Highly Digital, Zero Nomad
I am absolutely not a nomad in any sense of the word. More of a "Slowmad", if you will. I do love to travel, often and everywhere. I am down for literally any trip that anyone asks me on, and I'm always scheming on my next adventure. But I love home. I love the feeling of home, the familiarity, the comfort, knowing my neighbors and the neighborhood, eating at my favorite places where the staff knows me and I them... that is my ideal life. I am not a nomad. So I tend not to tell my Spanish friends and acquaintances that it was the "digital nomad" program that enabled me to move here. The term has garnered all kinds of wrong assumptions, and they imagine that I'm going to be here for a few months, float from Air BnB to Air BnB, use and abuse this beautiful land, and then jet off to the next country to rinse and repeat. I've also found that Spaniards tend to believe that we on the DN residency don't pay taxes? Which is like... what? How does anyone live anywhere while paying no taxes? But that is what they believe. Whenever I tell them I'm autónoma, though, we really get to bond over how shitty it is, and they really don't see me as a digital nomad at that point.
Which they shouldn't, 'cause I'm not.
I'm a freelancer and I work for myself, and so does my husband, so we were able to qualify for the "digital nomad visa" which is not even a visa when you apply for it from within Spain, it's actually a residency permit. That direction gives you a 5 year residency plan in Spain, if you renew it after the first 3 years. You can choose to leave after 3, but if you renew at the end of year 3 then you reach permanent residency time at the 5 year mark. It's a clear path to permanent residency and with only 1 renewal point. So if you work remotely or freelance, and you can hit all of the requirements, it's an ideal route to a forever life here if that's what you want. Now, qualifying is a big IF, because there are a strict set of requirements that confuse even the most intelligent folks - for example, if you're freelance, your clients can't be individuals. Your clients must be businesses. If you're not B2B, you don't qualify. But then there's also a workaround where you make your own company into your client... yeah, confusing.
Being autónomo isn't really sunshine and roses (it's taxes and red tape), but to people who truly love it here, it's worth it. To me, putting down roots in Spain should only be done out of a love of the country. Not for saving money (you really won't, you save in some areas but pay more in others so it's almost a wash unless maybe you're in the Beckham Regime which I am not). Not for escaping your last country. Nearly every day I have someone ask me for advice on if they should move to "Portugal or Spain" or "France or Spain" and honestly, if you're not already in love with Spain you may have a hard time here. I grew up in a family of Italian immigrants, so Spain felt instantly like a home to me - the culture and customs are very similar to the Italian ones I grew up with. But I've also had someone visit me here who was wildly uncomfortable the whole time, with everything. NOT EVERYONE WILL LOVE IT HERE and that is OK. Just because you saw on the news that everyone loves Spain doesn't mean you will too.
But if you do... and you work remotely... and can do that for at least 5 years... you might wanna think about the ol' digital nomad residency. You don't have to be a nomad. You can just be digital. In fact, we need more integrated immigrants here -- learning Spanish, paying taxes, and respecting this gorgeous and richly historical country. If that's you, feel free to drop us a line anytime for a little assistance on making that dream your reality.
