In short: Spain is easier to get into, Italy is safer to stay in. Spain gives residency without a local employer, but appointments eat months. Italy's rules are generous, but its main work route works like a lottery and documents come even slower. In our ranking Spain is 32nd of 97 and Italy 75th.
If you work remotely or have clients abroad and earn at least €2,849 a month: the permit is issued for three years at once, with no Spanish employer, and the Beckham tax regime is 24%. Expect 5-8.5 months of waiting for appointments and the card in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, and audits of remote workers after the permit is issued.
If your income is below the Spanish threshold: the nomad visa asks for €24,789 a year, about €2,066 a month. Status is safer: if you lose your job you get at least a year to find a new one, and dual citizenship is allowed. But employment goes through annual quotas where only 7-8% of places turn into an actual permit, and in big cities documents take a year or more.
Spain is stronger in 4 of 7 areas, Italy in 2, tied in 1.
The rules are generous: an employment permit is not tied to one employer, family members may work at once, children go to school whatever their status, and quotas rise to about half a million places for 2026-2028. We found no pressure on legally working foreigners. Delivery is what breaks: of 127,707 quota places in 2023 only 9,528 became an actual permit a year later, 7.5%, and the agencies scored 10 of 100, the lowest in the ranking.
The state wants newcomers: residence and work applications rose by almost half after the reform, an extraordinary regularisation of about half a million people runs in 2026, and there are no integration courses. Bureaucracy gets in the way: fingerprint appointments in big cities take 3-6 months, and since 2026 remote-work permits are audited after issue and ended without social security registration.
For a remote worker, Spain, if you earn at least €2,849 a month: no local employer needed and a three-year permit at once. Italy's nomad visa threshold is lower, about €2,066 a month, while employment goes through quotas where only 7-8% of places become a permit.
On paper Italy, 60 days, but in Rome and Milan people wait a year or more. Spain's law promises about 2-2.5 months, while in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia the whole process takes 5-8.5 months. Smaller cities are noticeably faster in both.
State fees are low in both: about €460 for a family of three over five years in Spain and about €483 in Italy.
Ten years in both. Italy asks for Italian B1 and allows dual citizenship. Spain requires DELE A2 and CCSE and giving up your previous citizenship; Latin Americans need only two years.
Italy: you can get a job-seeking permit for at least a year. Spain has no grace period: you must notify the agency within 30 days and the permit may be ended.
It depends on what matters to you. Spain is easier to enter and stronger in most areas of the ranking, but slow to hand out documents. Italy is kinder to people already living there, but its agencies perform worst in our sample.
Every fact on this page comes from the country pages, where the sources are listed. Checked 01/10/2026.