Visas & Residency
Understanding visa categories, requirements, and pathways.
What you'll learn on this page
- • How visa categories differ (work, investment, passive income, digital nomad)
- • What variables determine which options apply to you
- • Common documentation and timeline issues
- • How visas connect to banking, healthcare, and residency
Most countries have dozens of visa categories, and the names alone rarely tell you which one applies to your situation. "Long-stay visa," "residence permit," "work authorization" — the terminology varies by country and often means different things depending on where you're coming from and what you plan to do.
The path that makes sense for you depends on a handful of key variables: your nationality, your income source, whether you'll be employed locally or working remotely, how long you intend to stay, and whether you're moving alone or with family. Some combinations open straightforward options. Others require navigating requirements that seem designed to confuse.
This page helps you understand the landscape: what types of visas exist, how the categories differ, and what questions to ask as you research your options.
How to Use This Page
Visa research tends to follow a natural progression. Early on, you're trying to understand what categories even exist and which might apply to your situation. Later, you're comparing specific programs, gathering documents, and figuring out timelines. The guides here are organized roughly along those lines — foundational concepts first, then detailed breakdowns of particular visa types and common complications.
If you've already settled on a destination, the country-specific visa pages go deeper. Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France each have their own quirks, requirements, and bureaucratic personalities. City guides like Living in Barcelona or Living in Madrid cover what happens after you arrive — local registration, finding housing, opening bank accounts.
A reminder: visa rules change constantly, and the specifics matter enormously. Use these guides to build understanding and ask better questions, but verify current requirements through official sources before making decisions.
The Visa Landscape at a Glance
Broadly speaking, visas fall into a few main categories based on why you're moving. Work visas require a job offer or local employment. Investment visas require deploying capital — usually in property, businesses, or government bonds. Passive income visas (sometimes called retirement visas) require proving you can support yourself without working locally. And increasingly, digital nomad visas let remote workers live in a country while earning from employers or clients elsewhere.
Within each category, requirements vary wildly. Some countries make it relatively simple; others impose complex documentation, income thresholds, or bureaucratic hurdles that can take months to clear. The same visa type might be straightforward in one country and byzantine in another.
Process timelines also differ dramatically. Some visas can be approved in weeks. Others involve multiple appointments, background checks, and waiting periods that stretch into many months. And the sequence matters — certain documents expire, some steps must happen in a specific order, and starting over due to a mistake is more common than you'd hope.
Common Questions
Early in your research, you're mostly trying to understand how visa systems work at all. These guides explain the foundational concepts — the difference between a visa and a work permit, how digital nomad programs actually function, what a typical application process looks like. Start here if you're still orienting.
How these newer visa types work and who they're for
Understanding the difference and when you need each
Routes to long-term legal residence abroad
General steps and what to expect when applying
Planning ahead for extending your stay
Bringing family members to join you abroad
Deep Dives
Once you've narrowed down which visa category fits your situation, the operational details start to matter. These guides explore what tends to trip people up: documentation pitfalls, appointment bottlenecks, and the meaningful differences between residency pathways that only become clear partway through the process.
Residency Pathways: How They Differ
Comparing work, investment, family, and independent routes
Documents That Cause Delays
Common documentation problems and how to avoid them
Appointments and Timelines
What affects processing speed and wait times
Temporary vs Long-Term Residency
Understanding permit duration implications
Renewals and Status Changes
What disrupts renewal and transition processes
Explore Options
When you've moved past "which category?" to "will this specific program work for me?", these guides break down individual visa types. Eligibility, documentation, process — the practical details. Requirements change, so treat these as a starting point for understanding what's involved, then verify current rules through official sources.
Provider Overviews
Some people navigate visa applications themselves; others hire immigration lawyers or relocation specialists, particularly when the stakes are high or the bureaucracy feels opaque. These overviews explain what different types of professional help actually provide — not recommendations, but context for understanding what you'd be paying for.
Country Visa Guides
Residency pathways vary dramatically by country — not just the visa types available, but the bureaucratic processes, documentation requirements, and timeline realities. These guides break down what the residency process actually looks like in each destination.
NIE, TIE, empadronamiento, and the timeline to legal residency
SEF appointments, NIF, and the D7 vs Golden Visa landscape
Permesso di soggiorno, questura appointments, and comune registration
Titre de séjour, préfecture appointments, and VLS-TS validation
Temporal vs permanente, INM canje, and consulate vs in-country processes
Related Guides
Visa decisions ripple into nearly everything else. Your visa status often determines what bank accounts you can open and when — many banks require residency documentation before they'll work with you. Banking guides cover how these dependencies typically play out.
Healthcare access is similarly tied to visa type. Some visas include public coverage; others require private insurance. Understanding these connections early helps with budgeting and avoiding gaps.
Many visas also impose explicit income or savings thresholds. Cost of living research helps you understand whether those requirements align with what it actually costs to live in your destination.