Indians in Spain: the 2026 guide to visas, the Blue Card, arraigo, the TIE, health cover, rents, tax, driving, schools, citizenship, gurdwaras and Diwali

Spain had 49,801,559 residents on 1 July 2026 in INE’s provisional count, of whom 7,437,543 held a foreign nationality and 10,291,807 had been born abroad. Indians are a small part of that: INE counted 63,015 Indian nationals and 73,951 people born in India living in Spain on 1 January 2025, about one resident in 780 (our arithmetic on a total of 49,128,297), and the Ministry of Inclusion’s Permanent Immigration Observatory (OPI) counted 60,994 Indian nationals holding a residence document in force on 30 June 2026. The site’s own population line for Spain, taken from India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), reads: “About 71,000 overseas Indians (Indian citizens and people of Indian origin) live in Spain: 70,549 in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs’ estimate for January 2026. That is 52,317 Indian citizens and 18,232 people of Indian origin.” The community section says what each of these counts includes and why they differ.

Three notes on reading the rest of the page. First, immigration is run from Madrid (the Ministry of Inclusion, the Interior Ministry’s Policía Nacional and the oficinas de extranjería), while health, schools, much housing policy and the language of instruction belong to the 17 autonomous communities, so Catalonia, Madrid and the Valencian Community can feel like different countries; the padrón, the first document you need, is kept by your ayuntamiento. Second, Spain’s rules on rent are changing quickly in the autumn of 2026: Parliament was dissolved by a decree of 5 October (published on 6 October) for a general election on 29 November, and two housing decree-laws take effect on 8 October and 15 November, so the renting section dates every rule. Third, work permits, the shortage catalogue and pay are in the Spain jobs guide; this site has no Spain OCI or passport guide yet, so this page carries those, and the France, Germany and Netherlands jobs guides are the nearest comparisons.

The pages that go deeper are on this site: the Indian events calendar for Spain, the Diwali in Spain page, the Spain groups and the Spain directory of Indian businesses.

Five counts, five questions

Spain’s statistics office and its immigration observatory count Indians in different ways, India’s ministry adds a wider estimate, and the Embassy gives a round one. They answer different questions and should not be subtracted from one another.

INE’s figure is a count of residents; the OPI’s is a count of documents. A person whose permit has lapsed, or who is waiting for a renewal, can be in the first and not the second. INE’s 63,015 on 1 January 2025 is 7,751 above the OPI’s 55,264 on 31 December 2024 (our subtraction), which is roughly the size of the group living in Spain without a document in force; that reading is ours, since neither body publishes the reconciliation. The MEA’s 52,317 citizens is lower than both Spanish counts, and the Embassy’s 75,000 is the highest. INE labels its figures after 1 January 2025 provisional, and the tables by country of nationality that we could open stop on that date; the OPI table runs to 30 June 2026.

A steep rise

The table lines up INE’s two series, read on 1 January, with the OPI’s count at the end of the year before.

INE’s count of Indian nationals rose from 33,449 to 63,015 in nine years (+88%) and its count of the India-born from 37,227 to 73,951 (+99%), our arithmetic; the one fall was on 1 January 2022 (nationals down 1,459). The last year was the steepest in both series: 6,871 more nationals (+12.2%) and 8,152 more India-born (+12.4%) between 1 January 2024 and 1 January 2025. The OPI shows the same direction at a gentler pace: 57,153 documents at the end of 2025 and 60,994 on 30 June 2026, which is 5,730 more than eighteen months earlier (+10.4%).

Men, women and ages

About six in ten are men. INE’s Indian nationals are 63.1% men (39,745 of 63,015) and the OPI’s document-holders 58.2% (35,496 of 60,994). The profile is working-age adults who arrived recently: on INE’s table 35,133 of the 63,015 are aged 25 to 44 (55.8%) and 7,197 are children under 15 (11.4%). The OPI’s age bands say the same: 26,380 of its 60,994 are 33 to 49 (43.3%), 15,270 are 16 to 32 (25.0%), 9,000 are 50 to 64, 7,442 are under 16 (12.2%) and 2,902 are 65 or over (4.8%). Of the 60,994, 56,865 (93.2%) hold an authorisation under the foreigners’ regime, 4,103 (6.7%) an EU-family registration certificate or card, and 26 a UK Withdrawal Agreement card.

The naturalisations

An Indian who becomes Spanish leaves the nationality counts and stays in the born-in-India count. INE records 2,114 Indians acquiring Spanish nationality in 2025, 2,125 in 2024, 2,450 in 2023, 2,414 in 2022, 1,992 in 2021 and 1,603 in 2020: 12,698 over six years (our sum). By region in 2025 the largest numbers were in Catalonia (1,199), the Valencian Community (299), the Canary Islands (150), the Balearic Islands (123), Andalusia (106), Madrid (96) and Murcia (93). The 10,936 by which INE’s India-born count exceeds its Indian-nationals count (our subtraction) is chiefly this group, which is why “born in India” is the larger figure.

What no official source says

No Spanish table we opened splits Indians by Indian state, mother tongue or religion. The research summarised in the history points to Sindhi families in the islands and Punjabi and Haryanvi families, many of them Sikh, on the mainland, but treat a claim that the community is “mostly Gujarati” or “mostly South Indian” with caution. Spanish citizens of Indian origin are in none of the Spanish nationality counts, and we do not know how the MEA reached its 18,232 people of Indian origin.

The Sindhi traders: the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla and Gibraltar

Indian traders settled in Spanish ports in the nineteenth century. According to the researcher Ana López-Sala (Spain’s National Research Council, CSIC), whose 2013 paper on Indian immigration in Spain is quoted in Scroll’s account, the first Indians settled in the Canary Islands in the second half of the nineteenth century, many of them arriving from Mediterranean and coastal African cities, and that first wave was uniform because commerce was carried on only by Sindhi men. The free ports drew them: the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, with Gibraltar next door. Gibraltar is a British territory, so its Indian community sits outside every Spanish count on this page.

