Four founders of one project — non-ferrous metal recycling — obtained residence under the startup visa, each with their own family, filing over the course of a year. The first decision arrived exactly three months after filing. Documents came from three countries, each with its own legalisation route.
- 3 months
- the review took
- against a legal deadline of twenty days: this is what it took in practice
- 4 founders
- on one project
- filing in turn, each with their own family
- 2 authorities
- review in parallel
- ENISA assesses the project, UGE decides on residence
- 3 countries
- issued the documents
- each with its own apostille and translation route
What they came with
They came to us in December, two months before the intended filing date. Four families — adults and children — around a single project: non-ferrous metal recycling. There was no company in Spain, and no Spanish partners or clients: the project existed as a deck and the founders’ experience.
The second complication was the paperwork. Some founders lived outside their country of origin and applied on the passport of their country of residence, while birth and marriage certificates had been issued in three different countries. Three issuing states means three legalisation routes — and part of the paperwork had already been legalised, but for the wrong country.
How the timeline ran
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01
Project review and document list
December. The project concept was settled, a document list issued for each family, and the legalisation route worked out for each item.
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02
Legalising the documents
December–February. Apostilles in the issuing countries, criminal record certificates, sworn translations in Spain.
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03
Business plan
January. Market analysis, technology description, project economics, founder CVs in English.
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04
Prototypes and public presence
February. Working prototypes and a project website: the authority looks at more than the text of the plan.
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05
Checking the details before filing
February. Name spellings across all documents were aligned with the passports: transliteration differs between issuing countries.
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06
Filing
20 February. Simultaneously to ENISA for the project assessment and to UGE for the residence application. The clock starts the next day.
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07
Waiting
March–May. Two weeks in, notice of the review beginning arrived with the NIE. After that, silence: there are no interim statuses, and checking is manual.
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08
Decision
21 May, exactly three months after filing. Approval on the first application.
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09
The other founders file
July 2025 – January 2026. Three further approvals: in July, in October and at the end of January. The founder who filed on 31 July had a decision on 10 October — two and a half months.
What did not go to plan
Кейс прошёл не гладко. Ниже — то, что реально задержало или усложнило процесс, и что с этим делали.
Legalisation from a third country was not accepted
The families already had translations and legalisation — done abroad and for a foreign authority. None of it worked for Spain.
The package was rebuilt: apostilles on the certificates, criminal record certificates with apostilles, sworn translations here. This is the longest part of the preparation, and it has to start before anything else.
Name spellings in documents and passports diverged
Transliteration differs between issuing countries, and the familiar spelling is rarely the passport one. Some material carried one version, the passport another.
Before filing every document was checked name by name. A spelling mismatch is a formal ground for a query, and a query suspends the review and gives you a limited period to answer.
The project name clashed with someone else’s brand
The working name coincided with the brand of a large metals group with plants in the EU. That is no obstacle for a business plan, but it means you cannot register a company under that name or use it as a brand.
Checking whether a name is free has to happen before it goes into decks, onto a project website and into documents.
The authority stayed silent for three months
No queries came, and there are no interim statuses — all that remained was checking manually every day.
Formally the law gives the authority twenty days and states that once they pass the application is deemed granted. In practice startup visa decisions take around three months, and here it came on 21 May — exactly three months after filing. There is a tool for this, a request for confirmation of positive silence, but using it before an actual decision means arguing with an authority that is still assessing your project.
What the costs were made of
| Item | Amount | Paid to |
|---|---|---|
| Application fee | €73.26 | to the state, per applicant |
| Residence card fee | €16.08 | to the state, per person |
| Apostilles | by volume | to a third party, in the country that issued the document |
| Sworn translations | by volume | to a third party, a translator in Spain |
| Medical insurance | €190–240/month | to the insurer; two offers per family were compared in this file |
| Business plan and our work | by agreement | to us; fixed before the work starts |
State fees and third-party services cost the same whoever you work with. Apostille and translation costs depend on how many countries issued your documents: here there were three.
