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What’s the income requirement for Spain’s digital nomad visa and will it go up in 2024?

Spain’s DNV became available for the first time earlier this year, but there's still a lot of confusion about the financial requirements and many media outlets are reporting incorrect amounts. There's also a big chance the threshold will increase in 2024.

What's the income requirement for Spain's digital nomad visa and will it go up in 2024?
What's the income requirement for Spain's digital nomad visa and will it go up in 2024? Photo: Helen Lopes / Pexels

READ FIRST: New 2024 income requirement for Spain’s Digital Nomad Visa confirmed

Spain’s DNV is also referred to as visado de teletrabajador de carácter internacional on most of the official websites in Spain, so this is what you’ll need to search for when researching. 

So, what is the Spanish DNV’s true income requirement, how much do you actually need to earn per month in order to be able to get Spain’s DNV?

Firstly, the UGE (Unidad de Grandes Empresas y Colectivos Estratégicos) the body that deals with these visas and the one you apply to states that you need to prove you have monthly earnings of at least 200 percent of the minimum interprofessional salary (SMI), or minimum wage.

READ ALSO – LISTED: All the documents you need for Spain’s digital nomad visa

Official government sources state that Spain’s minimum wage is currently €1,080.

However, here’s where much of the confusion comes in – this is the amount across 14 payments rather than 12. It is standard for many companies in Spain to pay their employees 14 times a year rather than just once per month or 12 times. 

If you take the minimum wage amount across 12 payments, it equates to €1,260 per month.

This means that you must be able to prove that you will have an income that’s 200 percent of this amount to obtain Spain’s digital nomad visa. This equals €2,520 per month or €30,240 per year.

If you’re applying for yourself and your partner, you will need to prove you earn an extra 75 percent of the SMI. This currently equates to an extra €945 per month on top of the €2,520 just for you.

For each additional family member after this, such as children, you will have to prove you have an extra 25 percent of the SMI, which is an extra €315 per month.

If you are an employee and a remote worker, you should be able to prove this via your contract, which you will submit along with your application.  

If you are self-employed, like many on the DNV will be, it’s likely you won’t have fixed earnings each month and your income will fluctuate. In this case, you can prove this amount either with several job contracts, invoices, bank statements or tax returns.

If you earn different amounts, many nomads have stated that they have submitted invoices for the last three months or more and the authorities have taken the average to check if it’s over €2,520 per month.

READ ALSO: Is Spain’s digital nomad visa still worth it?

Will the monthly requirement for the DNV go up in 2024?

Spain’s SMI is set for another rise in 2024 and experts predict that this will most likely happen from January.

While the exact amount hasn’t been finalised yet and the government still has to approve the rise, the Ministry of Labour has proposed it should be raised by four percent.

This would result in the amount going up to €1,123.20 per month across fourteen payments, compared to the current €1,080.

When split up between the 12 payments that many from other countries are used to, this will equate to €1,310.40 per month. 200 percent of this amount equals €2620.80 per month, which is what those applying for the DNV in 2024 would need if SMI increases.

READ ALSO: What we know so far about Spain’s next minimum wage increase

This would mean that digital nomads applying next year would need to earn an extra €100.80 per month compared with those who applied in 2023. This is equivalent to earnings of €31,449.60 per year.

It would also mean that the amounts for each family member you want to bring with you will  increase. It would be an extra €982.80 for a partner for example and €327.60 for any more after that such as a child. 

While the exact amount you’ll need to earn to be eligible for the DNV in 2024 remains unknown it’s extremely likely that the amount will go up and that you will have to prove you earn more than anyone who applied this year.

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PROPERTY

REVEALED: The financial aid and tax cuts for people who move to a village in Spain

If you're looking to move to a rural part of Spain, you can benefit from financial aid to buy a property, as well as personal income tax breaks.

REVEALED: The financial aid and tax cuts for people who move to a village in Spain

For around the last 10 years, several places in Spain have been suffering greatly from depopulation in a phenomenon dubbed ‘Empty Spain’.

Around 22 million Spaniards live in the 100 most populated municipalities (not provinces) in Spain, according to Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE).

This means that around half of the total Spanish population is concentrated in four percent of the national territory.

A lack of jobs, infrastructure and opportunities in rural areas has forced young people to move away, a trend which has been taking place since the days of Franco with Spain’s rapid industrialisation.

Services that did exist such as banking and health services are now also progressively closing down or moving to more populated areas.

READ ALSO: How ‘Empty Spain’ is now a political party

To face the challenge of what’s know as “Empty Spain”, the Spanish government included in its Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan a specific section dedicated to aid to help fight against depopulation.

This features many incentives for those who are willing to move to the countryside and help repopulate empty areas.

The aid aims to promote the economic and social rejuvenation of these areas by supporting innovative and sustainable projects that create jobs. 

Digital nomads have been facing a lot of backlash in Spain recently, blamed for increasing rental prices and gentrification in cities, but the fact is that if they’d be willing to move to the countryside, they’d not only be able to gain incentives and tax breaks, but also offer a new lease of life to areas that desperately need it.

READ ALSO: Spain’s Catalonia to offer up to €40,000 to renovate rural properties

The total budget allocated to helping combat ‘Empty Spain’ is €10 billion, of which €7 billion is coming from Next Generation EU European funds.

The ‘Repuebla Plan’ is an initiative that seeks to combat the depopulation of rural areas in Spain by offering housing and job opportunities to people who want to move to these areas.

What aid is available?

Aid for buying a home

The State Plan for Access to Housing 2022-2025 includes direct aid to help people under 35 to buy homes in municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants.

The aid consists of a subsidy of up to €10,800, with a limit of 20 percent of the purchase price for young adults who buy a home in these municipalities.

The property must be your habitual and permanent residence for at least five years and the prices cannot exceed 120,000. Applicants can also not have an income that exceeds €24,318 per year.

Tax breaks and housing benefits per region

Some Spanish regions have personal income tax deductions to attract new inhabitants, as well as other housing benefits.  

Aragón
Aragón will help those under 35 years to buy a house in municipalities of under 3,000 inhabitants. 

Asturias
Aid will be given for the acquisition or rehabilitation of a habitual residence in areas at risk of depopulation. It will be applicable to those under 35 years of age, large families or single parents.

Castilla y León
Aid will be granted to those under 36 years of age for the purchase of a home in municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants, or 3,000 if it is located at a maximum distance of 30 kilometres from a provincial capital.

The region will also offer aid of up €10,000 self-employed people who move to a rural village in underpopulated areas, taking their economic activity or business with them. The place where you move to and your age, as well as your business will affect how much you get. 

Madrid
This region offers discounts of up to €1,000 for personal income tax for those under 35 years of age who live in municipalities with less than 2,500 inhabitants. There’s also a 10 percent discount on personal income tax for those who buy or restore homes in these municipalities.

Castilla-La Mancha
A 15 percent bonus will be given for buying or renovating a home in municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants.

Murcia
The region offers a 15 percent deduction for the purchase or renovation of a primary residence in rural areas, with a limit of €9,040. A 20 percent deduction is also given for renting a primary residence in rural areas, with a limit of €700; and a deduction of €1,000 is given for starting an economic activity as a self-employed worker or as an employee in rural areas.

Galicia
This region offers a personal income tax deduction of 10 percent of the amount paid for the purchase or renovation of a habitual residence in municipalities with less than 3,000 inhabitants. This deduction has a limit of €400 per taxpayer and applies to those under 36, large families or people with disabilities.

La Rioja
Bonuses will be applied for the purchase, construction or rehabilitation of primary residences in small municipalities.

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