Change 1.  The income threshold is €2,849

The threshold is 200% of Spain’s minimum wage, so it moves when the wage does.  Royal Decree 126/2026, published in the BOE on 19 February 2026, set the 2026 wage at €1,221 in fourteen payments, a 3.1% rise, with effect from 1 January.  On the twelve-payment monthly basis the UGE applies, that is €1,424.50 a month and the applicant must show twice that: €2,849 gross a month, or €34,188 a year.

Dependants add to it: 75% of the wage for the first, €1,068, and 25% for each further one, €356.  A couple with one child needs €4,273 a month.  The income checker does the arithmetic for any household.

Two cautions.  Some consulates still publish a lower figure on their own pages; a file prepared to €2,849 clears both.  And the income must be visible, three salary credits in a bank certificate that matches the payslips, which brings us to the requerimientos below.  The income guide covers how the UGE reads income by profile.

Change 2.  No more passport stamps

On 10 April 2026 the EU’s Entry/Exit System reached full operation and Schengen borders stopped stamping passports.  The record of your entry now sits in a database the UGE does not consult for you.  For a file lodged inside Spain, where the law requires you to be lawfully present on the day of filing, that matters: the examiner used to find the date on the passport copy, and now finds nothing.

The fix is small and has to happen on the day you fly.  Keep the boarding pass and the ticket of the flight that brought you into the Schengen area, and if that flight landed in another Schengen country first, make the entry declaration at a Spanish police station within 72 hours.  Files that carry no proof are now getting a requerimiento for it.  The proof of entry guide has the detail, including what to do if you kept nothing.

Change 3.  What the UGE sends requerimientos about

This is practice, not law, but it is the change that costs the most time.  A year of files has settled the examiner’s list of recurring points, and a 2026 file is prepared against it from the start:

  • The bank evidence. A certificate signed or stamped by the bank covering the three months before filing, with each salary credit marked.  Statements printed from the app are being sent back.
  • The employer letter. One sentence missing, usually that the work may be performed remotely from Spain, or the start date or the gross salary.  HR letters written for a U.S. audience leave them out.  The free letter check exists for this.
  • The Certificate of Coverage. The certificate itself, not the application for it.  A file lodged with an SSA acknowledgment is incomplete and the clock does not start until the certificate arrives.
  • Sworn translations whose electronic signature cannot be verified. Almost always a PDF that was merged or compressed after the translator signed it.  The VALIDe guide explains the fix.
  • Proof of entry, since April, as above.

A requerimiento gives ten working days and pauses the decision clock.  Answered well, the file is approved; ignored, it is treated as withdrawn.  The requerimiento guide walks through the deadline and the answer.

What did not change

Worth stating, because the opposite gets written every year:

  • The law. Ley 28/2022 is unchanged.  The Digital Nomad Visa provisions sit inside Ley 14/2013 as amended, and no 2026 reform touched them.
  • The documents. The UGE’s requirement list for international teleworkers is the same list.  One notarised document (the degree copy), the FBI check with a federal apostille, the Certificate of Coverage for employees, the bank certificate, the employer letter, the insurance.
  • The decision period. Twenty working days from a complete filing, positive silence after that.
  • The permit. Three years when filed in Spain, one year from a consulate, renewable for two.
  • The Beckham regime. Flat 24% on work income up to €600,000, elected within six months of Social Security registration.  The Beckham guide has the conditions.
  • Who can work for whom. An employee works for no one in Spain.  A self-employed applicant may take up to 20% of income from Spanish clients.

What it means for a U.S. file prepared in 2026

Prepare the income evidence to €2,849 from the first month, even if a consulate page says less.  Save the boarding pass and ticket the day you fly.  Order the FBI check and the civil certificates late enough that they are fresh at filing, and the Certificate of Coverage early enough that it exists at filing.  Have HR’s letter read before it is signed.  Verify every sworn translation on VALIDe before it is uploaded.  None of that is new law.  All of it is what the 2026 requerimientos are about.

Every figure on this page comes from the key figures table, which is generated from the same rules file my tools and my clients' case pages run on.  When one of them moves, the dated log under the table says when and why.