Introduction
The Directorate General for Migration has modified the criteria regarding the documents to accredit higher education or professional experience for immigration applications under the Entrepreneurs Act. They are now requiring legalised/apostilled university degrees; and in cases of access to the process by accrediting professional experience of more than 3 years, they are requiring official documents issued by the country's Social Security authorities or duly legalised/apostilled official work certificates.
Impact:
High
What has changed?
Until now, the authorities accepted simple copies of university degrees and company letters to prove the experience of foreign national applicants under the Spanish Entrepreneurs Act. From mid-November onwards the requirements have now become stricter. This comes without any forewarning or transition period from the Directorate General for Migration.
Going forwards Higher Education Certificates will need to be apostilled according to the Hague Convention or legalised (in addition to the previously required SWORN Spanish translation). Foreign nationals applying under the Professional Experience Pathway will be required to provide documentation issued by the social security authority in their country of origin certifying employment periods. These documents will also need to be translated into Spanish by a SWORN translator and Apostilled or Legalised accordingly.
Who is affected?
All the applications that go through the Spanish Entrepreneurs Law including: Highly Qualified Professionals; Intra-Company Transfers, EU Blue Card and Digital Nomad applications.
What to expect /impact?
In particular, it has an impact on the time taken to prepare files and on costs, since in many cases the legalisation of diplomas can take a long time (subject to the origin of the document) and will incur additional costs.
It means that both companies and workers need to start preparing documents well in advance to avoid assignments and projects being delayed.
What you need to do:
For further information on Spain, please contact the Sterling Lexicon immigration team at immigration@sterlinglexicon.com.