What the May 2025 Reglamento (RD 1155/2024) Actually Changed for Founders and Remote Workers in Spain
Spain's biggest immigration overhaul in fourteen years, Real Decreto 1155/2024, in force 20 May 2025, replaced the old Reglamento de Extranjería. But if you use the Startup Visa, the Digital Nomad Visa, the EU Blue Card or the highly-qualified route, it changed almost nothing directly: those permits sit in a separate legal track (Ley 14/2013, run by UGE-CE) that the new Reglamento does not govern. This guide separates the two systems, shows what genuinely moved, and flags the few places they touch.
Spain’s biggest immigration overhaul in fourteen years, Real Decreto 1155/2024, in force 20 May 2025, replaced the old 2011 Reglamento de Extranjería. It reorganized work permits, family reunification, student pathways and the whole arraigo system. But if you are a founder or remote worker on the Startup Visa, the Digital Nomad Visa, the EU Blue Card or the highly-qualified route, it changed almost nothing directly, because those permits were not created by the general immigration law the new Reglamento develops. They live in a separate legal track, the international mobility regime of Ley 14/2013 (the Startup Act), administered by the specialist unit UGE-CE, on its own faster procedure. RD 1155/2024 governs the general regime under Ley Orgánica 4/2000; it does not govern Ley 14/2013. This guide separates the two systems, shows what genuinely moved in 2025, explains what did not change for the Startup Visa and DNV, and flags the handful of places where the two regimes touch.
Two immigration systems, not one
The single most common mistake in 2025–2026 coverage is treating Spanish immigration as one body of rules that RD 1155/2024 rewrote. It is not. There are two parallel systems, and founders almost always sit in the second one:
| General regime | International mobility (Startup Act) | |
|---|---|---|
| Statute | Ley Orgánica 4/2000 (LOEX) | Ley 14/2013 (the Startup Act) |
| Regulation | RD 1155/2024 (from 20 May 2025) | Ley 14/2013 itself + its own rules |
| Who processes it | Provincial oficinas de extranjería + prefectures | UGE-CE (Unidad de Grandes Empresas y Colectivos Estratégicos) |
| Speed | Standard administrative timelines | ~20 working days, positive administrative silence |
| Typical permits | Ordinary employed / self-employed work, arraigo, general family reunification, students | Startup Visa, Digital Nomad Visa, EU Blue Card, highly-qualified professional, intra-company transfer, investor (now abolished) |
RD 1155/2024 is the new rulebook for the left column only. The permits a founder actually uses are in the right column, and they answer to Ley 14/2013 and UGE-CE. In fact the new Reglamento makes this split explicit in a telling way: RD 1155/2024 removed the residual EU Blue Card, researcher and transnational-service-provision figures from the general regulation, precisely because those profiles now live entirely inside the Ley 14/2013 track. The 2025 reform tidied the general regime around the Startup Act, not into it.
What RD 1155/2024 actually changed (the general regime)
The reform is genuinely significant, for the people it applies to. The headline changes:
- Longer authorizations. Ordinary residence-and-work permits move from a one-year initial authorization to four-year renewals (previously two). From the first renewal the permit also gains functional and territorial flexibility: you can work in any occupation and anywhere in Spain, and it no longer distinguishes employed from self-employed.
- Deadlines in months, not days. Renewal and extension windows are now expressed in months, with positive silence after three months on renewals.
- A rebuilt arraigo system. The old arraigo categories were replaced by five new figures (social, socio-laboral, socio-formativo, familiar and segunda oportunidad), generally granted for one year and aimed at regularizing people already in Spain, a route with nothing to do with an incoming founder.
- Easier student-to-work transitions and a reworked family-reunification framework in the general regime.
Every one of these lives in the left column. They matter enormously to workers on ordinary permits, but they are not the rules that decide a Startup Visa or a DNV.
What did not change for the Startup Visa and DNV
This is where most articles go wrong, so it is worth stating plainly. Because the Startup Visa and Digital Nomad Visa are Ley 14/2013 permits, RD 1155/2024 did not touch:
- Their durations. The Digital Nomad Visa is still a one-year consular visa or a three-year residence authorization filed from inside Spain, renewed in two-year increments to a five-year maximum. The Startup Visa is still a three-year initial card renewable for two (five years total). The general regime’s new four-year renewal does not reach either, a point worth underlining, because it is the exact fact that gets mis-reported.
- The UGE-CE procedure. Applications are still resolved by UGE-CE in about 20 working days, and still approved by positive administrative silence if the unit does not answer in time. The general oficinas de extranjería that RD 1155/2024 reorganized do not handle these files.
- The income floors. The DNV still requires 200% of the minimum wage: €2,849/month in 2026 (annual SMI €17,094 under Real Decreto 126/2026), with the familiar add-ons for dependents. The Startup Visa still turns on the favourable ENISA report, not a salary test.
- The tax overlay. The Beckham Law inpatriate regime (a 24% flat rate for up to six years) still attaches through the employment/administrator/entrepreneur doors of Ley 14/2013 and Ley 35/2006, untouched by the Reglamento. (Who actually qualifies, and why an ordinary freelancer usually does not, is covered in Spain DNV as a freelancer: autónomo cost and why Beckham won’t save you and Spain Startup → Beckham Law.)
If you already hold one of these permits, or you are applying now, the 2025 Reglamento changed none of the numbers or steps in the Spain Startup Visa guide or the Spain Digital Nomad Visa guide.