Scroll adds some detail. By the early 1900s Sindhi traders had begun to bring their families, using the islands as a base for trade with Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The Kewalram Chanrai group, founded in Sindh in 1860, opened a shop in Malta in the 1870s as a step towards Gibraltar, the Canaries and Morocco, and in 1916 helped to pay for the electrification of the Triana district in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The historian Claude Markovits, quoted there, counted 200 Sindhi merchants in Spanish Morocco and 100 in the Canary Islands in 1936. After Partition in 1947 some families came to the Canaries by way of Bombay. Wikipedia’s summary of the research adds that Ceuta became a free port in 1863 and the Suez Canal opened in 1869, that families who had traded in Tangier and Tetuan moved to Spanish territory after Moroccan independence in 1956 and again after the Green March of 1975, that the Hindu Community of Ceuta (approved in 1948 as the first Hindu association in Spain) and the Hindu Community of Melilla (registered on 27 June 1977) are the oldest, and that Ceuta’s temple was inaugurated on 22 October 2007. We have not checked those dates against the associations’ own pages.

Sindhis also built places of worship. The Handbook of Hinduism in Europe, quoted by Scroll, says they opened temples where they held regular satsang and kept the main festivals, and Scroll names the Ganesh festival as one of the main events for the Sindhis of Tenerife. The Local notes that many people of Indian descent hold Spanish nationality and so are in no foreigner count, which matters most for the long-settled island families.

The second wave: Punjab and Haryana, from the 1980s

The Local’s summary of López-Sala’s research puts a second wave from the 1980s, mainly from Punjab and Haryana. It was more mixed in religion (mostly Sikhs, with Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists) and it settled mainly in Catalonia and the Valencian Community; Wikipedia’s summary names food processing and construction as the work. The OPI’s geography fits that history: Girona province holds 6,784 Indian nationals with a document and Barcelona province 22,999 (see where Indians live), and the gurdwaras in the worship section are clustered in the same places.

Skilled workers and students since the 2000s

A smaller inflow of highly skilled workers began in the 2000s, and López-Sala’s study, as Wikipedia summarises it, found that they often had little intention of settling for good. The Embassy’s bilateral brief of July 2026 says more than 90 Indian companies operate in Spain and counts 225,000 Indian visitors in 2024. We found no official count of Indian software or IT workers, or of Indian students in Spain, so this guide does not estimate them; the OPI’s age profile (43% aged 33 to 49) fits a working population, and the Embassy’s press release of 5 June 2024 about fraudulent medical-school admissions (see safety) shows that students come in numbers large enough to attract fraud.

Organisations and the 2026 anniversary

ISKCON Barcelona’s own history page says it registered officially in 1976 as one of the first legal religious minorities of democratic Spain, and Wikipedia reports that the Hindu Federation of Spain, the umbrella body, was founded in 2015 and presented in Madrid on 23 June 2016. The Embassy’s brief says diplomatic relations began in 1956 and that 2026 is the India-Spain Dual Year of Culture, Tourism and Artificial Intelligence, the 70th anniversary; it records the third Olé India festival in Madrid on 7 March 2026, with more than 250 performers and 1,500 attendees, and the Consulate General in Barcelona, opened on 13 August 2024, is the newest Indian mission in the country. Casa de la India in Valladolid, a cultural foundation set up on 17 March 2003 by the Government of India, the city council and the university, runs academic and cultural programmes.

The OPI’s tables by autonomous community and province, current to 30 June 2026, are the finest geography we could open. They count Indian nationals with a residence document in force: 60,994 in all. The shares are our arithmetic.

The seven largest communities hold 95.0% of the total (57,967 of 60,994). By province, the leaders are:

INE’s last province-by-nationality table of the older kind, for the municipal register on 1 January 2020, counted 54,387 Indian nationals, 21,270 of them in Barcelona province and 6,049 in Girona, so the pattern is not new, though the two sources use different bases and the figures should not be set against each other digit by digit.

Barcelona and Catalonia

Catalonia’s 32,415 are spread across the province of Barcelona (22,999), Girona (6,784), Tarragona (2,175) and Lleida (457). Girona province alone holds 11.1% of Spain’s documented Indians, more than the whole of the Community of Madrid, and the gurdwaras listed in it are in the city of Girona, in Salt and in Lloret de Mar; the one in Vic is in Barcelona province. Inside the city of Barcelona, the council’s register for 1 January 2026 counts 55,246 residents with a nationality from “Southern Asia”, the region into which the council groups India with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and its other neighbours, so the figure overstates the Indian community. It is useful for geography: el Raval has 9,049 of them, the Barri Gòtic 8,252, el Besòs i el Maresme 4,661, el Poble-sec 2,520, Sants 2,401, Porta 1,413 and el Fort Pienc 1,337. The Raval and the Gothic Quarter together hold 17,301, or 31.3% of the city’s South Asian residents (our arithmetic), and they are where the listed gurdwara on Carrer de l’Hospital and ISKCON’s temple stand.

Madrid

The Community of Madrid has 4,505 documented Indian nationals, all in the province of Madrid, 7.4% of Spain’s, behind Catalonia and the Valencian Community. Madrid is also where the Embassy sits. The two gurdwaras in the directory we used are in the city, one on the Paseo de Santa María de la Cabeza and one in a unit (nave) in Villaverde Alto.

The Valencian Community, Murcia and the Balearics

Valencia province has 4,958 Indian nationals with a document, Alicante 3,177 and Castellón about 214 (the community total less the two provinces). Murcia has 2,275 and the Balearic Islands 3,134. Gurdwaras are listed in the cities of Valencia and Alicante, in Murcia and in Palma.

The Canary Islands and Andalusia

Las Palmas province has 2,549 and Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1,679, together 4,228, 6.9% of Spain’s documented Indians. This is the oldest Indian presence in Spain (see the history), and because many of its families are Spanish citizens, the nationality counts understate it. Andalusia has 3,061, of whom Málaga province has 1,678, and the directory lists a gurdwara at Las Lagunas de Mijas.

