🇮🇹 Italy vs 🇪🇸 Spain: Digital Nomad Visa Compared

Italy offers Digital Nomad / Remote Worker Visa - Decree Law No. 79/2024. Spain offers Residence Visa for Teleworking (Digital Nomad) - Ley 28/2022. Every figure below comes from each country's own sourced, dated fiche - compare income, duration, tax, family rules, fees and processing time before you decide.

🇮🇹 Italy🇪🇸 Spain

Minimum income

24,789 EUR / year

Some consulates round up to ~EUR 28,000 - confirm with your consulate. Income must derive from the remote work; passive income (pensions, rent, stocks) is excluded. Eligibility also needs a degree OR 5 years' experience (3 for ICT) + 6 months remote-work experience. RE-CHECKED 2026-07-23: the ~EUR 28,000 figure some 2026 guide sites cite does not trace to any 2026 Gazzetta Ufficiale decree - the operative decree is still the original 2024-02-29 one (GU Serie Generale n. 79); ~EUR 28,000 looks like consulate-level rounding of the same formula, not a sourced threshold rise. EUR 24,789 remains the better-sourced figure. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-01: a visahq.com claim of a specific '2026-03-02 Gazzetta Ufficiale decree' behind the ~EUR 28,000 figure could not be verified anywhere - no matching GU entry, decree number, or independent source found; treated as an unverified/likely-spurious citation. EUR 24,789 stays published. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-05: verified the arithmetic directly - EUR 24,789 = 3x the 2026 healthcare-exemption threshold (EUR 8,263.31), confirming the formula rather than a guessed figure; ~EUR 28,000 is a loose rounding, not a competing legal number.

source · verified 2026-08-05

2,849 EUR / month

RULE is official (200% of monthly SMI, per consulate). Euro figure is DERIVED from the 2026 SMI: Real Decreto 126/2026 fixed it at EUR 1,221/month (14 payments) / EUR 17,094/year. The commonly-cited ~2,442 figure is 2x the nominal monthly SMI; the fiche's EUR 2,849 is 200% of the SMI annualized then reprorated over 12 months (EUR 17,094 / 12 x 2) - the basis Extranjeria/UGE is reported to actually apply. Family uplift (official): +75% SMI first member, +25% each additional. RE-VERIFIED 2026-07-25: this arithmetic (200% x EUR 1,424.50 reprorated monthly = EUR 2,849) independently checks out against the official SMI decree, strengthening confidence without changing the figure.

source · verified 2026-07-25

Visa duration

12 months, renewable

National visa then a 1-year residence permit (permesso di soggiorno), obtained within 8 working days of arrival and renewable locally at the Questura.

source · verified 2026-07-05

12 months, renewable

Consular visa/permit valid up to 1 year. In-country UGE route reportedly grants up to 3 years, renewable for 2 more years (5-year max) - re-checked 2026-07-17, now well-corroborated across independent legal sources, still not read on an official page directly. RENEWAL, re-checked 2026-07-18: the Supreme Court (STS 2130/2026, 2026-05-05) voided the rule letting a residence card lapse solely for 6+ months of annual absence - that ruling is about the EU-family-member card, but is reported by several 2026 sources to reinforce the same protection for DNV renewals by analogy (not an official DNV-specific ruling). Separately, a TSJ Madrid ruling (Sentencia 26/2026, Rec. 305/2025) upheld terminating a remote-worker permit for not registering with Spanish Social Security from day one - the UGE's reorganized Digital Nomad Office is reported to be enforcing requirements like this more strictly in 2026 (also flagging fraudulent documents and reused agent paperwork), so renewal risk has shifted, not disappeared. RE-VERIFIED 2026-07-24: exact citation resolved to Judgment 564/2026, ECLI:ES:TS:2026:2130 (5 May 2026). New: the Interior Ministry has reportedly issued an interim circular telling Extranjeria/police to suspend open absence-based extinction procedures pending a formal Royal Decree rewrite - a concrete favorable step, still on secondary legal-news sourcing rather than a fetchable official circular. RE-CHECKED 2026-07-30: the awaited Royal Decree rewrite is still unpublished - a candidate BOE item from this window, Real Decreto 316/2026 (14 April 2026, BOE-A-2026-8284), was checked and ruled out as it only reforms arraigo/regularizacion-extraordinaria provisions (RD 1155/2024), not the absence-based extinction rule. Separately, secondary sources now report the UGE-CE is tightening application-stage scrutiny too, not just renewals: applicants are reportedly being asked for 3 months of payslips/invoices plus bank-ownership certificates to counter ad-hoc-contract fraud, alongside stricter health-insurance and Social Security document review - consistent with the broader 2026 enforcement tightening already flagged, not a new legal requirement. CORRECTION, RE-VERIFIED 2026-08-05: the 'applied by analogy' framing above is imprecise - STS 731/2023 (2023, predating this tracking window) is the ruling that actually voided the GENERAL temporary-residence absence-extinction rule the DNV falls under, already reflected in RD 1155/2024 (no automatic extinction for absences); STS 2130/2026 is a separate ruling limited to the EU-family-member card track. The favorable renewal picture for DNV holders is better sourced to STS 731/2023 / RD 1155/2024 directly than stretched from STS 2130/2026. RE-VERIFIED 2026-08-06: this distinction independently re-confirmed; still no Royal Decree rewrite published (most recent related BOE item, BOE-A-2026-16070 of 22 July 2026, is a purely administrative order, not a substantive change).

