Hello-
I am from the US and my husband and I will be moving to Spain in May 2008.  I’ve been through several of these websites and basically have come to the conclusion that living in Spain illegally might be my best bet(we only plan to live there for a year).  I still have a few unanswered questions and if anyone could help it would be much appreciated:

Since I will be staying illegally on my passport passed the amount of time I am supposed to, when I book our tickets into Spain, do I book one-way tickets or do i need to buy the round trip and just not take the one back?  I know they ask you about your duration in the country, so I’m a little worried about that.

I will be bringing my two dogs, will this raise any visa issues?  they both just got their microchips inserted and i know i’ll have some certificates to get done by my vet, etc… and likely a passport for them, right?

Is it wise to exit the country and then return to get my passport stamped so that I’m renewed another 90days, or is this going to cause issues?  I’ve seen conflicting information on this.  If so, what are the best countries to this with?

thanks everyone for your time!

Port,

Obviously what you are asking for is against the law and I would never ever subscribe to such a practice, however being somewhat of a hipocrite, I will tell you my story.  But let me give you a big warning first.  Since what you want to do is not allowed you are really subject to the whim of whomever you come in contact with that represents the law.

My story is that I did live in Spain illegally for a period of time (several years) before deciding to get residency permission.  I am now legal.  We never had any problems during our illegal period and we came and went at our discretion.  However in my meetings with the consulate in the US to obtain residency did get rather uncomfortable until I finally had to admit I had been living there illegally but the end result was I still got my papers.  The only cases I ever heard about were when US citizens had legal problems such as committing crimes and then having the law bear down on them.  The same was not true for people we know that went into France, Germany, Ireland, and England from Spain and having overstayed the 90 day tourist visa.  Those countries when finding their tourist visas had expired had no sense of humor about overstaying.  So you need to think carefully about if you are coming to Spain and only staying within Spain or do you plan to travel about the EU.

Spain at present does not appear to be too uptight about overstayed visas and it is very likely that you won’t have an issue but if you do get into some kind of legal complication it could come up and haunt you.  I wish I could give you simple “you won’t have any problems to your issue” but I can’t.  You will have to decide on what your comfort level is under your particular circumstances.

Buena suerte!

I forgot to mention, when you come to Spain without some form of legal residency you must have an onward journey ticket.  A trick is to buy a very cheap ticket leaving Spain for a non-EU country within the 90 day tourist visa period should you be checked.  The times our onward journey tickets were checked were at the airline desk in the US (or wherever) and coming to Spain.  We have witnessed people that were not allowed to board because they had no onward ticket.

Again, suerte.

Tourist-
I appreciate your honesty and the information you supplied.  I’ve been rethinking the visa issue(even before your email) and i think to put my mind at ease we’ll at least apply and see what happens.  We would like to travel outside of spain and i’m afraid it would cause problems if we were not legal.  if we do not get approved though, i suppose we’ll have to take our chances.  gracias!

I found this post very interesting - perhaps I am totally wrong but….......I find it amazing that you think you can just arrive illegally - why ? Because I am British and therefore via my EU rights I can travel freely around Europe BUT even though I am a Spanish resident (legally) when very recently booked a return flight to England from Spain the air line web based booking system insists that I provide additional information ie Passport number etc that they tell me they have to fax over to Spain when I book in for the return flight.

So I am thinking get real guys if these laws exist about Visas etc which they do (and the same for us if we want to visit USA) do you really think you can just fly in and out as you like? I doubt it.

A friend of mine (as I posted before) was refused check in at London Gatwick for a flight to Alicante Spain (Note the airline check in desk even before he got near the departure gate and customs/immigration etc) REFUSED his check in because even though he has lived in the UK for 25 years his country of birth (African) requires that he has a visa to visit Spain.

This post is neither pessimistic or anti American - its just trying to be realistic!! 

I wish you luck and welcome to Spain!

Plenty of people live in other countries illegally, I know several people from Spain living in the US illegally, so it happens everywhere.  When you start sifting through these forums some people have lived in Spain illegally for quite sometime and have never run into issues, so that’s where the idea comes from.  I don’t think it’s unrealistic, but I do think it can be risky.  I’m not looking to live there for several years though, just one, and the question is, is it too much red tape for just one year? 

No need to answer though, i think it’s on person by person basis.  If we don’t get our non-lucrative visa, then yes, we will be coming anyways.  if they kick us out, then they do. 

I’m just looking for advice that’s all, if you think it’s unrealistic, that’s fine, i still appreciate your thoughts and time.

Believe me I sympaphize - I spent many many hours queueing for what is mine by EU law - for residencia/NIE etc many years ago when the criteria was even more demanding than it is now.

And I agree rules are sometimes crazy and may need to be bent a little. Its just that I just an bemused that now there are supposed to be all of these checks (to keep the bad guys out) not the average person (ie the type that posts on this site!) that you can arrive here without the papers and get in - if you can great! Go for it.

I am just worried that new arrivals will now find it much tougher to get in that some of the people who are posting who have been here for years and are now ?lost? in the system.

well, i think it happens more easily for people like me, i’m from US like i stated, because we can go to spain with just a passport in the first place.  so you are allowed to stay in spain for 90 days in a 183 day period with just that, so you have papers and the authorization to at least get in.  After that time you are supposed to leave.  some people don’t and just stay.  what’s confusing to me is if they stay and one day they go back, do they not question why you’ve been in a country you were supposed to leave after 90days?  no one has seem to have writting anything on that, so who knows. 

i guess i’ll be finding out if our visas are not approved…

You mentioned that you had friends traveling in and out of Spain (they did not have a VISA and had been here for three years)- Did they fly/drive/take train through the EU countries?  No problems at passport control?

Just curious.
Thks.
-Carol