Spain has no points system and no route reserved for Indians. The rules are the Organic Law 4/2000 and its Reglamento, Royal Decree 1155/2024 of 19 November 2024, published in the BOE on 20 November 2024 and in force six months later, on 20 May 2025, together with the special regimes for skilled people in Ley 14/2013 (changed by the Startups Law, Ley 28/2022). Royal Decree 316/2026 of 14 April 2026 then amended the Reglamento for the extraordinary regularisation described below. You normally apply from India at the Embassy of Spain in New Delhi or the Consulate General in Mumbai for the visa that matches the permit; BLS is the outsourcing partner of both for Spanish visas in India, and its Spain-visa site says which desk takes which visa type. Some permits are granted first, in Spain, by the Ministry of Inclusion’s large-companies unit (UGE-CE) or the oficina de extranjería, and the visa follows.

The salary lines come from the Ministry of Inclusion’s update of June 2026, which applies the Orden PJC/44/2026 of 27 January (BOE, 30 January) to INE’s 2024 average gross earnings of €29,540.26. The minimum wage for 2026 is €1,221 a month in fourteen payments, €17,094 a year (Real Decreto 126/2026), and a part-time employee’s pay must reach the full-time annual minimum under article 74 of the Reglamento. The employer’s part is real: it signs the contract, must be up to date with tax and Social Security, and files an initial work authorisation with a fee in the June 2025 fee order of €203.84 if the pay is under twice the minimum wage and €407.71 from twice the minimum wage up; the residence authorisation itself costs €10.94 and a renewal €16.40, and the order says the amounts are updated each January by the budget law.

The national-employment test, and what it means for an Indian applicant

For a plain employee permit the Reglamento (art. 75) asks whether the national employment situation allows the hire. An occupation on the catálogo de ocupaciones de difícil cobertura passes; for any other the employer must file the vacancy with the public employment service, which manages it for eight days, and show the difficulty of filling it. The permits of Ley 14/2013 (Blue Card, national highly qualified, remote work, entrepreneur) have their own conditions, set out in that law, and the text we read does not make them depend on this test. The employee must be registered by the employer with Social Security within three months of entering Spain (art. 73), and the permit becomes effective on that registration.

Study, and after it

The student authorisation covers full-time higher education (enrolment of at least 90% of the credits) at a recognised institution, and article 57 lets its holder work, employed or self-employed, without a second authorisation, for no more than 30 hours a week, in the same autonomous community or a neighbouring one. A holder who has earned the degree can apply for residence and work without a visa in the two months before or the three months after the stay ends (art. 190); a student whose studies were paid for by a Spanish or home-country development or humanitarian programme is excluded. The other route is the graduate permit: a person who finished a degree at level 6 of the European framework or higher may stay up to 24 months, not renewable, to look for a suitable job or start a business, and applies in the 60 days before or 90 days after the stay ends; the office has 20 days to decide, after which silence means yes (Ley 14/2013, DA 17). Doctoral students now use the national research permit through the UGE-CE (Management Criterion 2/2026).

Remote work

The permit for international remote workers is for people who work for companies outside Spain; a self-employed worker may serve a Spanish client for up to 20% of professional activity. The company or group must have had real activity for a year, and an employee must have been employed for the last three months (art. 74 ter). The law sets no income figure. The guides of law firms that we saw turn the general requirement of sufficient means (art. 62.3.f) into 200% of the minimum wage, which would be €2,849 a month in 2026, and add 75% of the minimum wage for a first dependant; Spanish consulates’ own pages state the same rule — 200% of the minimum wage, plus 75% for the first family member and 25% for each further one — but none we found gives a 2026 euro figure, so confirm the amount with the consulate.

Arraigo, and the 2026 regularisation

Arraigo is a permit for people already in Spain. The Reglamento of 2024 has five kinds: second chance (for those who held a permit in the previous two years), sociolabour (contracts at least at the minimum wage and at least 20 hours a week), social (family ties to residents and means of 100% of the IPREM, or a regional integration report), socio-training (enrolment in training) and family. All but the family kind need two years of continuous presence; the fee is €38.28.

A separate, one-off extraordinary regularisation opened by Royal Decree 316/2026 ran from 16 April to 30 June 2026 for people who had been in Spain since before 1 January 2026 for at least five months without interruption, with no criminal record, and the Ministry of Inclusion reported 1,174,978 applications on 2 July, led by Colombians (25.9%), Moroccans, Venezuelans, Peruvians and Hondurans. India is not named in the Ministry’s note, so we do not know the number of Indian applicants. The window is closed and in-person corrections ran only to 30 September 2026; from now on the ordinary arraigo routes apply.

What has ended, and what is not general

The Golden Visa has gone: articles 63 to 67 of Ley 14/2013 on investor residence were left empty from 3 April 2025 by Organic Law 1/2025 of 2 January. The Reglamento’s job-search visas (arts. 43 to 45) exist only within annual quotas for the children and grandchildren of Spaniards and for named occupations and regions, so there is no general job-seeker visa for Indians. Families can apply together: spouses, minor children and dependants may file with the Blue Card, national highly qualified and remote-work applicants (art. 62.4), and other residents use family reunification (arts. 65 to 70).

The first weeks in Spain are a chain of steps that depend on each other. The order below works for an employee who arrives with a visa; a student, a remote worker or a family member has most of the same steps.

