Moving to Spain in 2025 – how to start your new life abroad

Well, well, well….

It’s been an interesting few weeks to be an American.

If you’re considering making the big jump to move to Spain (or generally live abroad), now could be a good time.

These past two weeks, in fact, the expat groups on Facebook are abuzz with people who want to get out of the US sooner rather than later. And a lot of them (it must be said) have no idea what they’re getting into.

Moving to Spain isn’t for everyone – but it’s a great experience if you can make it work legally and financially.

And there are plenty of options these days for becoming a digital nomad or otherwise getting a visa in Spain – or, if you prefer, elsewhere in Europe. There’s also the possibility of getting citizenship in many countries as a descendant of past immigrants – or, more accurately, emigrants.

A lot of people I’ve known here in Spain were able to get a second passport through an Italian grandfather or something similar. Maybe you could, too, depending on your background.

In any case, there’s been some big news on the Spanish visa front this past week… sort of.

Golden Visa Update

See, the Spanish government has spent the last 10 years or so offering a Golden Visa to anyone who buys a house for half a million euros or more.

The EU came out against this sort of visa a couple of years ago, and earlier this year (in April 2024, to be exact) the government of Pedro Sánchez announced that they were studying ways to kill the Golden Visa scheme. I wrote about it in an article back then, which you can still read for more information.

Anyway, we didn’t have any updates about the whole thing for more than six months, until last week when it was announced that the end may be near – the end of the Golden Visa through real estate purchase may, in fact, be happening in January 2025.

But here’s the thing… it takes a long time to make laws here in Spain, so really their announcement was the following: they’ve added a rider onto a law that (if passed) would kill the Golden Visa through real estate investment.

The visa through investment in Spanish stocks or bonds is untouched by the amendment as it currently stands. But more importantly, that law now has to go to the Senate for amendments, and the Senate could change things – or remove that bit entirely.

(The law in question is about Efficiency of Justice, which I take to mean it will try to speed up the legal system a bit so that people aren’t waiting for years to go to court.)

Anyway, some people have already announced the end of the Golden Visa, and I guess it might happen. But it’s really too early to tell, because nothing is final until it makes it into the Boletín Oficial del Estado – the official state gazette, where new laws are published.

Until then, you can still put in your applications for the Spanish Golden Visa… and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do it soon. But like I said, nothing is final yet. (Your application will be processed normally if you get it in before the law changes – if it changes. Better to talk to a lawyer about it. My personal recommendation is Melcart Abogados in Madrid – Roberto down there is a very knowledgeable guy.)

Other options for moving to Spain in 2025… and beyond

The fact is, the laws are always changing, in Spain and elsewhere.

If you want some guidance in order to move to Spain or somewhere else in Europe, my friend Cepee Tabibian has an ebook that’ll help you. Actually, two ebooks.

Check out I’m Outta Here! An American’s Ultimate Visa Guide to Living in Europe if you want, or her newer ebook on Citizenship by Descent – that’s what she’s calling the “Italian grandfather” method of getting a second passport.

You could also check out my interview with Cepee right here…

Full disclosure: every time I see some clueless American on Facebook asking a lot of questions about moving abroad, I cringe a bit – but then remind myself that I was once just as clueless.

There’s a rather steep learning curve to making a life outside the US, and that’s one of the reasons why a lot of people end up going home in the end. But either way, living in Spain – or wherever you choose – is bound to be a life-changing experience.

When I moved to Spain, back in the day, I did everything wrong. I just overstayed a tourist visa and worked things out later. Recently, though, I celebrated twenty years of living in Spain.

I was as confused as they come back in those early days, and had a huge aversion to bureaucracy. Also, asking on a Facebook group just wasn’t an option back then. So if I can make it work, anyone can.

Those ebooks are a very affordable way to start learning about what’s required. (I get a bit of a commission if you buy one with my links, too. Or you can support the cause with a donation here… Thanks!)

Okay, so…

Finally, an Election 2024 recap!

I don’t really have some big statement to make about the result of the 2024 presidential election in the US.

I am, after all, just a small niche travel blogger. It doesn’t matter much what I think. But I’ve been irritated with the echo chambers and the media’s constant pandering to one political party for quite a long time.

And it turns out I’m not the only one.

The fact is, we’ve reached a point where tens of millions of Americans believe Joe Rogan over the New York Times. And it’s entirely the New York Times’ fault that they’ve let things get to that point. Trust from your audience has to be earned, and treating just over half of Americans like stupid people who hate democracy isn’t building trust with (*checks vote tally*) just over half of Americans.

Once again, this is a small niche blog, but you would not believe the amount of time I spend researching, re-wording, fact-checking and otherwise respecting the intelligence of you, my audience.

Some of what I write is about my personal experience, and I try to make that clear. Sometimes I make obviously satirical generalizations about dating Spanish girls or whatever. But I also try to be clear with myself, and not let my personal biases cause me to go off on long rants about something I don’t understand.

In the past, I’ve spoken spontaneously on videos about things I didn’t really know enough about… and someone is ALWAYS there in the comments to let me know where I’m wrong.

That’s part of the game, and I appreciate it when it happens.

So I try to separate facts from opinions, and also separate real verifiable facts from something someone told me at a bar 12 years ago, and I just believed it, because I never bothered to look it up. It’s not a perfect system, but here on my sofa with no editor and no fact-checking team, I do the best I can.

Thanks for reading! And if you do end up moving to Spain, drop me a line.

Have a good one.

Democratically yours,

Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.

P.S. The pictures this time are from a recent bike tour of Extremadura. I’ll have more about that soon, it was a truly great experience. Check out my pal Raúl over at Bike Tour in Spain for more info about that. Or you could read my article about the Route of Don Quixote I did with his company several months ago. Enjoy!

P.P.S. Just to give you an idea of how serious I am about fact-checking and correctness in general, I just spent 15 minutes trying to decide between various ways of handling the italics and capital letters in the title of a newspaper published in Manhattan. Is it “the New York Times”, “The New York Times“, “the New York Times” or “The New York Times“? The AP style manual says not to italicise, so I didn’t. But I also can’t bring myself to capitalize the word “the” unless it’s at the beginning of a sentence. Kind of reminds me of the time I used “I could care less” as a clear example of colloquial usage in an informal text… I’m still getting emails about that one, five years later. Anyway, should I capitalize “the” as the first word of the title of a periodical publication? Let me know what you think, right here in the comments…