The second most common question I receive after the where should I live question is the “How Can I Stay Legally as an American?” question.

There are several ways to get residency in Spain–either for the short or long term. I have a long overdue interview I need to publish on this from someone who is taking a different route than what I am going to present here, but meanwhile, I want to share a relatively simple solution with my readers (Key word relatively. there are no simple solutions in reality)

Student Visa for Spain

Many Americans don’t know that you can get a student visa from language school. It’s true, you don’t need to attend a University to get a student visa. You just need an accredited language school where you attend classes for 20 hours a week or more. Now, there are a lot of language schools in Barcelona–I should know, I’ve attended no fewer than six seven of them–and each have their varying levels of cooperativeness in arranging the Spanish paperwork for a visa. I actually applied for a student visa in 2011 and received all the paperwork I needed from a school very quickly. Despite my level Spanish level being advanced intermediate at the time (B2 that would be called here), they enrolled me for a full year course, starting with the very beginning level and adding in study time for their level tests, in order to extend the length of the visa. Very helpful! I didn’t actually have to attend the beginning classes, and jumped into the program later at the advanced intermediate level, which I repeated, and then repeated the advanced level too.

Schools should work with you to arrange a 6 month, 9 month and 12 month visa if their class schedules coincide with those lengths – smart schools will have that figured out. (Some schools are better than others at this!) I would suggest a 9 month course, because that ensures that you get a visa that is over 180 days in length. Here is why you want a visa that is 180+ days: Because once it is up, you can renew it from Spain. No traveling back to the US and waiting around for another application to be processed.

You only need to be prepared to pay tuition up front, (and then of course fulfill the paperwork on the US side of the visa). Some schools are much more expensive than others, but all of them are a lot cheaper than a student visa from a University.

So if you looking for a way to extend your stay beyond the 30 day tourist visa, and are planning to learn Spanish while you are here anyway, a student visa could be a good solution for you.

Check the student visa requirements page for a detailed list of everything required (it’s long, but thorough).

Note: Apply for a student visa early. Getting all of the medical checks, FBI background check, paperwork and of course processing time can take up to three months!