Your Remote Hire Wants To Live In Spain: What The Startup Signs

It usually starts with a message in a team channel: “Would it be OK if I worked from Spain for a while?” For a US startup with a distributed team, the answer is often yes. But “a while” becomes a lease, a school enrollment and a residence permit, and suddenly the company is part of a Spanish immigration file. The good news is that the company’s role is limited and predictable. The bad news is that the employee cannot complete the application without it.

The permit your employee will apply for

The relevant permit is Spain’s international telework permit, widely known as the digital nomad visa. It allows a person to live in Spain while working remotely for a company located outside Spain. The employee is the applicant, but several of the requirements are about the employer:

1. The company must have been operating for at least one year.
2. The employment relationship must have lasted at least three months at the time of the application.
3. The job must be one that can be done remotely.

For very young startups, the first condition is the one to check before anything else. A company incorporated eight months ago cannot meet it, however strong the employee’s profile is.

The documents only the company can provide

Founders are often surprised by how much of the file comes from them:

1. The employment contract, with a sworn translation into Spanish.
2. An official certificate from the company registry in the state of incorporation, showing that the company has existed and operated for at least a year, also with a sworn translation.
3. A company letter describing the business, the employee’s role and duties, an express statement that the work is performed remotely, and the salary expressed in euros.
4. Bank certificates showing the salary payments under the contract over the previous three months.

The salary itself matters too. The employee’s income has to reach the permit’s threshold, which in 2026 is usually taken as 2,849 euros gross per month, with more for each family member. Expressing the salary in euros in the letter is not a formality: it lets the authority compare it directly with that threshold.

HR teams that have done this once tend to keep a template. Teams doing it for the first time often bring in a firm that prepares Spain digital nomad visa applications, mainly to get the company letter right at the first attempt.

Social Security: the part that needs a decision

The question that requires a real decision from the company is Social Security. According to the official guidance of the Spanish unit that processes these permits, an employee working remotely for a foreign company is in principle covered by the Spanish general Social Security system. That means the company registers in Spain as a non-resident employer without a permanent establishment. The only alternative is a certificate issued under a bilateral social security agreement that expressly covers telework in Spain.

Whether such a certificate is available in a given case depends on the agreement and on the facts, and it is worth checking before the application is filed rather than after. In the first six months, the passport is enough for the employee to be registered with Spanish Social Security, even before they receive a foreigner’s identification number.

After approval: what the company keeps doing

The permit has conditions that must continue to hold, and the employee has to report relevant changes to the processing unit within 30 days. From the company’s side, that means telling the employee promptly about anything that affects the file:

1. A change of salary, especially a reduction.
2. A change in the contract, such as a new entity or a new role.
3. The end of the employment relationship.

The permit is renewed for two-year periods as long as the conditions still hold, so the documents the company provides at the start will be needed again.

A short checklist for founders

1. Confirm the company has at least one year of activity and the employee at least three months of contract.
2. Prepare the company letter, the registry certificate and the payroll evidence.
3. Decide how Social Security will be handled.
4. Set up a process for reporting changes.

Done this way, letting a valued team member live in Spain becomes a manageable HR task rather than an open-ended legal risk.