1. Find an address you can register. Everyone who lives in Spain must be on the padrón municipal, the register of your town hall, where you live most of the year (Ley 7/1985, art. 15). Its data count as proof of residence and address (art. 16), and an empadronamiento certificate is the document that landlords, health centres and schools ask for. A non-EU national without long-term residence must renew the registration every two years or the town hall can cancel it without a hearing. A short let or a host may register you; ask the town hall which proof of tenure it accepts.
2. Have your employer register you with Social Security. For a residence-and-work permit the employer files the registration within three months of your legal entry (Reglamento, art. 73), and the permit takes effect on that registration. You receive a Social Security number.
3. Apply in person for the TIE. The tarjeta de identidad de extranjero is the residence card; everyone granted a visa or authorisation of more than six months has the duty to apply for it personally within a month of entering Spain or of the permit taking effect (art. 209), and failing to do so can be sanctioned. You book an appointment at a Policía Nacional office, give your fingerprints and pay a self-assessed fee; the June 2025 fee order sets €16.08 for the first issue, €19.30 for a renewal and €21.87 for long-term residence. Your NIE, the foreigner’s identity number, is on the card and is the number employers, banks and landlords will ask for.
4. Register at your health centre. With the padrón certificate and your documents, the centro de salud of your autonomous community issues the health card (see health).
5. Open a bank account. Banks ask for your passport and your NIE or TIE and, in practice, for proof of address; the padrón certificate serves. We did not find an official page for the bank’s requirements, so ask the branch what it wants before you go.
6. Check your Indian passport. Look at how long it has left. Renewal is through BLS and takes at least six weeks, per BLS, so do not leave it for the month before you travel (see the consular section).
7. Know your tax position. Your employer withholds income tax on the payslip; see tax for who is resident and for the Beckham regime.
8. Note the driving deadline. An Indian licence is valid for six months after you take up residence (see driving).
9. Find your people. A Sunday at a gurdwara or temple, or a regional association, will give you a landlord’s tip and an adviser’s name faster than a search, and the Spain groups do the same without your having to know anyone first.

What goes wrong in the first fortnight

• Missing the one-month TIE deadline because the visa looked like the whole permit. The visa gets you in; the card documents the permit.
• Paying an “agent” for an appointment or a job. The Ministry of External Affairs’ advisory, hosted on the Embassy’s site, warns of unregistered recruitment agents charging lakhs of rupees for fake overseas jobs and says a registered agent may charge at most Rs 30,000 plus GST; check any agent on emigrate.gov.in.
• Paying a deposit before a viewing, or to a landlord “abroad”. The rent section says what the law lets a landlord ask for.
• Working beyond the permit. A first employee permit is tied to one region and one occupation, and a student’s work is capped at 30 hours.

Under Ley 16/2003 (article 3, as rewritten by Royal Decree-law 7/2018 of 27 July) the right to health protection belongs to Spanish nationals and to foreigners who have established their residence in Spain. To have care paid from public funds, a foreigner must be a legal and habitual resident with no obligation to prove cover by another route. In practice that means that when you work and your employer registers you, you are in the national health system (Sistema Nacional de Salud), which each autonomous community runs for its residents: the same legal entitlement, but the health card, the appointment system and some details differ between Catalonia’s and Madrid’s services. The Reglamento treats Social Security registration as satisfying the health-insurance requirement for a student who works (art. 57).

Before you are in the system

A visa or a first permit asks for public or private health insurance valid in Spain (Ley 14/2013, art. 62.3.e). Students and people on non-employment permits normally buy a private policy. Read it for the exclusions that matter to a family: pre-existing conditions, maternity waiting periods, dental work and a visiting parent. A parent on a short-stay visa is not covered by the system and needs travel insurance.

The special agreement

A person who has no right to public cover under any other title can join the system by paying a monthly fee under a convenio especial. The Ministry of Health’s page sets the conditions and the fee: continuous effective residence in Spain for at least the year before applying, registration on the padrón when applying, and no access to public cover by another title. The fee is €60 a month for a subscriber under 65 and €157 from 65. It covers the common basic portfolio of services, in primary care and specialist care, as an outpatient or in hospital, with no co-payments or waiting periods; outpatient medicines, orthopaedic products, dietetic products and non-urgent transport are paid for in full by the patient. It is different from the Social Security special agreement used to complete pension contributions.

Emergencies

Call 112 for any emergency in Spain. The national police’s emergency number is 091, and the Embassy’s advisory for Indians who are victims of crime adds the AlertCops app, online complaints at policia.es and, in tourist areas, the police’s tourist-assistance offices. The Embassy’s own emergency number, +34 650339008, is for lost passports and serious distress, not for routine queries. The Spain groups are a quick way to find a doctor who speaks Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Malayalam or Gujarati, and the Spain directory lists the Indian businesses, including advisers and translators, that newcomers use.

Most newcomers rent. Spain’s rent law (the Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos) changes often, and in the autumn of 2026 it changed twice in a week of politics, so every rule below carries its date.

What a flat costs

Two listing sources, both opened on 23 October 2026, give the level of rents. Enalquiler, a rental portal, publishes the average monthly rent of the flats over 90 m² it lists in each provincial capital. For September 2026 it showed Palma €2,971, Madrid €2,443, Barcelona €2,314, Málaga €1,750, Valencia €1,621, Girona €1,562, Alicante €1,536, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria €1,354, Santa Cruz de Tenerife €1,212, Tarragona €1,059 and Lleida €723. These are large flats, and the same portal’s figure for a single Barcelona district fell 39% in a month, so small samples swing; treat them as a level, not a quote. idealista’s price index for August 2026, as Qué! reported it on 1 September, put the national average at €15.1 per m² a month (+5.8% on a year), Madrid at €23.3, Barcelona at €20.2 and Palma at €19.3; by region, Madrid was €21.5, the Balearic Islands €20 and Catalonia €15.9. At those rates a 45 m² flat is about €1,050 a month in Madrid and €909 in Barcelona. Since July 2026 idealista’s index excludes seasonal lets, so comparisons with earlier reports break. Ask what a quoted rent includes before you compare two flats.

The deposit and what a landlord may ask

The rent law requires a cash deposit (fianza) of one month’s rent for a home (art. 36.1). Royal Decree-law 29/2026 of 6 October, in force on 8 October 2026, adds that the parties may agree an additional guarantee of no more than two months’ rent in contracts up to five years (seven if the landlord is a company), that a tenant may not be required to take out rent-default insurance, and that property taxes cannot be put on the tenant unless the tenant is the taxpayer. It also says that estate-agency and contract-formalisation costs cannot be passed on to the tenant “directly or indirectly”, that a tenant may require the contract in writing, and that at the end of the lease both sides sign a handover document recording the state of the home. A landlord has 15 calendar days to respond to a written repair request; after that the tenant may do a reasonable repair and deduct it from the rent.

