An unmarried couple obtained the digital nomad permit together. The basis for the second applicant was a pareja de hecho, executed before a notary two weeks before their Schengen visa ran out — and they filed the same day. The decision on the main application came on the last day of the deadline; the partner’s came after a request for positive silence.
- 20 working days
- legal deadline for the permit
- the decision on the main application came on the last day
- 2 weeks
- left on the Schengen visa
- the pareja was executed and the applications filed on the same day
- €73.26
- application fee
- to the state, per applicant
- €710
- sworn translations
- to a third party, for the whole package for two
What they came with
They came to us in late March, six weeks before the Schengen visa expired. Remote work under a contract with a company outside Spain; income evidenced by bank statements and invoices.
The decisive question was not the paperwork but the basis. The couple are not married, so the second applicant could not go as a spouse — the marriage certificate the authority expects from a family member simply does not exist. Another document was needed, one recognised in Spain, and it can only be obtained here, in person.
How the timeline ran
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01
Assessment and choice of basis
Late March. Call, review of the situation, decision to bring the second applicant in through a pareja de hecho.
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02
Client company documents
March–April. Paper extracts with wet stamps, apostille, the contract and one annex.
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03
Financial evidence
April. Three months of bank statements and the invoices matching the payments.
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04
Translations
April. The whole package went to a sworn translator as a single order — cheaper and faster than piecemeal.
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05
Pareja de hecho
29 April. Notary in Barcelona, two witnesses, about an hour. The deed was entered in the register of stable couples the next day.
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06
Filing
29 April, the same day the pareja was executed. Some translations were not ready and were uploaded to the file afterwards.
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07
Decision on the main application
28 May — the last day of the twenty-working-day period. Approved.
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08
Decision on the second applicant
1 June, after a request for positive silence — although by law both applications, filed the same day, should have been decided together.
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09
Fingerprints and cards
30 June fingerprints, early August the residence cards in hand.
What did not go to plan
Кейс прошёл не гладко. Ниже — то, что реально задержало или усложнило процесс, и что с этим делали.
The Schengen visa expired two weeks after the pareja
The visa ran to 12 May, and a pareja cannot be arranged in advance or remotely — only in person before a notary in Spain.
What mattered was making the filing: the application itself extends your existing status until the file is decided. So the whole schedule was built backwards from the notary appointment — apostilles, translations, witnesses, arrival in the right city. They filed the same day the pareja was executed. There was no slack.
The witnesses might not turn up
They had two of their own, and both were unreliable: one eight months pregnant, the other liable to travel. Cancelling and rebooking the notary was not an option on this schedule.
Paid stand-ins were held ready — €100 each plus travel. An unpleasant cost, but cheaper than a lost date.
The notary went silent while the clock ran
Two days before the intended date the office was not answering the phone or emails. There was a fallback notary, but in Spain such things are rarely settled quickly — and the witnesses needed to be told a time.
The slot was confirmed only for the evening of 29 April: the mornings were gone. It was the last date that still fitted the schedule.
The second applicant’s decision contained a typo
The decision as issued had an error in the data. Correcting it at the authority would have taken weeks, and the fingerprint appointment was already booked — the next free one was a month away.
We weighed the risk and went with what we had: the typo was obviously a typo and not in the key fields. It caused no problem at the appointment.
What the costs were made of
| Item | Amount | Paid to |
|---|---|---|
| Application fee | €73.26 | to the state, per applicant |
| Sworn translations | €710 | to a third party, for the whole package for two |
| Notary, pareja de hecho | around €200 | to the notary, for executing the deed |
| Extracts and apostilles | by volume | to a third party, in the client company’s country |
| Stand-in witnesses | €100 + travel | to a third party, each; held as insurance in this file |
| Our work | by agreement | to us; fixed before the work starts |
Fees, the notary and third-party services cost the same whoever you work with. Translation cost depends on volume: here the package covered two applicants.
What we did
- Reviewed the situation and chose the basis for the second applicant
- Built the document list and the order of collection around expiry dates
- Checked the client contract and its annex against the authority’s requirements
- Checked the statements and invoices: income over the three months before filing
- Sent the package to a sworn translator as a single order
- Found the notary, agreed the date and prepared the data for the deed
- Held stand-in witnesses ready
- Completed the forms and produced the fee receipts
- Filed for both on the day the pareja was executed
- Requested positive silence for the second applicant once the period had passed
- Booked the fingerprint and card collection appointments
What the service did not cover
Obtaining originals in the client company’s country — extracts and apostilles — is on the client: it requires personal attendance or a power of attorney. We explain what is needed and in what form, but we cannot attend in your place.
Witnesses for the pareja are brought by the applicant. We can find stand-ins, but that is a separate cost and a direct arrangement.
Finding accommodation, the padrón registration and opening a bank account were not part of the service. Autónomo registration and bookkeeping are separate contracts; we provide both ourselves.
The sequential-filing arrangement works, but it must be understood correctly. We do not promise timelines and we do not influence them. The decision on the main application came on the last day of the twenty-working-day period, and the second applicant’s came outside it, after a request for positive silence. That happens often, but you cannot plan on it.
