How do I become a resident of Spain?

Depends where you come from, EU and EEA countries people just move in and register. The period is as follows: ten years, or five years if the individual is a refugee, or two years if the individual is a national of a country of Iberoamerica, Andorra, Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, Portugal, or if the individual is Sephardic (i.e. a descendent of the Spanish Jews, expelled in 1492), or one year for those individuals: born in Spanish territory, or those who did not exercise their right to their nationality by option within the established period of time, or those who had been under legal tutelage or protection of a Spanish citizen or institution for two consecutive years, those who had been married for one year to a Spanish national and are not separated legally or de facto, or those widowers of a Spanish national if at the time of death they had not been legally or de facto separated, or those born outside of Spain, if one of their parents or grandparents had been originally Spanish (i.e. Spanish by origin) If you come from a third country not mentioned above and have no Spanish ancestors then you have to apply for a visa in advance. This takes a lot of paperwork and you have to prove that you have education (university), enough money, etc... because they dont let unskilled people in. Good luck.

Resident and Citizen are two different things, you appear to be interchanging them. Resident is anyone allowed to remain in the country with justification A permanent Resident, allowed to remain without justification (== US green card) A citizen is someone who have moved from being a permanent resident to a national of the country, (if they were not born or inherited that right). Moving to spain merely means being able to get a work or residents/student visa As unemployment in spain is extremely high (many spanish youth are moving to other EU countries in search of jobs), your chance of getting a work permit/visa in response to a work offer seem pretty slim. Spanish unemployment 15 year high at 4.2 million http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/04/spain-unemployement-jobless-4-million http://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=z8o7pt6rd5uqa6_&met_y=unemployment_rate&idim=country:es&fdim_y=seasonality:sa&dl=en&hl=en&q=unemployment+spain - Graph (approaching 25%) Your other choices would be - by being the spouse of an Spainish or other EEA national - by intra-company transfer (are you an employee of a company with a spanish office ?) Any other reason or link you have with Spain ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_nationality_law - Spanish Nationality (and getting it) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_holiday_visa#Spain - working holiday for Spain Jobs in spain: http://www.practicalspain.com/Work.htm So are you trying to go to live or do you have a connection to a National of Spain, that you are trying to use to become a national