Almost every refusal is a document defect rather than a failure to qualify. The applicants being rejected are usually eligible — they sent the wrong version of something. Here are the ten drivers and the fix for each.
Published 2026-10-17 · see what changed · Written from first-hand experience
Almost every rejection below is a document defect rather than a substantive failure to qualify. That is the encouraging part: the people being refused are usually eligible. They just sent the wrong version of something. Here are the drivers, roughly in order of how often they bite, with the fix for each.
The most common single cause. The usual defects are a missing express authorisation to work remotely from Spain for a stated duration, absence of the statutory ‘computer, telematic and telecommunication means’ language from Ley 28/2022, or a salary given in GBP with no EUR equivalent.
Fix: work through every required clause before submission — company registration details, your passport number, continuous start date, EUR salary, contract type, express Spain-specific remote authorisation, non-Spanish clients, company policy. Full list on the employer letter page.
Payslips and bank credits that do not match: currency mismatches, gross-versus-net confusion, a bonus counted in the letter but invisible in the account, or clearing the threshold by a margin so small that the caseworker’s FX rate wipes it out.
Fix: the 2026 threshold is €2,849/month gross single (€34,188/year), plus €1,069/month per spouse and €357/month per child. UGE-CE converts GBP at a recent ECB rate, not your payslip’s rate, so carry a 10% FX buffer. Lay the payslips and statements side by side and check each credit is traceable. See costs and thresholds.
Policies with co-pays, waiting periods, deductibles or exclusions, or from insurers not authorised in Spain. Bupa Global and Cigna Global international products typically do not qualify.
Fix: use a DGSFP-registered insurer — check the register at rrpp.dgsfp.mineco.es — with full SNS-equivalent cover valid throughout Spain. Sanitas, Adeslas, DKV, Mapfre, Asisa, ASSSA, Caser and Cigna’s Spanish entity all offer compliant policies. Late-2025 UGE-CE practice tightened specifically on wording, so ask for the schedule of cover, not just the certificate, and check it says sin copagos, sin carencias, sin deducibles, sin exclusiones.
ACRO police certificates go stale fast: less than 90 days old at a consulate appointment, less than three months for UGE-CE. Files that sit waiting for a slow apostille frequently arrive with an ACRO that has aged out.
Fix: order from acro.police.uk — £55 standard (~10 working days) or £90 premium (~2 working days) — and time it against your appointment, not against when you started gathering documents. Two further traps: UK DBS checks are not accepted, and ACRO certificates cannot use the digital e-Apostille, so they must be paper.
A tightened 2026 requirement that catches people working from older guides.
Fix: the FCDO will not apostille a bare degree certificate. You need a solicitor’s certified true copy first, then the apostille on that. If you have no degree, substitute three years of relevant experience evidenced through HMRC’s employment history service at gov.uk/get-proof-of-employment-history.
Very common, and painful, because the applicant has paid for a translation in good faith. UK ‘certified translation’ services are not the same as a Spanish traductor jurado.
Fix: use a translator registered with Spain’s Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores (MAEC). Expect roughly €55–€150 per page — and note it is charged per page, not per document. A real file runs past 40 pages once the employment contract, work history and three months of payslips and bank statements are counted; an actual 2024 application came to 43 pages at £49/page = £2,107, so budget €1,800–€3,000. Verify registration before you commission the work.
Extracts that do not demonstrate a full year of operation, or that show the company as dormant. Also, and frequently: submitting the free PDF download from the Companies House website, which is rejected.
Fix: order a proper Certificate of Good Standing or full extract, around £15 with next-day delivery, then FCDO-apostille it. Check it shows more than one year of active trading before you send it for apostille.
The London consulate requires the NIE first, obtained at a separate appointment. Turning up without it means the appointment is wasted, and BLS slots run 4–12 weeks.
Fix: sequence the NIE appointment first and build the lead time into your plan. See the route comparison.
Un-apostilled marriage certificates, unregistered partners with no proof of a joint life, and adult children who cannot evidence dependence.
Fix: treat each family member as their own document pack. Marriage and birth certificates are public documents and need apostille plus sworn translation. Unregistered partners need documentary proof of a shared life — joint tenancy, joint accounts, correspondence over time — assembled deliberately rather than improvised. Remember also that the A1 covers only the worker, so dependants need their own health cover.
The most serious item on the list, because the consequence is not just refusal. UGE-CE now runs a Quality Control Unit (Unidad de Control) looking specifically for fictitious or fudged employment relationships, and the Madrid Superior Court’s Ruling 123/2025 confirmed serious-infraction penalties.
Fix: the arrangement has to be genuine and the file has to look genuine, which are two different problems. A real job with three months of continuous tenure, payslips matching bank credits, a contract that predates the visa plan, and an employer letter written by the employer rather than by you. Anything that looks reverse-engineered to meet the threshold — a salary that jumped to €2,800 last month, a company owned by a family member, a contract dated three months and one day ago — invites exactly the scrutiny you do not want.
Three habits prevent most of this:
Next: the full guide, or what each document costs.
A defective employer letter. The usual defects are missing express authorisation to work remotely specifically from Spain for a stated duration, absence of the statutory 'computer, telematic and telecommunication means' language from Ley 28/2022, or salary given in GBP with no EUR equivalent.
Roughly 600 to 1,200 euro in re-translations and re-apostilles, plus eight to twelve weeks of visa-clock time. On the in-country UGE-CE route it can cost more, because a requerimiento you cannot answer before your 90-day tourist allowance expires means leaving Spain.
No. Translations must be by a traductor jurado registered with Spain's Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores (MAEC). UK 'certified translation' services are not equivalent and this is a common rejection driver. Expect 55 to 150 euro per page, and note it is charged per page rather than per document — a real file runs past 40 pages, so budget 1,800 to 3,000 euro rather than a few hundred.
No. UK DBS checks are not accepted. You need an ACRO police certificate, less than 90 days old at a consulate appointment and less than three months old for UGE-CE. ACRO certificates also cannot use the digital e-Apostille, so they must be paper.
Most likely because the policy has co-pays, waiting periods, deductibles or exclusions, or the insurer is not authorised in Spain. You need a DGSFP-registered insurer with full SNS-equivalent cover valid throughout Spain. Ask for the schedule of cover and check it states sin copagos, sin carencias, sin deducibles, sin exclusiones.
No, it is rejected. You need an ordered Certificate of Good Standing or full extract, around 15 pounds with next-day delivery, showing more than one year of active operation, then FCDO-apostilled.