Spain Work Permit with a Job Offer: Employer Steps (2026)

Your employer files the application, not you, at the Oficina de Extranjería of the province where the job is. The job must pass the national employment test: a hard-to-fill occupation opens the way, otherwise the employer shows the vacancy is hard to fill. After approval you have one month to request the visa.

A Valencia company wants to hire you and you hold a non-EU passport? The employer files the application, not you. The job must also pass the national employment test, and an occupation on the shortage list opens the way to processing.

Who applies, and who can be hired?

The employer files, in person or through a legal representative, with the Oficina de Extranjería of the province where the workplace is.

El empleador, personalmente o a través de quien válidamente tenga atribuida la representación, deberá presentar la correspondiente solicitud de autorización inicial de residencia temporal y trabajo por cuenta ajena ante la oficina de extranjería de la provincia donde esté ubicado el centro de trabajo.

The employer, in person or through whoever validly holds the representation, must file the corresponding application for the initial authorisation of temporary residence and employed work with the foreigners office of the province where the workplace is located.

BOE · Real Decreto 1155/2024, art. 77.1

The application goes in electronically through the Mercurio sede of the Ministry of Territorial Policy. Signing it takes a digital certificate recognised by the national certification bodies, or the electronic DNI.

On your side, you cannot be an EU, EEA or Swiss citizen, or a family member of one covered by the Union citizen regime. EU citizens register instead; see our EU citizen registration guide. You must not be in Spain irregularly.

Does the job pass the employment test?

This is the step that decides whether the file goes anywhere. The national employment situation must allow your hiring, and the regulation gives two routes to show it.

If the occupation is on the shortage list

SEPE draws up a catalogue of hard-to-fill occupations every quarter, for each autonomous community, or for a province or an island instead when a community asks with reasons. An occupation classed as hard to fill makes it possible to process your authorisation.

The catalogue published in the BOE of 2 September 2026 covered the third quarter of 2026. Its annex marked one group of occupations for all provinces.

SEPE publishes a new catalogue every quarter. Read this annex as a dated snapshot, and have your employer check the list for the quarter in which it files. The complete annex is in the SEPE resolution in the BOE (opens in a new tab).

If the occupation is not on the list

The employer shows the Oficina de Extranjería that the vacancy is hard to fill from the domestic labour market. For that it files a job offer with the public employment service for the area of the workplace. The offer goes on the Empléate portal and to the public employment services.

The offer must be precise and fitted to the post, with no requirements unrelated to doing the job. The service manages it for eight days, after which the employer reports which candidates were admitted and rejected, and why. Within three days of that report the service issues the certificate of insufficient job-seekers.

We recommend that the employer starts this route first, ahead of the rest of the file: the certificate goes into the application.

When the test does not apply

The employment situation is not taken into account in the cases of article 40 of the Organic Law, or under an international convention. The international-agreement exception is aimed at nationals of states that have signed such an agreement with Spain; the official information sheet names Chile and Perú. If your passport is from another country, ask your employer’s adviser whether an agreement covers you.

What the employer files

The application uses form EX-03, completed and signed by the hiring company. Our guide to the EX forms shows where it sits among the others. The file includes:

• the employment contract, in the official model;
• a full copy of your valid passport or travel document;
• documents proving your training and, where the law requires one, your professional qualification;
• the employment service certificate, on the job-offer route.

Documents from other countries need a translation into Spanish or the co-official language by a sworn translator. Our apostille and sworn translation guide covers how to get one.

The contract is signed by both of you and gives you continuous activity for the whole validity of the authorisation. Its start date depends on the authorisation taking effect. Its conditions follow the regulations and the collective agreement for the same activity, category and locality. On a part-time contract, your total pay must reach the full-time minimum wage over a year.

The employer must be up to date with its tax and Social Security obligations. A private individual as employer must also show monthly means of 50% of the minimum wage when there are no dependants, after your salary.

If the file is incomplete, the office asks for a fix within ten days, and without it the application is treated as withdrawn. It denies the authorisation when a requirement of article 74 is not shown. It also denies it when the employer cut the posts it wants to fill by unfair or null dismissal in the twelve months before filing.

Fees: who pays what

Two Modelo 790 fee forms apply. Code 052, heading 2.1.3, is paid by you as the worker. That fee is €10.94. Code 062, heading 3.2.1, is paid by the employer when the work authorisation lasts six months or more.

The employer pays €203.84 when your pay is below twice the minimum wage (SMI) and €407.71 when it is twice the SMI or more.

Timing needs care, since two texts differ. The fee order says an electronic filing pays the fee when it is submitted. The ministry guidance says the fees fall due at filing and must be paid within ten working days. We recommend paying at filing, which meets both, and attaching the receipt so processing continues.

After approval: visa, entry, Social Security, TIE

The office decides and notifies within three months. After three months without an answer, the application is deemed rejected. Once you are approved, a chain of one-month and three-month deadlines starts.

If you do not have a Social Security number yet, see how to request your NUSS.

1. Request the visa in person within one month of the notification to the employer, at the consulate for the district where you live.
2. Bring a passport valid for at least one year. Add a criminal record certificate covering your country of origin or the countries you lived in during the last five years, a medical certificate and proof of the visa fee.
3. The consulate decides within one month. Collect the visa in person within one month of notification, otherwise you are deemed to have waived it and the file is archived.
4. Enter Spain within the three months of the visa’s validity.
5. Be registered with Social Security within three months of entry. Until then the effect of the authorisation is suspended.
6. Request the TIE in person within one month of that registration.

La eficacia de la autorización quedará suspendida hasta el alta de la persona trabajadora en el régimen correspondiente de Seguridad Social que debe producirse en el plazo de tres meses desde su entrada legal en España.

The effectiveness of the authorisation will be suspended until the worker is registered in the relevant Social Security regime, which must take place within three months of their legal entry into Spain.

BOE · Real Decreto 1155/2024, art. 77.8

On this permit the TIE month runs from the Social Security registration, not from entry. We recommend asking your employer for the registration date in writing.

In Valencia the Oficina de Extranjería does not issue the card. Valencia city residents go to the Patraix station, Carrer dels Gremis 6. See the TIE guide for the appointment and fee.

What the authorisation lets you do

The initial authorisation is limited to one autonomous community and one occupation, unless the employment situation does not apply. It lasts as long as the activity, up to a maximum of one year.

It also covers self-employment during its validity, provided the main activity is the employed work. The exception: if that work ends for reasons beyond your will, the end must be reported to the Oficina de Extranjería within three days.

After three months of validity and during the first year, you may change employer in the same occupation. For what follows the first year, read From Spain Visa to Permanent Residency.

Other routes into work

This guide covers the ordinary employee route. A job-search visa follows a separate section of the regulation. Moving to work from a study stay is in the student visa guide.

Hunting for a job first? See Jobs in Valencia for English speakers. Remote work for an employer abroad runs on a different permit: the digital nomad visa guide.

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Not confirmed: The catalogue of hard-to-fill occupations changes every quarter; check the one in force when your employer files.

General information checked against the sources listed above, not legal advice for your situation. Rules and office practice change; confirm with the immigration office or a licensed adviser before you act. See how guides are checked.

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