Getting a student visa for Spain

First post and it’s a long one! This isn’t super relevant to most people, but when I was getting ready to move to Spain, I couldn’t find anything describing the visa process in depth. I kept looking for a step by step guide and couldn’t find one, so here I am to fill that gap.

When doing research on teaching and living in Spain, every blog emphasizes that you should NOT procrastinate applying for your visa. However, being a world class procrastinator… I did just that.

I applied to TtMadrid’s Teaching and Cultural Immersion Program in January 2017 and was accepted within a week. From here I paid my initial deposit, and was given the tools to begin the process of applying for a student visa.

While you cannot receive a visa more than three months in advance, the process is lengthy and starting as soon as possible will save you a ton of time, money, and stress. I read this in my research, but once I saw the list of items required for the application I was overwhelmed and shut down – leaving it all to be dealt with at a later date.

To apply for a student visa, at least at the Boston consulate you need;

A visa appointment at the consulate
The national application form (found here)
The supplemental application form (here)
A passport photo
Your passport
Your letter of acceptance to your school/program in Spain
A letter from your health insurance company proving you are covered in Spain
Proof of financial means during your stay
A non-refundable money order of $160
A certificate of non-criminal records (criminal background check) from either the state or FBI, stamped with the Apostille of the Hague, and translations of these documents.
AND a medical certificate

PLUS, you must have a photocopy of all these documents, including your passport.

Looking at this for the first time, I was filled with dread. I had no idea what it meant to have something notarized, how to get Spanish health insurance, and I didn’t even have a doctor to get a medical certificate from.

Naturally, instead of taking this on little by little I decided to push it all aside until my appointment day was right around the corner.

So, while it was possible to get all the required information together in VERY little time. I would definitely not recommend it. I relied on many favors from strangers, called my parents daily for help and paid $55 just to have my translations overnighted to me on a Saturday.

Since the main reason I procrastinated so hard was a lack of understanding of the requirements, I’ll break them all down here to hopefully remove any doubt.

A visa appointment at the consulate – The visa appointment was surprisingly not the hard part for me. Many people look for an appointment right around the time they need to be there and they are booked for months in advance. In my case, the appointment was the first thing I did, so I was easily able to make one more than 6 weeks before I am set to be in Madrid. To make the appointment for Boston go to https://app.timetrade.com/tc/login.do?url=cgsb choose student visa and search for open time slots. If there aren’t any, many people advise that you continuously check back to search for cancellations.

The national application form (found here) – This part was fine for me as well. I filled mine out by hand following an example application from BU Study Abroad. You get to leave many sections blank and any glaring mistakes can be fixed at the consulate.

The supplemental application form – Same as the national application I had no problems following the template from BU.

A passport photo – You need two copies! Get these done at CVS or Walgreens or any other similar stores.

Your passport – DON’T FORGET THE COLOR PHOTOCOPY

Your letter of acceptance to your school/program in Spain – Something I read said to print this in color. This isn’t stated anywhere on the consulate web page, but many things aren’t mentioned there and it’s better safe than sorry right??

A letter from your health insurance company proving you are covered in Spain – Consulates have different requirements as to how much coverage you need, Boston’s website doesn’t say so I purchased mine through HCC with $50,000 maximum coverage in order to be sure it would be accepted.

Proof of financial means during your stay – There are three ways to prove this. Either provide personal bank statements proving that you have enough money to live for the duration of your visa, a letter from your school saying that they are expressly assuming responsibility for your financial aid/ scholarship during your stay, OR a notarized letter from a parent that assumes full financial IPREM for room and board. This is the most common option for students. The letter from parents should read “I hereby certify that I am the (father/mother/other) of (…), that I will support him/her with a monthly allowance of at least the IPREM, that is to say 532.51€ while he/she is in Spain and that I am financially responsible for any emergency that may arise”. I pulled this straight from the Boston consulate’s website, but it may vary between consulates.

A non-refundable money order of $160 – They don’t take cash or checks so be sure you get this. You can get it at any post office as well as some grocery stores.

A certificate of non-criminal records (criminal background check) from either the state or FBI, stamped with the Apostille of the Hague, and translations of these documents – I HATED this part. First of all, the FBI background check can take 8-10 weeks to receive so that wasn’t even an option for me. Also if you get it from the FBI you need to send it to the US Department of State in DC to be stamped with the Apostille, which takes even more time if you live nowhere near there and have to go through a private company. Since this was all so complicated I decided to go with state background checks. I had to get these both in Vermont and Massachusetts because I have lived in both states in the past 5 years. The original English versions of your background checks must be notarized and stamped with the Apostille. Most banks have someone who can notarize documents and it was free for me to have this done. The apostille must come from the State Department of the state that the check is from. So yes, I had to go to TWO state departments. After getting the background checks you need them translated by a legal translator. Don’t ask me what a legal translator is, I’m still unsure. All I know is that I paid a whopping THREE HUNDRED dollars to send them out to be translated and notarized. What I got back seemed professional and came on official letterhead but I feel like the results probably could have been attained by one of the cheaper companies I had been looking at beforehand.

A medical certificate – Finally, you also need a letter from a doctor saying that you are in good health. All this needs to say is “This medical certificate attests that Mr./ Mrs. …………………does not suffer from any illness that would pose a threat to public health following International Health Regulations of 2005.” but it MUST be signed by an M.D. or D.O. To get this I first had to find a doctor, and ended up going with a nurse practitioner. I had a routine physical THEN showed her the letter and she had me go for a T.B. test as well as a bunch of other things like HIV, Chlamydia, Syphilis and probably other stuff too. Once those all came back negative she signed the letter while another doctor in the practice cosigned it for me.

So yes, I was able to get all of this done before my visa appointment but it was so stressful and cost much more than it should have. Everything was down to the wire. My appointment was Monday and I didn’t receive my medical certificate until the Friday before, while my translations arrived on Saturday.

Don’t let all of this scare you away from a year in Spain, I can assure you it will be worth it!