Family Reunification in Spain
Bringing a spouse, a partner or a child to join you. The tests fall on you rather than on them, and the permit they receive is worth more than most people expect.
Reagrupacion familiar is the route by which a foreign national already resident in Spain brings close family to live here. The person applying is the sponsor, and almost every requirement is measured against the sponsor rather than against the relative.
The single most valuable thing to know is what your family gets at the end. A reunification authorisation held by a spouse, a registered or proven partner or a reunified child entitles them to work, employed or self-employed, anywhere in Spain and in any occupation or sector.
No separate work permit, no additional administrative step, provided they are over the minimum working age. People routinely assume the opposite and plan their family's first year around a restriction that does not exist.
What the sponsor has to prove
The requirements sit on you, not on the relative you are bringing.
A year here, and another applied for
You may apply once you have resided in Spain for at least one year and have applied for authorisation to reside for at least another year. The regulation lists exceptions to this.
Income at 150% of IPREM
Fixed and regular resources equal to 150% of IPREM for a unit of you plus one reunified member, and a further 50% of IPREM for each additional member.
Adequate housing
Accommodation adequate to meet your needs and your family's. This is assessed on the property, so a room in a shared flat is rarely going to carry a family application.
Health insurance
Cover for you and for the family members you are bringing. It is a requirement on the sponsor, so arrange it before you file rather than after they arrive.
Children already here, in school
If you have other dependent minor children of compulsory school age already in Spain, they must be enrolled. The application looks at the household you already run.
A reduction where a child is involved
The income threshold can be lowered in the best interests of the child, to 110% of the annual guaranteed Ingreso Minimo Vital for a two-person unit including a minor, plus 10% for each additional minor.
Who counts as family
A spouse over eighteen, provided you are not separated in fact or in law and the marriage was not celebrated in fraud of law. Never more than one spouse, even where your personal law permits it.
If you have remarried, you can only bring the new spouse and their family if you can show your earlier marriages were dissolved through a legal procedure that settled the common home, any spousal pension, and maintenance for dependent children.
An unmarried partner over eighteen also qualifies, in a relationship of affection analogous to marriage. That means either a partnership registered in an EU public register and not since cancelled, or a stable relationship proven by any legally admissible means.
For an unregistered relationship the standard is at least twelve continuous months of cohabitation, in or outside Spain. That prior cohabitation is not required if you have a child together and the bond continues. Marriage, registered partnership and proven stable relationship are mutually exclusive here, so you must pick the one that fits.
Children of yours or of your spouse or partner qualify where they are under eighteen at the time of application, with further conditions in the regulation covering custody and dependency.
The income test, and why no euro figure appears here
The thresholds are expressed as multiples of IPREM, the public income indicator Spain uses as a reference for this kind of test. The regulation sets 150% for you plus one family member, then 50% more for each additional person.
We have not printed a euro amount, and that is deliberate. IPREM is reset annually in the national budget, as is the guaranteed income of the Ingreso Minimo Vital used for the reduced threshold, so any figure published here would quietly go out of date.
What matters more than the number is the word regular. The test is for fixed and regular resources, assessed on their nature and their regularity. A single large deposit is not the same as a demonstrable income, and the regulation sets out how different kinds of income are counted.
How long the family member's permit lasts
It is tied to yours, which surprises people who expect a standard term. Where you hold a temporary authorisation, your relative's runs to the same expiry date as yours at the moment they enter Spain.
Where you are a long-term resident or a long-term-EU resident, their first authorisation runs to the validity date of your identity card instead.
At renewal the permit becomes considerably better: the renewed authorisation allows employed and self-employed work without limitation and lasts four years, though its validity remains conditional on your own authorisation being maintained.
Their status depends on yours
For as long as the permit is a reunification permit, it hangs on the sponsor's. If your own authorisation lapses, theirs is exposed. That dependency is the reason the independent residence routes below matter so much.
Getting out from under the sponsor
A reunified spouse or partner can obtain an independent residence and work authorisation after completing at least one year of reunification residence in Spain, provided they meet one of the conditions the regulation lists.
Granted at the moment of renewal, that independent authorisation lasts four years and continues to allow residence and work without any limitation.
If the relationship ends, there is a route: separation, dissolution, nullity or cancellation of the registration can support an independent authorisation where the bond lasted three years and there was cohabitation in Spain of at least one year, alongside the alternatives the article sets out.
If the sponsor dies, an independent authorisation is available regardless of how long the family member has resided or cohabited, provided they were meeting the requirements before the death and they apply within six months of it. That six-month window is easy to miss during a bereavement, and it is the detail worth writing down.
Children and minors under the sponsor's legal representation obtain an independent authorisation on reaching majority, under the same set of conditions.
Where reunification applications fail
Applying too early
The one-year residence plus a pending application for another year is a gate, not a guideline. Filing before you are through it wastes the fee and the wait.
Irregular income
The test is fixed and regular resources. Freelancers with lumpy earnings often meet the annual total and fail the regularity, which is a different problem needing different evidence.
Housing that will not carry a family
Adequate housing is assessed against the household you propose. A tenancy that suits one person alone will not support bringing three more.
Assuming the family cannot work
The opposite is true, and the assumption costs households a year of income they were entitled to earn from the start.
The order to do this in
- 1
Check you are through the gate
One year resided, and an application in for at least another year. If you are not there yet, the date you become eligible is the first thing to establish.
- 2
Do the income arithmetic honestly
150% of IPREM for you plus one, then 50% for each additional person. Work out the multiple for your actual household before anything else.
- 3
Sort the housing report and insurance
Adequate housing is evidenced through a report, and health cover has to be in place for you and for everyone you are bringing.
- 4
Plan the independence date
From the moment your relative arrives, note when they complete a year. That is when an independent authorisation first comes into view.
Source, and the limits of a guide
This comes from the immigration regulation approved by Royal Decree 1155/2024, principally the chapter on residence by family reunification: the definition, who may be reunified, the requirements on the sponsor, the procedure and duration, independent residence, and renewal.
No euro figures are quoted. The thresholds are multiples of IPREM and of the guaranteed Ingreso Minimo Vital, both reset annually in the national budget, so the current amounts belong in the year's official figures rather than on this page.
Reunification is one of the most fact-sensitive procedures in Spanish immigration law. Custody arrangements, prior marriages, proving an unregistered relationship and the regularity of self-employed income all turn on documents specific to you, and this is a route where a lawyer earns their fee.