The single question we are asked most often about Spain’s digital nomad visa is a number: how much do I need to earn? The honest version of the answer has three parts — the figure, how it is calculated, and why the figure alone is not what wins the case.
The figure, for 2026
For a single applicant in 2026, the income requirement lands near €2,850 per month. It rises for a partner and for each child, because the test is built around the size of the household, not just the main earner.
Treat that number as a 2026 figure that is reviewed annually. It is not fixed in the way a price is fixed — it moves, and we confirm the current threshold for your case at the consultation rather than quoting last year’s.
How it is calculated
The threshold is not an arbitrary round number. It is a multiple of Spain’s minimum wage (the SMI) — broadly around 200% of it for the main applicant, with defined additions per dependant. Because the minimum wage is set each year, the income requirement moves with it. That is exactly why “roughly €2,850” is the right way to hold it, and why an old blog number you found online may already be stale.
If your income sits a little short of the line, savings can help. Up to around 15% of a shortfall can typically be shown as accumulated savings rather than monthly income — a detail that turns a number of borderline cases into workable ones. It is not a loophole; it is part of how the test is designed.
Why the number is not the hard part
Here is the thing applicants underestimate. Two people can both clear €2,850 a month and get different answers, because the visa office is not only asking “is the number big enough” — it is asking “does this income file hold together.” Contracts, invoices and bank statements that do not reconcile, an employer relationship that looks too new, a freelance client base that is mostly Spanish — any of these can sink a file that passes the arithmetic.
So the work is less about hitting a number and more about building a clean, coherent income file: figures that reconcile line by line, the right evidence for whether you are employed or freelance, and the social-security question handled for your nationality. That is where borderline cases are actually won or lost.
Nomad visa or non-lucrative visa?
One more distinction matters, because it changes which threshold applies to you. The digital nomad visa is for people who keep working remotely for clients or employers outside Spain — it carries the income test above. If instead you plan to live in Spain without working, on a pension, investments or savings, that is the non-lucrative visa, which is built around a different (means-based) test entirely.
Picking the wrong one wastes months. If you are not sure which describes you, the eligibility check on each page below sorts it out in a couple of minutes — and we confirm the current 2026 figures with you before anything is filed.