What would I have to do to live in Spain?

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SueP

Surely there is paperwork to take care of, even with Grandparents from Spain. Their rules are, however, that you might be able to expedite citizenship or permanent residence visas because of the connection.

Check with your nearest Spanish Consulate, and know that with some facets of Spanish life, red tape is constant and fluid. (lots of red tape, and the rules change almost daily!) So you might wind up with all the paperwork done to the specifications that you have, and find out that It's all wrong according to today's rules.

Once you have all the paperwork in order, though, things should go fairly smoothly. I hope.

Really, though, it depends on how long you want to live there. I think the ordinary wait time for citizenship is ten years, but as you say, you may have some reason to hope for better than that.

BarcelonaMan

Check out your U.S. region's Spanish Consulate website. I used the one in Chicago at http://www.consulate-spain-chicago.com/ - from there you can also find links to the other region's consulate offices. Through those websites you can get all the information about visa requirements for U.S. citizens to live in Spain.

Spain recently allows the GRANDchildren of Spaniards to apply for Spanish Citizenship but this won't help you as you're one generation from that. You say the parents of your grandparents - or your GREAT grandparents - were from Spain. Too bad.

There are basically 3 ways of living legally in Spain for U.S. citizens whom are not children or grandchildren of Spanish citizens:

1: Marrying a Spaniard and then getting your residency. This is by far the easiest way to do it - assuming you're in love with a Spaniard and the other party wants to marry you. This process can take up to a year.

2: Being "Well-Off" (i.e. having money). I think if you have $120,000 deposited in a SPANISH bank you can apply for residency - although this doesn't give you the right to work. They want to know you won't be a burden on the state.

3: Obtaining a Work Visa from a Spanish company willing to hire you, willing to go to the expense of applying for your work visa (which would be a specific-time contract and not a life-time visa), and be willing to wait several several months for all the papers to be approved so that you could enter the country with this work visa. Spanish companies are required to first consider job candidates from Spain and Europe before considering anyone else. So unless you're HIGHLY qualified - and speak Spanish - it's going to be very difficult. Plus, with the worldwide "crisis" fewer and fewer companies are hiring new people.

Best of luck! But it's tough.

Saludos, MadridMan(.com)

SOC JO! A capite ad calcem

Barcelonaman gave you the answer to it.

Emi

Spain doesn't require a visa if you stay for up to 90 days.
but to live there permanently you'll need a visa. scroll down a bit on this website and you'll find instructions on how to get a visa.
http://www.irantour.org/spain/spainvisaapplication.html

krlos_rojo

you have to view it in the Spanish embassy or a consulate Spanish ....
I understand what it is that I have to have a job offer (if you want to work) but if you want to live just as you would have a letter of invitcion or you could be 3 months as the maximum (tourists)

Slick1

As long as you are not black you will be fine!

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