On the schedule: filing two weeks before a Schengen visa expires is not something we recommend repeating. It worked out here, but there was no slack at all — had the notary not answered in time, the whole chain would have collapsed, and the conversation would have been about a new visa and a new entry.
Questions we had to answer
How do you include a partner if you are not married?
The law does not speak of marriage but of the relationship: the right to apply alongside the main applicant belongs to «a spouse or a person in an analogous relationship of affection». The document that evidences such a relationship in Spain is the pareja de hecho.
In Catalonia a couple is regarded as stable in one of three cases: living together for more than two years, a common child, or formalising the relationship by notarial deed. The third route is the one used when there is no time: it requires neither years of cohabitation nor proof of them.
It is executed in person, by both, before a notary. In practice you need valid passports, each partner’s profession and marital status, and an email address.
Who cannot enter into a pareja de hecho?
The law lists them explicitly: unemancipated minors; close relatives in the direct line and to the second degree collaterally; people who are married and not de facto separated; and those already living as a couple with a third person.
That is why the notary asks each partner’s marital status — it is not a formality. An undissolved earlier marriage is a stopper here, and it needs to surface before the whole schedule is built around the date.
What will the notary want in practice, and what does it cost?
The law requires neither witnesses nor proof of how long you have been together for this route. But an individual notary may ask for both — witnesses have to be found and brought, and the relationship is evidenced with photographs across different months, correspondence, tickets, hotel bookings. Ask the chosen office in advance: the difference between «turn up with your passports» and «bring two witnesses with documents» is a week of preparation.
If either partner does not understand the language of the deed, an interpreter is required. A sworn one is not: since 2007 any person chosen by the party will do — they interpret aloud and sign the deed alongside everyone else.
The appointment itself takes 45–60 minutes and cost around €200 here.
How much time should you allow before filing?
At least ten calendar days. There are several independent bottlenecks: a free slot with the notary, that office’s own requirements, and the witnesses turning up if they are asked for.
Entering the deed in Catalonia’s register of stable couples is declaratory: the couple comes into existence when the deed is signed, not when it is registered. You do not need to wait for the register in order to file — the deed is enough.
Register anyway, and as early as you can. The regulation in force since 2025, describing relationships analogous to marriage, names two routes: entry in a public register of an EU Member State — or proven cohabitation of at least twelve continuous months. Formally that provision sits in the general family reunification chapter rather than the route used in this file, but it is the safer thing to aim at: a registered pareja closes the question, an unregistered one sends you back to proving a year of living together.
What evidences lawful presence in Spain on the filing date?
A separate risk few people think about. Refusals do occur on the ground that the entry declaration was not recorded in the central immigration register and the entry date therefore cannot be verified — even where the applicant holds the paper declaration stamped by the police.
The notarial pareja de hecho deed does this work on its own: the notary certifies that on that day you appeared before them in person, in Spain. Keep boarding passes and receipts too — shops, pharmacies, restaurants.
How do you legalise the documents of a foreign client company?
An electronic PDF from an online account will not do. The company register extract must be obtained on paper, from the tax authority, with a wet stamp, and taken from there for the apostille.
A sole trader’s registration certificate follows the same route — both extracts are ordered from the same office and submitted for apostille together. Their shelf life is short: at filing the extract should be no more than ten days old.
Does everything need a sworn translation?
No. A bank statement may be translated by an ordinary translator — no sworn translation is required for it. Sworn translation is needed for documents the authority treats as official.
That said, translations are a real risk to the schedule: in peak season sworn translators have a queue, and the package may not be ready on the date. In this file part of the translations were uploaded after filing.
Why did one applicant get a decision and the other not?
By law that should not happen: where family members’ applications are filed at the same time as the main applicant’s, they must also be decided at the same time. In practice the authority delays decisions on family members — the application seems to sit until someone reminds them.
The working tool here is a request for positive silence. The review period is twenty working days; once it has passed the application is deemed granted, and after a reminder the authority usually simply releases the decision: here it arrived three days later.
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. 62.3.a — not being unlawfully present in Spain; art. 62.4 — «a spouse or a person in an analogous relationship of affection» applies alongside, and applications filed together are decided together; art. 76.1 — twenty-day deadline, positive silence, and the filing extending existing status
- Ley 25/2010, de 29 de julio, del libro segundo del Código civil de Cataluña Art. 234-1 — the three ways a stable couple comes into being, including a notarial deed with no cohabitation requirement; art. 234-2 — who may not enter into one
- Decreto-ley 3/2015, de 6 de octubre, de creación del Registro de parejas estables Catalonia’s register of stable couples; entry is declaratory, not constitutive
- Real Decreto 1155/2024, de 19 de noviembre — Reglamento de la Ley Orgánica 4/2000 Art. 66.1.b — how a relationship analogous to marriage is evidenced: entry in a public register of an EU Member State, or cohabitation of at least twelve months
- Ley 39/2015, de 1 de octubre, del Procedimiento Administrativo Común Art. 30.2 — periods expressed in days are counted in working days
- Reglamento de la organización y régimen del Notariado Art. 150 — interpreter where a party does not understand the language of the deed; since 2007 a sworn interpreter is not required