-loaded: the first dependent costs more than three times what each subsequent one costs. A family of four evidencing a digital nomad file needs roughly €2,849 plus €2,137 plus €712, call it €5,700 a month, well above what the same family would need to clear on the non-lucrative test. That is a real planning number, not a rounding error, and it is the kind of thing a forum thread tends to flatten into "you need about five grand."
Common mistake
Treating the non-lucrative visa as "the Golden Visa without the property." It is not. Ministry Hoja 7 requires more than 183 days of real, effective residence in Spain during the calendar year to renew. The old investor visa was a card you could keep valid from abroad. This one is not.
Which live Spanish visa fits you?
Your 2,900 euro monthly figure clears the 200% SMI floor of 2,849 euro a month, computed from RD 126/2026's €1,221 SMI annualised across 14 payments, with a 75% uplift for a first dependent and 25% for each further one. This is the relocation visa built for remote work for a non-Spanish employer or foreign clients, not for a Spanish employer.
What the forums get right, and where they round
An Expat.com regular answering a pensioner's question about the non-lucrative visa gave the formula correctly: 400 percent of IPREM for the applicant, plus 100 percent per dependent, IPREM at €600 a month, €28,800 a year, doubled to €36,000 a year for a couple. That is the statute, stated by a forum poster rather than a lawyer's brochure, and it holds up.
A separate thread on the same forum has a regular describing the non-lucrative floor as "2,500 euros in passive income... or 30k euros in savings." Those are rounder numbers than the statute produces, €2,500 against an official €2,400, and €30,000 against an official €28,800. Use the thread for colour on how shoppers actually talk about the test. Use the Ministry Hoja for the number itself.
A third thread, about two years old, is a first-person non-lucrative renewal filed too early because the poster tracked the visa's issue date rather than the TIE entry date printed on the card. That trap predates RD 1155/2024's May 2025 rewrite of the renewal window, so the specific 60-day figure in that post is not current, but the underlying trap, using the wrong anchor date, is still exactly the kind of mistake worth flagging before a renewal filing.
Expert tip
If remote work is part of your plan at all, do not default to the non-lucrative visa because it sounds closer to the old investor card. Read the consular sentence again: no teleworking. One paid engagement with a foreign client, discovered at renewal, is a bigger problem than a slightly higher income threshold on the digital nomad visa would have been.
Where the packaging still gets ahead of the statute
| Packaging still in circulation | Official text |
|---|---|
| "Digital nomad floor is about €2,762/month" | RD 126/2026 SMI €1,221 × 14 ÷ 12 × 200% = €2,849/mo |
| "Non-lucrative visa needs about €30k a year" | Hoja 6: 400% IPREM monthly, €600 × 4 × 12 = €28,800/yr |
| "Digital nomad visa lets you telework on a non-lucrative visa" | Consular NY page: "does not allow teleworking." DNV is a separate Art. 74 bis visa |
| "Entrepreneur visa is the leftover Golden Visa" | UGE emprendedores: no investment or job-creation minimum, but ENISA report required |
If the actual want was zero-stay EU residence
Say it once, plainly, so nobody spends three visas' worth of paperwork chasing a feature none of them has. None of the non-lucrative, digital nomad or entrepreneur visas replicates a card you keep valid without living in Spain. If that specific feature, not Spain as a place, was the actual objective, our Portugal versus Spain comparison and our Greece versus Spain comparison both work through the Plan-B routes for a shopper Spain has closed out. Reopening Spain as a Golden Visa is not one of the options either page describes, because it does not exist.
If you are instead deciding whether to keep an existing Spanish card rather than pivot to one of these three, that is a different question with a different statute behind it, DT segunda of Ley Orgánica 1/2025 rather than any of the three chapters above. Our renewal chapter covers who can still renew and for how long.
Frequently asked
Is any of this a Golden Visa in disguise?
No. Ley Orgánica 1/2025, Disposición final vigesimoprimera, emptied Articles 63 to 67 of Ley 14/2013 with effect from 3 April 2025. Those five articles were the whole investor chapter: property, shares, deposits, funds and government bonds. Nothing that follows on this page revives that chapter. The non-lucrative visa runs on LO 4/2000 and RD 1155/2024. The digital nomad visa runs on Article 74 bis of Ley 14/2013, inserted by the 2022 Startups Law. The entrepreneur visa runs on Articles 68 to 70 of the same 2013 law, which were never touched by the 2025 repeal. Three different legal spines, none of them the investor chapter.
Can I keep working remotely for my home country employer on a non-lucrative visa?
No. The Madrid consular note we relied on for New York is explicit: the non-lucrative visa does not allow teleworking. That single sentence is the whole fork between the non-lucrative visa and the digital nomad visa. If any part of your income depends on logging into a laptop for a foreign employer or foreign clients, you are describing Article 74 bis territory, not the non-lucrative route, no matter how the income gets labelled on your bank statement.
Is €2,849 a month really the digital nomad floor now?