source · verified 2026-08-06

Tax regime

If you become an Italian tax resident (183+ days), income is taxable under IRPEF. Two optional favorable regimes (cannot be combined): Regime Forfettario (5% flat for self-employed under EUR 85k, first 5 years, 15% after) or Regime Impatriati (50% of qualifying income exempt for 5 years). Employees kept on a foreign contract may be taxed under treaty rules.

Regimes have conditions (e.g. Impatriati needs 3 years' prior non-residence + a 4-year residency commitment; the two regimes cannot be combined). Verify with the Agenzia delle Entrate. UPDATE 2026-07-15: the 2026 Budget Law was enacted as Law No. 199 of 30 Dec 2025 (Gazzetta Ufficiale), extending the Regime Impatriati (D.Lgs. 209/2023 - 50% tax-base reduction, EUR 600,000/year cap, arrival year plus 4 more) to foreign workers who transfer tax residence to Italy from 2026. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-01: located the specific Agenzia delle Entrate ruling behind the 'foreign employer / smart working' question - Risposta ad interpello n. 2/2026 (12 January 2026) confirms a worker who returns to Italy and does smart working for a foreign employer (including one different from their pre-return employer) can access Regime Impatriati, provided the work is carried out predominantly on Italian territory and all other D.Lgs. 209/2023 requirements are met. This is an official AEdE ruling, sourceUrl updated to it directly, but confidence stays 'reported' rather than 'official' because the page itself 403s on direct fetch (same proxy-policy pattern as other .gov.it domains) - this rests on a search-engine read of AEdE's own indexed document, not a page fetch. It resolves the foreign-employer question generally but does not explicitly name 'digital nomad visa holders' as a category, so whether a separate, still-undefined 'Digital Nomad Tax Bonus' also exists remains open.

source · verified 2026-08-01

Optional special expat regime (Beckham Law): 24% flat on Spanish-source income up to EUR 600k (47% above that threshold from the same payer); foreign-source income generally untaxed under the regime.

Beckham eligibility differs for employees vs self-employed. Re-checked 2026-07-17: the 24% rate (47% above EUR 600k from the same payer) is now independently corroborated by search-indexed content across several distinct pages on AEAT's own domain (sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es), including the exact URL above - not just the single secondary blog originally cited. sourceUrl updated to AEAT directly; confidence stays "reported" rather than "official" because the page still 403s on a literal direct fetch (proxy policy denial affecting all .gob.es domains this pass), so this rests on a search-engine read of AEAT's indexed content, not a page fetch.

source · verified 2026-07-17

Family (spouse / children)

Spouse + children admitted

Spouse (not legally separated) and a child under 18. Children over 18 and parents cannot currently be sponsored.

source · verified 2026-07-05

Spouse + children admitted (+75% SMI first member, +25% each additional)

source · verified 2026-07-17

Application fees

116 EUR

EUR 116 visa application fee (non-refundable). Plus ~EUR 116 for the residence permit on arrival (contributo EUR 40 + electronic permit EUR 30.46 + stamp EUR 16 + postal kit EUR 30). The consular visa fee varies quarterly by the EUR/USD rate.

source · verified 2026-07-05

TBD

Health insurance

Required - Min EUR 30,000 (or USD 50,000) covering medical care, hospitalization and repatriation. Cited by the consulate as the number-one cause of visa rejection.

source · verified 2026-07-05

Required - Full-coverage public or private health insurance from an entity authorized to operate in Spain.

Re-checked 2026-07-17: multiple 2026 sources report the UGE-CE has tightened enforcement this year, rejecting policies with high copays, coverage gaps, exclusions, or waiting periods - full, unrestricted coverage matters more than it used to.

source · verified 2026-07-17

Processing time

Reported 30-60 days for remote employees, 90-120 days for freelancers/self-employed, plus consulate appointment backlog

No single official government figure exists; range is a consulate-guidance consensus across independent 2026 immigration-guide publishers, with freelancers/self-employed applicants taking longer due to more document scrutiny. Consulate appointment-booking backlogs (New York, London, Los Angeles) add further weeks-to-months on top of processing itself. Confirm with your specific consulate.

source · verified 2026-07-25

10 days from the day after submission (may extend)

This 10-day figure is for the consular visa route specifically. The separate in-country UGE residence-authorization route is reported to run on its own clock: up to 20 business days for a decision, plus up to 10 business days to correct an incomplete application if requested.

source · verified 2026-07-17

Figures marked TBD are not yet verified and are never shown as facts. Last full review: Italy 2026-09-05, Spain 2026-09-05.