Spanish guidance: the digital nomad permit runs for the period requested, up to three years

The ministry's Directorate-General for Migration Management (Dirección General de Gestión Migratoria) signed its Management Criterion 2/2025 on 16 July 2025, clarifying the duration of residence permits issued under Law 14/2013 – the law on support for entrepreneurs and their internationalisation. The document is available on the website of the Large Companies Unit (UGE-CE).

The guidance starts from the fact that, of the five categories, only the duration of the entrepreneur permit is expressly fixed by the law, at three years. For the others the Directorate-General sets the duration by reference to the articles of the law and the EU directives: for highly qualified professionals the length of the contract plus three months, up to three years; for researchers the length of the hosting agreement or contract, up to three years; for intra-company transferees up to three years for managers and specialists and one year for trainees. The permit of international teleworkers runs "for the period requested, with a maximum of three years".

The document stresses that these categories were deliberately left outside the general system of the immigration law (LOEx) and of the implementing regulation adopted by Royal Decree 1155/2024 of 19 November 2024, so the general rules apply to duration only to a limited extent. The guidance does not deal with family members or with renewal.