Annual increases, extensions and the political calendar

The same decree-law makes the housing rent-update index (IRAV) the ceiling for annual updates and, until 31 December 2027, bars any increase when the rent is above the Housing Ministry’s reference maximum and otherwise caps it at 2% unless the parties agree a new figure; it allows an extraordinary extension of up to two years at the tenant’s request for contracts whose extension ends before 31 December 2028. A second decree-law, 28/2026, rewrites article 10 of the rent law and is due to enter into force on 15 November 2026: after the minimum term of five years (seven if the landlord is a company), a lease would renew automatically for successive terms of five (or seven) years unless the landlord gives six months’ notice, and a landlord who ends the lease would owe the tenant the larger of twelve months’ rent at the Housing Ministry’s reference value or one month per year the tenant has lived there. OCU, the consumers’ association, explains that the Congress had rejected earlier versions of both on 2 October and that the new ones depend on validation by Parliament; the Cortes were then dissolved by Royal Decree 806/2026 of 5 October (published on 6 October) for the general election on 29 November 2026. Whether the new Parliament validates them is open, so check the current text before you sign anything that depends on them.

Tense zones

In a zona de mercado residencial tensionado, declared by the autonomous community and recognised by the Ministry of Housing, a new rent may not exceed the last updated rent if the home was let as a main residence in the past five years, and the state reference index must appear in advertisements (OCU). In Catalonia, of the 140 municipalities in the first declaration, which runs to March 2027, the Generalitat plans to renew 118 for a year, 22 (among them Lleida, Reus, Granollers and Tortosa) are not in the renewal, and a procedure has begun to add 53 more, among them Martorell and Vila-seca. Zones were added in the Basque Country from 28 April 2026, and from 30 July in Basauri, Santiago de Compostela and parts of Asturias. We did not check a given flat; ask the landlord whether the home is in a declared zone and look at the council’s or the Generalitat’s list before you assume a cap applies.

The scams

A flat at half the going rate “available now”, an owner abroad who will post the keys, a deposit paid before a viewing, a request to pay by transfer or gift card, and a copy of your passport sent over WhatsApp are the openings of fraud. Pay only after you have seen the home and met the person who has the right to let it, ask for the contract in writing, and keep the proof that the deposit was paid.

Who is taxed, and on what

Under article 9 of the personal income tax law (Ley 35/2006) you are a tax resident of Spain if either test is met: you spend more than 183 days in Spain in the calendar year, counting sporadic absences unless you can show tax residence elsewhere, or the main base of your activities or economic interests is in Spain, directly or indirectly. It is presumed, unless you prove otherwise, that you are resident if your spouse (not legally separated) and dependent minor children habitually live in Spain. A tax resident is taxed on worldwide income, so Indian rent, interest and dividends belong on the Spanish return as well as the Indian one, and a tax treaty decides which country may tax what. Whether you are also resident in India is a matter of India’s own rules, which this guide does not cover: take advice from someone who knows both systems in the year you arrive and the year you leave.

The scale

The state part of the scale on general income (article 63) is 9.5% on the first €12,450, 12% to €20,200, 15% to €35,200, 18.5% to €60,000, 22.5% to €300,000 and 24.5% above. Each autonomous community adds its own scale on top, so the same salary can be taxed differently in Catalonia, Madrid and the Valencian Community; we did not open the regional scales, so use the tax agency’s simulator or an adviser for your region. Your employer withholds tax on the payslip, and a return is filed after the end of the calendar year.

The Beckham regime

Article 93 of the same law lets people who become tax-resident in Spain because of a move choose to be taxed as non-residents while remaining under the personal income tax, for the year of arrival and the five years after, six tax years in all. The conditions: you were not resident in Spain in the previous five years, and the move came about through an employment contract, a posting with an employer’s letter, remote work (the law names an employee holding the international remote-work visa), a directorship, an entrepreneurial activity, or highly qualified work for a start-up or in research. Work income is taxed at 24% up to €600,000 and 47% above that; savings income has its own scale of 19% to 30%. The spouse and children under 25 may opt in under conditions. You stay subject to wealth tax on a real-obligation basis. Ask for the regime in the offer: it is a choice you make with the tax agency, not an automatic benefit.

The India–Spain tax treaty and social security

Spain and India signed their double-taxation convention in New Delhi on 8 February 1993 (ratification published in the BOE on 7 February 1995), and a protocol signed in New Delhi on 26 October 2012 amends it (BOE, 9 July 2020), according to the tax agency’s list. Keep the proof of any tax paid in India, which is what relief is claimed against. No social-security agreement between the two countries is in force: the Embassy’s brief says that during the Indian commerce minister’s visit on 13 July 2026 the two sides agreed to hold discussions on one. Until there is one, do not assume that Indian contribution periods count towards a Spanish pension, or the reverse, and ask your employer’s payroll team what applies to a posted worker.

Spain’s schooling is set nationally and run by the autonomous communities. According to the European Commission’s Eurydice network, early childhood education covers children up to the age of six and is not compulsory, but its second cycle (ages three to six) is free in publicly funded schools. Basic education is compulsory and free: six years of primary school from age six, then compulsory secondary education (ESO) from twelve to sixteen. After that come two years of bachillerato or intermediate vocational training, and then university. Places are allotted through each community’s admissions process, whose dates and rules differ by region, so ask the town hall or the school what documents it wants and when applications open.

