Table of Contents
Husband: Mexican passport, Mexican acta, Mexican ID card; paid MX visa fee
Wife: USA passport, USA birth certificate, MX residency card; paid USA visa fee
Child 1: USA passport, USA birth certificate, MX residency card; paid USA visa fee
Child 2: USA passport, Mexican birth certificate; paid USA visa fee
I have written previously about how we lived in Mexico before moving to Spain, why we moved to Mexico, and our decision process in ultimately moving to Spain.
Today I am going to discuss our visa process in moving to Spain on the non-lucrative visa, and the citizenship process two years later.
- We showed 3 months of bank account statements for both checking and savings.
At the time, our income came from an LLC and passive income through affiliate marketing.
- A state criminal background check for both adults, from the Mexican state that we lived in.
It was technically supposed to be a federal check, but the federal checks were shut down due to covid, with no re-opening date, so the Spanish consulate allowed us to get the state check.
- A medical statement for each person from our pediatrician, who used to visit us at home. We gave him the template, and he followed it exactly.
We also all had to have blood test to show negative results for certain illnesses.
- Apostilled birth certificates and our marriage certificate
At the time, in our family, we had two Mexican citizens. We were able to use both of their Mexican birth certificates and had them apostilled, so they were “new” for the visa application.
Before we moved to Mexico in 2018, I had gotten multiple copies of our marriage certificate, my birth certificate, and child 1’s birth certificate all apostilled, in case we needed them for visa stuff in Mexico. I highly recommend doing this before you move abroad. It is much more difficult to achieve from outside of your home country.
For our visa to Spain in 2021, we submitted all of these “old” documents that we’d had apostilled before leaving the United States in 2018.. An apostille is supposed to ensure a document does not expire, however Spain is constantly asking for documents which are either 6 months old or 3 months old, depending on what the document is and which process it is for. In my opinion, this is a violation of how the Hague was intended, but either way….we were able to submit our marriage certificate, and two US birth certificates from the US, which were apostilled 3 years prior.
To top it off, our marriage certificate, showed my husband with a different last name. After we moved to Mexico, he obtained citizenship there, and was forced to undergo a name change. This meant that his Mexican name did not match either our marriage certificate OR child 1’s United States birth certificate.
- We were asked to submit proof of ownership and website domain registration for all of our websites with which we had an income from. We also submitted copies of our commissions reports from any affiliates who paid us from those websites. They asked us to prove that we would continue to own the websites into the future, so we went ahead and paid for many years out for domain ownership.
- We had to submit proof that there were rentals available in the area we wanted to live, which were above the average rent of the average Spaniard.
In other words, we had to show that we were going to rent on the higher end of things, which would mean that we were not taking a home away from the average earning Spaniard. This is the only reason I can come up with for this requirement.
- My husband had to write out a statement when we went to drop off our visas for each person in the family.
The statement said that he was financially responsible for each of us. He wrote it out, we made copies at a neighboring papeleria, added it to each application, and dropped off the packet in person.
- We each paid a visa fee that matched the fee associated with the passport we used in the application.
As you can see at the top of the post, only one person got the Mexican visa fee, even though there were two Mexican citizens. That did not matter- they only considered the passport for the visa fee. An advantage to having multiple passports is to use the one that benefits you most in whichever country you are entering. In this case, Mexico has a lower visa fee than the United States, but we didn’t have a Mexican passport yet for child 2, so he had to pay the fee for the United States.
Our visa application was approved after 21 days.
- Before going to pick up our visa, we had to buy plane tickets and seen proof of those tickets to the consulate via email.
After that was accepted, we made an appointment to go pick up our visas. My husband went in to collect the visas, and the three of us sat in the car. At some point, the lady from inside came out to look at us, to see us in person, then went back in and gave my husband all of our passports, with the visas attached inside. They come as a sticker, and they took up a whole passport page.