Not sure which Spanish route fits your company? The Startup Visa and the DNV lead to different obligations, tax positions and renewal clocks, and neither is governed by the general Reglamento everyone is writing about. Relovisa scopes the right Ley 14/2013 track for your profile and files it through UGE-CE. Start with the Spain Startup Visa →
The EU Blue Card and highly-qualified route: also Ley 14/2013
One place where 2026 figures did move, but still inside the Startup Act track, not the Reglamento, is the EU Blue Card (Tarjeta azul-UE) and the highly-qualified professional authorization. These are Ley 14/2013 permits too, processed by UGE-CE.
The reference salary threshold is set annually. Orden PJC/44/2026 (27 January 2026) first fixed it at €39,269.92; after the National Statistics Institute published the 2024 average annual salary on 28 May 2026, an automatic-update rule raised it to €41,356.36 for applications submitted from roughly late June 2026 onward. A reduced threshold of €33,085.09 (an 80% coefficient) applies to occupations in groups 1–2 of the national occupations classification that are on the hard-to-fill catalogue, and to applicants who obtained the qualifying degree within the previous three years. (If you have seen a “€40,000 / €54,000” pair quoted for Spain, that is not the current figure: the €54k-range numbers belong to France’s Blue Card, a different country’s threshold.)
The takeaway: even the one route with fresh 2026 numbers is a UGE-CE / Ley 14/2013 matter. RD 1155/2024 is not where you look for it.
Where the two regimes do touch
The separation is clean, but not hermetic. A few practical intersections are worth knowing:
- Switching between tracks. Moving from a general-regime permit (say, a non-lucrative visa) into a Ley 14/2013 permit like the DNV is a modificación, and RD 1155/2024 reorganized how general-regime modifications work. It did not create a clean in-country door from a non-lucrative visa to the DNV, however; that switch remains fraught, and the practical answer for most people is still to file the DNV correctly from the start rather than convert into it. (We cover that specific trap separately in our Spain DNV material.)
- Family members. The general regime now lets reunified family members work, and shortened some waits. DNV and Startup Visa family members were already included in the same UGE-CE application with the right to work, so this is parity, not a new benefit for founders, but it removes a reason to route family through the slower general channel.
- Students building a company. RD 1155/2024 eased the student-to-work transition in the general regime. A founder who arrives on a student stay and then wants to build an innovative venture can still aim at the Startup Visa via UGE-CE, a different, and often better, door than the general work permit the Reglamento streamlined.
The other 2025 change founders conflate
Finally, the change people most often attribute to “the new rules” is not RD 1155/2024 at all: the investor Golden Visa (Articles 63–67 of Ley 14/2013) was abolished by Ley Orgánica 1/2025, published 3 January 2025 and effective 3 April 2025. The last applications were accepted up to that date; permits already granted keep their validity and renew under the old terms. It was a housing-policy measure, passed months before the Reglamento and by a different instrument. For a founder the practical consequence is simple: the residence-by-investment shortcut is gone, and the active routes, Startup Visa, DNV, EU Blue Card, highly-qualified, are exactly the Ley 14/2013 permits this article is about.
Bottom line for 2026
RD 1155/2024 is a real and large reform, of the general immigration regime. For founders and remote workers the honest headline is the quiet one: your permit didn’t change. The Startup Visa and DNV keep their durations, their UGE-CE procedure, their income floors and their tax overlay; the EU Blue Card threshold moved on its own Ley 14/2013 schedule; and the Golden Visa vanished under a separate law. Treat any 2026 guide that says “the new Reglamento changed the digital nomad visa” as a signal to check its sourcing: it has merged two systems that Spanish law keeps deliberately apart.
Choosing your Spanish route in 2026? Get it filed on the correct Ley 14/2013 track, through UGE-CE, the first time. Talk to Relovisa about the Spain Startup Visa →, and if remote work rather than a company is your model, the Digital Nomad Visa is the sister route on the same track.
Sources
- Real Decreto 1155/2024, de 19 de noviembre, Reglamento de la Ley Orgánica 4/2000 (BOE-A-2024-24099; published 20 Nov 2024, in force 20 May 2025; repeals RD 557/2011); boe.es; verified July 2026
- RD 1155/2024: general-regime authorization durations (1-year initial, 4-year renewals), functional/territorial flexibility, three-month positive silence, five new arraigo figures; KPMG Legal Alert and Noticias Jurídicas analyses; noticias.juridicas.com; verified July 2026
- Ley 14/2013, de 27 de septiembre (Startup Act): international-mobility permits (Startup, DNV, highly-qualified/EU Blue Card, ICT, investor) processed by UGE-CE; RD 1155/2024 removes residual Blue Card / researcher / transnational-service figures from the general regulation; verified July 2026
- Orden PJC/44/2026, de 27 de enero: EU Blue Card (Tarjeta azul-UE) reference salary threshold under Ley 14/2013; €39,269.92 initial, 80% reduced coefficient; automatic INE-linked update (BOE-A-2026-2142); boe.es; verified July 2026
- INE 2024 average annual salary published 28 May 2026 → updated Blue Card threshold €41,356.36 general / €33,085.09 reduced for applications from ~late June 2026; Tradelex, laboral-social summaries of Orden PJC/44/2026; laboral-social.com; verified July 2026
- Ley Orgánica 1/2025, de 2 de enero: abolition of the investor “Golden Visa” (Arts. 63–67 Ley 14/2013), published 3 Jan 2025, effective 3 April 2025, existing permits grandfathered; KPMG Legal Alert; verified July 2026
- Real Decreto 126/2026: 2026 SMI €17,094/year; DNV income floor €2,849/month (200% SMI); verified July 2026