Language of instruction

The first thing to know is the language. Spanish is the official language of the State, and the other Spanish languages are also official in their communities (Constitution, art. 3). That means Catalan in Catalonia, Valencian in the Valencian Community, Catalan in the Balearic Islands, Galician in Galicia and Basque in the Basque Country. The State fixes minimum teachings that make up 50% of school timetables in the communities with a co-official language and 60% in those without; the communities set the rest and the linguistic models that organise the teaching of the official languages (Eurydice). A child who arrives at ten without Spanish, or without Catalan in Catalonia, will have to learn one or both; ask the school and the community’s education department what reception or language-support classes exist locally. We did not find a school teaching the Indian CBSE or ICSE curriculum on any page we could open, so plan for the Spanish system or an international school, whose fees we also did not check.

Studying in Spain: choose carefully

The Embassy’s press release of 5 June 2024 says that many Indian students had arrived to study medicine at Spanish universities without meeting the admission requirements and on the strength of fraudulent admission letters. It tells students and parents not to rely on agencies, to check the admission requirements on the website of the university concerned, and notes that the medium of instruction is Spanish, that English-language courses are listed separately and that homologation of the Indian qualification is a necessary step; it points to the Spanish Service for the Internationalisation of Education (SEPIE). A student stay also requires a full-time course at a recognised institution (Reglamento, art. 52), so a course that is not recognised cannot support the permit. The residence section covers what a student may do afterwards.

Spain exchanges a foreign licence for a Spanish one only if the country has an agreement with Spain, and India is not on the list. The Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT) page of 26 June 2026 names the agreements, among them Andorra, Algeria, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, South Korea, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, the Philippines, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uruguay, but no Indian licence. So the rule that applies to an Indian is the one on the DGT’s page on driving with a foreign licence: a licence issued outside the EU and the European Economic Area is valid in Spain for a maximum of six months from the day you acquire normal residence in Spain, provided it is in force, you are old enough to hold the Spanish equivalent, and it is written in Spanish or accompanied by an official translation, or it follows the model in the Geneva or Vienna conventions. After six months it is not valid, and you must obtain a new Spanish licence.

What that means

• Before you travel: the DGT advises getting an international driving permit in your country before you come. It is valid for a year and is only a companion to your passport and your Indian licence.
• In the first six months: carry the Indian licence and your passport or TIE, with an official translation unless the licence follows the Geneva or Vienna model. Check with your insurer that it accepts the licence.
• After six months: you obtain a Spanish licence by passing the Spanish tests, normally through a driving school. We did not open a price list, and driving schools set their own prices, so get written quotes from two before you pay.
• A licence obtained in India while you were already a legal resident of Spain cannot be exchanged even where an agreement exists (DGT), so do not plan to “pick one up on the next trip home”.

Look at the DGT’s list on the day you plan, because it changes whenever an agreement does. We did not open the fares of the Madrid or Barcelona transport authorities, so this guide gives none.

The Spanish rule

Under article 22 of the Civil Code, Spanish nationality by residence requires ten years of legal, continuous residence immediately before the application. Five years are enough for refugees, and two years for nationals of Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea or Portugal and for Sephardic Jews, which does not include Indians. One year is enough in particular cases, for example someone married to a Spaniard for a year and not separated. The applicant must show good civic conduct and sufficient integration into Spanish society. Under article 23 the person must also declare that they renounce their former nationality, apart from the exempt groups. We did not open the Justice Ministry’s page on the language and civic tests, so ask about the current exams when you apply.

The Indian side: the half that decides

India does not permit dual nationality, and BLS’s page on the subject spells out what follows. Under the Passports Act 1967 every holder of an Indian passport must surrender it to the nearest Indian mission immediately after acquiring foreign nationality; a grace period of three months is allowed for travel on the Indian passport, and misuse of it is an offence under section 12(1A) of the Act. Where the foreign nationality was acquired after 1 June 2010, the person also makes a declaration of renunciation (Form XXII), filed online on the Home Ministry’s citizenship portal and then signed and interviewed at BLS. The route is therefore a Spanish passport plus an OCI card, not two passports. The steps, in order: 1. Naturalise in Spain, and keep the resolution. 2. Surrender the Indian passport through any BLS centre in Spain and, for nationality acquired after 1 June 2010, make the online renunciation declaration; the consulate’s fee table of July 2026 lists €35 for a surrender or police clearance certificate, and BLS adds its own charge. 3. Apply for the OCI card, a lifelong multiple-entry visa for India with most rights of a non-resident Indian, valid together with the foreign passport. BLS says the Embassy assesses OCI applications, that an OCI application cannot be sent by post and that the minimum processing time is eight weeks and may be longer. It also says the Embassy cannot provide OCI cards or visas until the Indian passport has been surrendered.

How many, and where

INE records 2,114 Indians acquiring Spanish nationality in 2025 and 12,698 over 2020 to 2025 (see the community). Many families settled in Catalonia, so the largest share was there (1,199 in 2025). People who plan to return to India often stop at long-term residence, which keeps the Indian passport; those who want a vote, a Spanish passport or the freedom to move within the EU naturalise and take the OCI card.

Sikh gurdwaras are the best documented Indian places of worship on the mainland, and the Sindhi Hindu temples are the oldest, in the islands and in Ceuta and Melilla. The temples page for Spain lists 47 confirmed places by region, most of them from the Ministry of Justice’s register. Counts vary: the World Gurudwaras directory has a page for Spain with listings in Barcelona, Girona, Madrid and Valencia, The Local cites 17 gurdwaras and Wikipedia lists 12. The directory is built from submissions and its pages carry a 2025 copyright, so it is a recent listing, not a verified one; none of its entries gives opening hours. Gurdwaras are open to everyone, and langar is served after the service. Confirm times by phone or on the gurdwara’s own page before you go, especially for the evening and festival programmes.

The brief for this guide named a “Gurdwara Guru Nanak Darbar” in Barcelona; we did not find it in the directory, so we do not list it.