Citizenship in Spain
- Six months prior to our two year anniversary in Spain, we consulted with an attorney about what documents we would need to get citizenship for the husband and two children. They all three had IberoAmerican citizenship. All three were/are Honduran, and two were/are Mexican.
We found an attorney in Honduras, and got all three birth certificates apostilled from Honduras. When we moved from Mexico, we had already gotten documents from there apostilled. These last documents were apostilled in 2021 and accepted with the application. They were over two years old at submission.
Through an attorney, we received information about all of the documents that would be needed for the husband and kids. Ultimately, we decided to save the money and not apply for the IberoAmerican pathway for our kids. Once the husband was finished, he could “pass on” citizenship to the kids, for free.
For the sake of interest, here are the additional documents the attorney said were needed for the kids. They are no different than an adult submission, except for that I would have to also sign for them, whereas I did not have to sign for my husband.
- Child 1: Both birth certificates- one from the USA and the other from Honduras, both passports, TIE (which was linked to the USA passport and states USA citizenship.
- Child 2: At the time, he had three citizenships. She said we only needed to show up to two passports. She said to ignore the USA documentation and go with the Mexican and Honduran documents- both the passports and birth certificate were needed. He also needed to show his TIE card, which is linked to his NLV with his USA passport and shows he is a citizen of the USA on the actual card.
I am sharing the above information because some information out there, from people who have not gone through the process, will say that you have to match your citizenship application with the passport you enter the country with. This was not true for us at all.
We now know that we have a one year or more waiting time for their Spanish birth certificates to come in (though we are hoping they come faster). If I could go back, I would probably just get theirs through the IberoAmerican pathway. I did not realize that “it takes a little longer, but cost less”, meant a whole year plus longer!
- Husband took the Spanish culture test. He did not have to take the language test, due to having IberoAmerican citizenship.
He studied for this test using an app on his phone. He basically memorized the answers by going through them enough times, and passed the test easily.
- Two years and 1 day after we entered Spain, my husband submitted his citizenship application through an attorney. He included the information for the children, so that they could get citizenship through him later.
- Approximately 11.5 months later, he was approved. We received a document in email, that he had to take to his jura appointment with a notary or he could wait many months for an appointment at the registro in Madrid, where we lived at the time.
This is his swearing in appointment. You do not have to use a notary for the jura, but it is supposed to get that step completed faster. It cost under $300 at the time of his appointment. He did the swearing in at a notario in Madrid. The appointment was within about a week of his approval date.
- Before his approval came in, we had already submitted our NLV renewal, because it was due mid April. At the swearing in, at the registro, and at the passport/DNI appointment, he had to show proof of current legal status, which he used this updated residency card do so with.
This is why the NLV renewal is so important. Without it, he would have been out of status. After submitting the citizenship application, our attorney told us that we could leave the country, but that we needed to not be gone for more than 6 months out of the year, so that we could still qualify to renew our NLV, in case it came due before the citizenship approval.
After the jura, we waited 4 months, but had not received the birth certificate. After 4.5 months, we found out from someone else that we could email them, so we did. Within a couple of days, we received an email back, and a few days later we received the birth certificate in email.
Unfortunately, his last name was not correct, so he had to respond with that information. They did not reply to us. A week later, he went into the registro in person in a different city, and let them know about the problem. They submitted it for a correction. A week later, we received the correct birth certificate from Madrid, which we believe was from the original email we sent, since the second city had said it would take up to 6 months to get the corrected document back.
By September 2024, he had the correct birth certificate, and went to police station to get the DNI and passport. The total for both was under 50 euros.
The total time for him to complete the process, which started April 14, 2023 and ended sometime in mid-September of 2024, was 1 yr and 5 months.
List of documents he was required to show for citizenship:
- Both passports and copies of all pages of the passport
- Criminal record certificate from Mexico and Honduras
- Birth certificates, from both countries, apostilled.
- Culture test certificate, passed.
- Original and copy of valid TIE
- Birth certificates for both kids, apostilled.
- Tasa fee paid 104.05 euros at the time of payment (2023)
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