What the Ministry actually says
The Digital Nomad Visa is defined by Law 14/2013 as residence for a foreigner who carries out a work or professional activity remotely for a company or employer located outside Spain. Located outside Spain is the load-bearing phrase. The Ministry’s questions-and-answers document takes it literally: if the company has a branch in Spain, the workers are intra-company transferees, with their own legal figure and their own requirements, and not international teleworkers.
The same document adds the restriction that closes the other exit. An employee on this permit may work in Spain only for the company outside Spain for which they telework. Not for the Spanish subsidiary, not for another foreign employer, not for anyone. So an employee who ends up doing work for or inside the Spanish entity is outside the permit twice over.
Why the answer is not simply no
Large groups are collections of separate companies. A software engineer employed by a Delaware corporation, paid from the United States, reporting to a manager in Seattle and working on a product the Madrid office has nothing to do with, is employed by a company located outside Spain. The existence of a Spanish sister company does not, by itself, make that engineer a transferee. The ICT permit is for someone who is being moved into the Spanish establishment to work there. Nobody is moving this engineer anywhere.
That is the argument, and it is a real one. It is also exactly the argument the guidance invites the UGE to test. The Ministry says the UGE may request additional information about the size, activity and structure of the company to decide whether the position is genuinely remote. In a group with a Spanish entity, that question becomes: who employs you, who directs your work, and does any of it touch Spain?
The three questions the file has to answer
- Who is your employer? The contract, the payslips and the employer letter must all name the foreign entity, and the same one. A payslip from a Spanish payroll, or a contract novated to the Spanish company for tax convenience, ends the discussion.
- Who directs your work? Your reporting line should sit outside Spain. If your manager, your team or your product organisation is in the Spanish office, the UGE will read a transfer in everything but name.
- Does your work touch the Spanish entity at all? Providing services to the Spanish company, being seconded to it, using its office as a workplace, or appearing in its organisation chart all point to the ICT permit. Working from a flat in Valencia on a U.S. product for a U.S. team does not.
When all three answers point outside Spain, the Digital Nomad Visa is the right permit and the file should say so plainly. When one of them points inside, the honest advice is that the permit does not fit and a different route should be planned before anyone files anything.
How to build the file
Two documents carry this case.
The first is the employer letter. Beyond the elements the Ministry requires, the job profile, the functions, the express telework declaration, the salary in euros and the remote conditions, a letter for a group with a Spanish entity should add one paragraph: that the employee is employed exclusively by the foreign entity, reports to it, and has no contractual or functional relationship with the group’s Spanish company. Legal and mobility teams at large companies will scrutinise that paragraph, and the big tech guide explains why they take their time over it.
The second is a short explanatory letter to the UGE that names the Spanish entity before the officer finds it, sets out the group structure, and walks through the three questions above with the documents that answer each. The Ministry recommends an explanatory letter whenever the file does not match the standard list exactly, and this is one of the cases where it earns its place. The cover letter guide shows how it is structured.
If the answer is the other permit
The intra-company transfer permit and the highly qualified professional permit are not consolation prizes. They are the correct routes for someone who will work with or for the Spanish entity, and in some situations they suit the employee better, because a Spanish employment brings Spanish Social Security and a Spanish payroll without the Certificate of Coverage question. What they are not is something I file. My practice is built around the Digital Nomad Visa for U.S. remote workers, and a transfer or a local hire is a different specialism. If the analysis points there, I say so at the assessment stage and the client looks for the right lawyer for that permit before any money is spent.
The bottom line
A Spanish office in your company’s group is a question, not a verdict. If the Spanish entity is not your employer, does not direct your work and has no part in it, the Digital Nomad Visa fits and the file must prove those three things without being asked. If any of them points inside Spain, the Ministry’s sentence applies and the right permit is a different one. Either way the moment to find out is before filing, and the free assessment asks about your employer’s Spanish presence for exactly that reason.
Sources: Law 14/2013 as amended by Ley 28/2022 · Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, “Preguntas frecuentes. Autorizaciones de residencia y trabajo de teletrabajadores internacionales”. Last updated: 3 October 2026.