Hindu temples

ISKCON Barcelona (Templo Hare Krishna) is the only Hindu temple in Spain whose own website we could read. Its map link points to the Gothic Quarter near the Plaça Reial, and ISKCON’s international directory lists Plaça Reial 12. The site gives a morning programme at 07:00 with a class on the Bhagavatam, a vegetarian and vegan temple canteen from Monday to Friday, 13:00 to 15:30, and a Sunday programme from 17:30 to 20:30 with kirtan, a Bhagavad Gita class, arati and prasadam. It says it registered officially in 1976. ISKCON is one devotional tradition among several; a Sindhi, Tamil or Gujarati family may look for a temple of its own tradition, which we could not confirm in Barcelona.

The Canary Islands. Scroll’s account says the Sindhis of the islands built temples and cultural centres and that the Ganesh festival is one of the main events in Tenerife, and names a temple in Tenerife built by a Partition survivor, Kishu Gopaldas Daswani. We did not find an address or hours for a temple in the islands on a page we could open, so the group for the island is the quickest way to the nearest one.

Ceuta and Melilla. Per Wikipedia, Ceuta’s temple was inaugurated on 22 October 2007 and Melilla’s Hindu community has held a temple since 1978 (1980 in El Faro de Melilla), which moved to Calle Padre Lerchundi 18 in 2026 according to the official bulletin of 3 April 2026; check with the associations before travelling there.

Catalonia. Wikipedia reports 27 Hindu temples or centres in Catalonia as of 2014, 14 of them in Barcelona province, most holding their services in Catalan or Spanish; we found no current list with addresses.

Madrid. ISKCON Madrid is at Calle del Espíritu Santo 19 and publishes its hours on harekrisnamadrid.es (the .com address in ISKCON’s old directory now belongs to an unrelated site). The Hindu Federation of Spain, the umbrella body, was founded in 2015.

Before you go

Take your shoes off at the door, cover your head in a gurdwara, dress modestly in a temple, and expect some places to ask visitors not to photograph the prayer hall. A gurdwara or temple is also where you find a priest or granthi for a naming ceremony, a wedding or a funeral.

This section is short because the evidence is. We could not open a page that lists Indian grocers or restaurants in Spain with a street and a recent date, so we name none. What can be said is where the demand is. In the city of Barcelona the council’s register for 1 January 2026 counts 55,246 residents with a South Asian nationality, and the densest neighbourhoods are el Raval (9,049) and the Gothic Quarter (8,252), then el Besòs i el Maresme (4,661), el Poble-sec (2,520) and Sants (2,401). Shops and restaurants that sell South Asian food and spices follow that population, so those neighbourhoods, and the districts around the gurdwaras listed in the worship section, are where to look first. The register groups Indians with Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalis and others, so a street of shops in the Raval is South Asian, not necessarily Indian, and many sell halal meat.

What we can confirm

• A vegetarian meal in Barcelona. ISKCON Barcelona’s own site gives a vegetarian and vegan canteen from Monday to Friday, 13:00 to 15:30, and a free Sunday meal after the programme (prasadam, 17:30 to 20:30).
• Gurdwara kitchens. Every gurdwara serves langar after the service, at no charge to anyone.
• The directory. The Spain directory lists Indian grocers, restaurants and services by town and is the place to look; check any listing against a recent review or the shop’s own page.

For a first month

Indian staples such as basmati rice, lentils, flours and spices are available in the larger Spanish supermarkets’ international shelves and in South Asian shops, but we did not check prices or brands. Ask in the Spain groups before you buy in bulk: members name the shop, the street and what it stocks, and they update it when it moves. If you run a shop or restaurant that should be listed, add it to the directory so the next arrival finds it.

Spain has no public holiday for any Indian festival, so the calendar is built on weekends and evenings and runs through associations, gurdwaras and temples. Diwali falls on Sunday 8 November 2026, which is not a public holiday, and the Embassy of India in Madrid lists it among the holidays it observes. The Embassy’s list for 2026 is a handy calendar of dates: Republic Day on Monday 26 January, Holi on Wednesday 4 March, Ram Navami on Thursday 26 March, Janmashtami on Friday 4 September, Gandhi Jayanti on Friday 2 October, Dussehra on Tuesday 20 October, Diwali (Deepavali) on Sunday 8 November and Guru Nanak’s birthday on Tuesday 24 November. It also marks the Spanish holidays, among them the Spanish National Day on Monday 12 October.

Diwali in 2026

We found no organiser’s programme for Diwali in Spain on the pages we could open, so we give no venues. The Spain events page carries what organisers add, and the Diwali page gathers the season. Expect the celebrations to fall on the weekends around 8 November, in the rooms of associations, the gurdwaras, the temples and rented halls. Ask your ayuntamiento about rules on fireworks and open flames in the street before you buy anything, and keep to diyas and candles at home.

Regional associations and the Consulate

Regional groups hold their own days. The Consulate General in Barcelona’s event gallery shows its Consul General and a consul joining the Onam celebrations that the Association of Malayalees in Barcelona organised, and the Embassy records its own cultural calendar of the India-Spain Dual Year. The Sindhi families of Tenerife keep the Ganesh festival as one of their main public events, according to Scroll. The Local reports that Vaisakhi and Guru Nanak’s birthday in November are celebrated in Spain, often with the support of local authorities and interfaith groups; no 2026 procession date was found, so ask the gurdwara.

Two missions

India has an Embassy in Madrid and, since 13 August 2024, a Consulate General in Barcelona. Tenerife has an honorary consulate whose post the Embassy’s page lists as vacant.

According to a notice on BLS’s site, people who live in Barcelona, Catalonia or the Balearic Islands send their passport applications to the Consulate in Barcelona through the BLS centre there; on our reading, residents of the rest of Spain fall under the Embassy. The Embassy’s emergency number outside normal queries is +34 650339008, for a lost passport, a death or serious illness of a close relative, and not for routine information.