What we did
- Packaged the project into a business plan: market analysis, technology, economics
- Prepared working prototypes and a public project website
- Built a document list per family, accounting for the issuing country and its legalisation route
- Aligned name spellings across all documents with the passports
- Prepared founder CVs in English for the business plan
- Filed simultaneously to ENISA and UGE
- Monitored the file daily until the decision
- Handled the remaining founders’ filings as each arrived in Spain
What the service did not cover
Obtaining originals in the issuing countries — apostilles and criminal record certificates — is on the applicants: it requires personal attendance or a power of attorney. We explain the procedure and provide contacts, but we cannot attend in your place. We recommend sworn translators; the client contracts them directly.
Choosing and paying for medical insurance is also the client’s; we check that the policy meets the requirements. Insurance selection is a separate service of ours.
Finding accommodation, opening a bank account and registering a company in Spain were not part of the service. We do handle company registration, but under a separate contract and after the permit is granted.
We do not promise approval and we do not influence timelines. ENISA assesses whether a project is genuinely innovative — an evaluative judgement, and nobody has guarantees there.
On timelines specifically: the law gives twenty days and positive silence, but in practice a startup visa decision takes around three months, which is what it took here. Plan for the gap between the rule and the practice rather than relying on the rule.
Since 2025 practice on the startup visa has tightened, and since January 2026 the authorities have returned to the earlier format: two separate decisions, one from ENISA and one from UGE. We take on projects we consider strong, and we say so before signing: if a project is weak, it is more honest to look at other routes — the digital nomad permit, for instance.
Questions we had to answer
Will legalisation done in another country be accepted?
No. The apostille is affixed by the country that issued the document, and a translation for Spain must be sworn — by a traductor jurado working here. There is a second route: legalising the translation through the foreign ministry in Madrid, but that means appearing in person on a working day, or granting a power of attorney.
Translations and legalisation done for another country’s authorities are not accepted here. Nor is consular legalisation.
Where do you obtain the criminal record certificate?
From the country of the citizenship you are applying on, with an apostille from the issuing state. In this file the founders applied on their second passports and obtained the certificates there — travelling to their former country of residence was not advisable.
Which countries you need also depends on where you have lived in recent years. That is checked separately for each applicant, before collection starts.
What medical insurance is accepted?
Full cover, with no carencia (waiting period) and no copago (co-payment). Price on its own tells you nothing: in this file two offers were compared — €190 and €240 a month — and the question was not the price but the cover, and which clinics the insurer works with in the relevant region.
When does the NIE appear?
About two weeks after filing you receive notice that the review has begun, and the NIE is stated on it. The number therefore exists long before the decision — which is enough to rent a flat, for example: almost every landlord asks for it.
Can you leave Spain between approval and collecting the card?
The order of events is: entry and filing, approval, police appointment and fingerprints, then a few weeks until the card is ready. The question is from which point you can leave and return.
Under the regulation in force since 2025, an autorización de regreso may be issued once the initial residence application has been decided favourably, where the trip answers a situation of necessity and exceptional circumstances apply. It is valid for up to ninety days with no limit on the number of entries within them, and where necessity is evidenced the application is handled as a priority.
In this file, in early 2025, the previous regulation applied and in practice the authorisation was only issued after fingerprints had been taken. Check the procedure with your own office: it has changed, and it is applied inconsistently.
Sources
Нормы и официальные материалы, на которые мы опирались. Ссылки ведут на первоисточники — проверяйте.
- Ley 14/2013, de 27 de septiembre, de apoyo a los emprendedores y su internacionalización Art. 69 — three-year entrepreneur residence; art. 70 — innovation and the mandatory ENISA report; art. 76.1 — twenty-day deadline and positive silence
- Ley 39/2015, de 1 de octubre, del Procedimiento Administrativo Común Counting of periods and the procedure for document requests
- Real Decreto 1155/2024, de 19 de noviembre — Reglamento de la Ley Orgánica 4/2000 Art. 5 — autorización de regreso: issued on a favourable initial decision, necessity of travel and exceptional circumstances; valid up to ninety days with unlimited entries. In force since 2025, after this file