For a solo applicant, yes, on the reading available on 21 August 2026. The UGE FAQ sets the test at 200 percent of the SMI. Real Decreto 126/2026, published 18 February 2026, set the SMI at €1,221 a month or €40.70 a day, with effect for the whole of 2026. Annualised across 14 payments that is €17,094, and 200 percent of the monthly SMI is €2,442... except the UGE's own worked test multiplies the annual SMI, not the plain monthly figure, giving €1,221 times 14 divided by 12 times 200 percent, which is €2,849 a month or €34,188 a year. Our own Spain pillar still prints €2,762, which was 200 percent of the 2025 SMI. That figure is now a year behind the BOE. Do not carry it forward.
What does the non-lucrative income test actually require?
Four hundred percent of IPREM for the titular, plus 100 percent of IPREM for each dependent. IPREM is still the figure set by the still-prorogued Disposición Adicional of Ley 31/2022, because the 2026 PGE have not reset it: €600 a month. Four hundred percent of that is €2,400 a month or €28,800 a year for the applicant alone, and €7,200 a year per dependent on top. Ministry Hoja 6 allows this to be shown as income or as savings, by any means of proof, which is why forum posters sometimes describe it as a lump sum rather than a monthly income line.
Do I have to actually move to Spain, or can I keep a foot in London or Miami?
You have to actually live there, for all three routes, and that is the whole point of this page against the old Golden Visa. Ministry Hoja 7, the non-lucrative renewal page updated in May 2025, requires residence in Spain for more than 183 days in the calendar year to renew. The digital nomad visa is described in the UGE material as a relocation visa. The entrepreneur visa requires you to run the actual business the ENISA report blessed. None of the three is a card you keep valid from abroad with an annual visit, which is how the old investor visa worked in practice.
What if I just wanted EU residence and never intended to live there?
Then none of the three routes on this page does the job you actually want, and we are not going to pretend otherwise by stretching one of them. That shopper is a different conversation, closer to Greece's low-presence route, Portugal's fund route or Malta's MPRP, and our comparisons of Portugal against Spain and Greece against Spain both work through that fork for a Spain shopper who has been closed out. Reopening Spain as a zero-stay investor play is not an option any of these three visas can supply.
Named gaps
- Entrepreneur visa initial duration in years was not line-quoted from Articles 69 to 70 on this pass. We cite the articles rather than invent a year count.
- The current wording of the Beckham regime, Article 93 LIRPF, and exactly how it interacts with digital nomad eligibility was not re-opened as a primary source. Confirm before relying on any "24 percent for six years" figure, including our own pillar's.
- IPREM for 2026 still rides the prorogued Ley 31/2022 figure because the 2026 PGE have not reset it. If a later budget moves IPREM, the non-lucrative euro figures on this page move with it.
- No live first-person 2026 thread of a Golden Visa shopper who pivoted to the digital nomad or entrepreneur visa after 3 April 2025 was found on this pass. The forum colour above predates the closure or concerns the non-lucrative visa specifically.
- Reddit and Hacker News were checked for this fork and returned nothing usable. Omitted rather than invented.
Sources
- Ley Orgánica 1/2025, de 2 de enero, consolidated text, Disposición final vigesimoprimera. boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2025-76
- Real Decreto 126/2026, de 18 de febrero, setting the 2026 SMI at €1,221/month. boe.es/eli/es/rd/2026/02/18/126
- Ministerio de Inclusión, Seguridad Social y Migraciones, Hoja 6, non-lucrative initial authorisation, updated May 2025. inclusion.gob.es, Hoja 6
- Ministerio de Inclusión, Hoja 7, non-lucrative renewal, the 183-day rule. inclusion.gob.es, Hoja 7
- Consulado General de España en Nueva York, non-working residence visa, "does not allow teleworking." exteriores.gob.es, New York consulate
- UGE, Unidad de Grandes Empresas y Colectivos Estratégicos, Teletrabajadores FAQ. inclusion.gob.es/web/unidadgrandesempresas/teletrabajadores
- UGE, Emprendedores page and instructions PDF. inclusion.gob.es/web/unidadgrandesempresas/emprendedores
- Plataforma ONE, "La supresión del visado de inversores en España y sus implicaciones," 26 December 2025. one.gob.es
- Expat.com, "Minimum yearly income requirement," non-lucrative 400% IPREM thread. expat.com, income requirement thread
- Expat.com, "Renewing My Non-Lucrative Residency Visa," TIE-date filing trap. expat.com, renewal thread
- Our own Spain country page, which this extra sits under.
- Methodology: every page above opened, or attempted and recorded as blocked, on 21 August 2026.
Not legal or tax advice. Readings here reflect Ley Orgánica 1/2025, LO 4/2000, RD 1155/2024, Ley 14/2013 and Real Decreto 126/2026 as available on 21 August 2026. Confirm your own figures against the current Ministry pages and a Spanish immigration lawyer before filing anything that depends on them.