BLS handles the applications

BLS International runs the India Consular Application Centres in Spain for passport, OCI and consular services. Its own contact page lists three centres: Madrid (Calle de Cardenal Marcelo Spínola 2, ground floor, 28016), Barcelona (Avinguda Madrid 9, Les Corts, 08028) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Calle Fernández Herrero 4, 38005). The Embassy’s page gives different addresses (Passeig de Gràcia 103 for Barcelona and Calle Aguere 9 for Tenerife) and the Consulate’s page lists a centre in Las Palmas (Calle León y Castillo 177) instead of Tenerife, so confirm on BLS’s page before you travel. The BLS helpline is +34 930306449 and the email is infoindia-spain@blshelpline.com; if BLS does not answer within three working days, the Embassy asks you to write to it in a set format. Since September 2025 the passport portal is Passport Seva 2.0, and BLS says applicants must upload an ICAO-compliant photograph and a scan of their signature. BLS says the minimum processing time for a passport is six weeks and for OCI eight weeks, and that it cannot guarantee either. The Tatkaal fast-track is not available at BLS.

Passport fees

The Consulate’s fee table, posted on 7 July 2026, lists a fresh or re-issued 36-page passport at €107 (€150 for 60 pages), a passport in lieu of a lost or damaged one at €214 (36 pages) or €257 (60 pages), a minor’s 36-page passport at €77, an emergency certificate at €13 and a police clearance or surrender certificate at €35. BLS charges its own service fee on top, so use BLS’s fee table when you plan. A BLS notice dated 2021 adds that an applicant who holds no valid visa or residence card must come in person to the BLS centre in Madrid, with an appointment.

OCI and surrender

OCI applications, re-issues and the surrender certificate are all started at a BLS centre; see citizenship for the order. The OCI portal and the Embassy’s email for OCI queries (oci.madrid@mea.gov.in) are the places for the document list, and the Consulate General’s own email for OCI is diaspora.barcelona@mea.gov.in.

Help lines

112 for any emergency, 091 for the national police and the Embassy’s number above for Indians in distress. The Embassy’s advisory for crime victims adds the AlertCops app and online complaints at policia.es. Indians can register with the missions: the Consulate General’s site has forms for registration of Indian nationals and of Indian students in Spain.

Scams that target Indians

Most newcomers’ real losses are financial, not physical. - Fake admissions. The Embassy’s press release of 5 June 2024 describes students arriving for medical degrees on fraudulent admission letters; the university’s own website, not an agency, is the source for admission requirements. - Fake jobs. The Ministry of External Affairs’ advisory, hosted on the Embassy’s site, warns of unregistered agents who charge Rs 2 to 5 lakh for fake overseas jobs, usually over WhatsApp. A valid offer comes with a signed contract and a work visa, not a tourist visa, and a registered agent can charge at most Rs 30,000 plus GST. No one can sell you a Spanish work permit, a Blue Card or an appointment at a foreigners’ office. - Paperwork brokers. Book appointments with the foreigners’ office, the police and BLS yourself on their official sites, and be wary of anyone who sells appointments. - Passport stickers. The Consulate General’s advisory of 19 December 2024 says travel agents’ stickers on the cover of an Indian passport damage the security features of the national emblem. - Housing scams. See renting.

If you are the victim of a crime

Report it at the nearest police station, online at policia.es or by the AlertCops app (091 is the national police), and tell the Embassy or Consulate if a passport is involved. The Embassy’s advisory lists the police’s tourist-assistance offices for visitors. As anywhere, keep your phone and wallet out of sight in crowds, and keep your passport in a safe place with a copy.

The autumn of 2026: politics and policy

Royal Decree 806/2026 of 5 October (BOE, 6 October) dissolved Parliament and called a general election for 29 November 2026. According to OCU, the Congress had rejected two housing decrees on 2 October, and the government approved them again, with slight changes, as Royal Decree-laws 28/2026 and 29/2026 on 6 October (see renting). The extraordinary regularisation closed on 30 June 2026. Immigration and rent rules, the Beckham regime and the Blue Card thresholds can all change after the election, so check the BOE or an adviser before you sign a lease, a contract or a permit application that depends on a date in 2027.

Indian newcomers in Spain look for the WhatsApp group first: one for a city or a neighbourhood, one for an employer’s Spanish office, one for appointments at the foreigners’ office, one for the parents of a school, one for a language, a state or a college batch. The groups are how the community organises itself, and this guide will not pretend otherwise.

What the groups are good at, and what they are not

They are fast. Ask at nine in the evening which doctor in the next town speaks Punjabi or Malayalam, or which gurdwara holds the Sunday programme, and someone answers before ten. But you need to know someone to get the link; the links that circulate go stale; most groups show your phone number to every member; and answers scroll away, so the same questions about the TIE, the padrón and the rent decrees come round every autumn. A group also does not know where you live in a country with 17 regional governments and four official languages, so a Diwali evening in Tenerife and one in Girona arrive with the same weight. The groups are also where scams start: the “agent” who sells a visa slot or a job, the landlord “abroad” who wants a deposit, the fake employer who needs a processing fee.

What Namaste Community adds

Namaste Community’s app and website have local groups (moderated and tied to a place), events near you, a directory of Indian businesses and Ask, where members answer questions about paperwork, housing, schools and where to find a good dosa. You can post under your name or anonymously. The Spain groups are at /groups/in/spain; the Spain events page lists Indian events across the country; the Diwali page covers the season; and the Spain directory lists Indian businesses, from grocers and tailors to advisers and translators.

Your first week, in practice

1. Open the Spain groups and join the one for your city, region, language or interest. Read before you post: the paperwork answers are usually there already.
2. Go to one event in your first fortnight, whether a gurdwara programme, a temple evening, an association’s day or a Diwali evening. It is the fastest way from “the Indian community in Spain” as a phrase to three people whose names you know.
3. Ask the question you actually have, and say which autonomous community and which permit you hold: the rent rules, the language at school and the consulate depend on it.
4. When you have found your flat, your doctor and your grocer, leave a review or an answer for the next person from Ludhiana, Hyderabad or Kochi.

If the group you need does not exist yet, a Malayali parents’ group in Barcelona or a Gujarati group in the Canaries, start it, so the next person searching finds it here.