Question
Just about to apply for year 2/3 renewal of the Spain Non Lucrative Visa via the digital certificate route which we have. A couple of questions: Do we need a new marriage certificate and if so does it need translating and apostille?
For fund verification do we need 6 months worth of bank account/savings statements? For pension statements, do these need translating into Spanish?
Answers
These are the answers of Spainguru’s Facebook group members:
“Marriage certificate not required.” – “It is in some offices.”
“Most areas require it so I was questioning the posts saying it was not.”
“It’s always the same on these sites. It’s never the same for one as it is for another and I know my friend says they look at the applications as a whole and then decide what they need, so it’s all an individual process.”
“My wife was refused because she did not have an up-to-date marriage certificate and we had to send for one to the UK and had it apostille and had to give it to the court of appeal; she’s been waiting 18 months and now it’s time to sort 4/5 yrs.”
“We had to get one done for this visa.”
“Yes translated and apostilled. And provide 12 months’ bank statements.”
“6 months bank statements, private health care for 12 months, marriage certificate not required.”
“Well we didn’t.” – “You were a lucky lady, well done.”
“I would probably advise to give everything; don’t leave anything to chance. I was advised once: assume nothing, give it your all. Sound advice to pass on, I have my visa now but it cost me 3,000€ and it was all based on the mood of the officers on the day.”
“Save yourself a lot of time and reuse most of your translated documents from your first application, i.e., marriage cert and police checks, the only updated ones you need is the bank statements. WISE bank provides translated bank statements.”
“I just read the requirements today. No marriage certificate or background check.”
“Hello! I haven’t done this yet, but Chase offers bank statements in Spanish, so that’s what we get. Actually we get both. Very convenient. Ask your bank if they can do this for you.”
“It appears that it depends on where in Spain you reside. However, since renewal applications are submitted separately with each person using his/her own digital certificate, it does make sense to submit the marriage certificate to link the 2 applications together since the amount of funds needed is different for 2 applicants where 1 is a dependent vs 2 applicants where both are the principal applicants. And just to be safe that you don’t run into issues or delays, I suggest getting the marriage certificate apostilled & sworn translated.”
“We have recently done our year 2/3 and submitted the original apostilled marriage certificate, 12 months bank statements (not translated), and I did a covering spreadsheet detailing how much pension etc was coming from each bank account, took 10 weeks to come back but we’re all good for another 2 years. It’s easy to do yourself but just time-consuming lol”
“We needed a marriage certificate as my husband was retirement age and I wasn’t.”
“We needed an updated marriage certificate/apostille for years 2/3 and 4/5 renewal in Malaga, but no bank statements needed if pension or monthly income meets the required amount.”
“This all depends on the office, when we did ours with ExPay. They requested an updated, translated and apostle certificate. Which they got within the 10 days required but we read it wasn’t needed too. They cannot demand translation of bank accounts either as it’s not needed for numbers it’s simply them being awkward if they ask for them, I was also told they cannot deny over it as it’s not in the requirements.”
Conclusion
The need for a new, translated, and apostilled marriage certificate in the renewal of the Spain Non Lucrative Visa often depends on regional variations in requirements.
Applicants are advised to prepare thoroughly and verify specific local directives to avoid surprises. Flexibility in financial documentation is also observed, with some regions requiring detailed proofs while others show leniency.
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