Residency After the Golden Visa in Madrid
Community of Madrid
With the investment visa gone since 3 April 2025, Madrid's replacement routes are the employment ones — and Madrid is where they work best. The national authorities sit here, the specialised unit for large employers and highly-qualified roles operates here, and the concentration of multinational headquarters means employer-sponsored applications are routine rather than exceptional.
For someone who was considering the Golden Visa as a passive investor, the honest reframing is that Spain now expects either an economic activity or demonstrable independent means. Madrid suits the first: if you can secure a qualifying role, the route is faster and more secure than the investment visa ever was, because it does not depend on holding an asset.
Local context: Madrid
| Extranjería office | Oficina de Extranjería de Madrid, plus the specialised Unidad de Grandes Empresas for large-employer and highly-qualified files |
|---|---|
| Company registry | Registro Mercantil de Madrid |
| Local context | Being where the national bodies sit means escalations, appeals and unusual cases are resolved without going through a regional layer |
| Work authorisation | Granted by the central Oficina de Extranjería |
| Central authorities | The Ministerio de Inclusión, the Oficina de Asilo y Refugio and the central registries are all seated here |
| Tax administration | Agencia Tributaria (state) + Comunidad de Madrid for regional taxes |
| Language | Spanish only — no co-official language, so no regional translation step |
Sources: Cita previa — Sede electrónica · Portal de Inmigración · Agencia Tributaria
What we handle: Residency After the Golden Visa
Spain’s Golden Visa is closed — here are the live alternatives.
- Honest briefing: why the Spanish Golden Visa is closed
- Digital Nomad Visa (remote workers & freelancers)
- Non-Lucrative Visa (NLV) for the financially independent
- Entrepreneur and self-employed routes
Questions about this service
Is there any investment route left in Spain?
Not as a residence-by-investment permit — that category was abolished. Entrepreneurship and business-activity routes exist, but they require an actual viable business project assessed on its merits, not a passive capital placement. Anyone describing that as 'the new Golden Visa' is blurring an important distinction.
I have significant savings but no job offer. What fits in Madrid?
Most likely the non-lucrative route, which requires sufficient means and health cover and prohibits working in Spain. Madrid is a perfectly viable place to live under it — the route is national. If you would rather work, the entrepreneurship route is the alternative, and it is a genuinely different application.
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