Spain. 40 million of inhabitants and gateway to LatinAmerica. The reasons to expand you business to Spain are easy to understand. But, if “The Why” is easy, “The How” is more difficult. Once you had the idea of expanding to Spain and after convincing everybody you had to convince that growing up in this country is a great idea, you could feel disoriented. Getting started is difficult.
If you want to move to Spain you have actually two options: be just a capitalist partner, contribute money and hire people from the country to do the work or work self employed.
If you are going to be just a capitalist partner
The first is to hire people to do everything for you and just be a capitalist partner. That is easy. You don’t need any kind of special permission. But, if you want to work in Spain and not only contribute with money, things can get complicated.
If you want to work as self-employed in Spain
If you are from a European country, there is no problem. You can open a business as if you were just another Spaniard with a very similar process to the one in your country.
If you are not, you need a residence authorization and another one to be self-employed. Of course, you may have a lot of problems with these authorizations if you have legal problems in Spain: criminal records, living illegally in Spain, if you have been expelled, etc.
To get these authorizations you need, at least:
-An application for temporary residence and self-employed status.
-A photocopy of your passport (that must be valid, of course).
-Demonstrate economic capacity to initiate and sustain the investment
-A Business Plan that explains the feasibility of the project and must be approved by a qualified entity.
-Paying the residence, visa and labour fees (260€ approx).
-A medical certification and a legal and a criminal record certification.
Maybe you can need to fulfill more requisites if you are going to start a business that requires some certification or any other specialized requirement. You should ask your embassy who will help you with all the process.
Of course, is not only legal issues. If you want to expand your business to Spain or any other country you need to adapt your brand to a new culture: not only your facilities, but also your webpage, tutorials, etc.
Starting a business in a foreign country is never easy. You can have a lot of paperwork and other problems. Apart from your embassy, you can check other problems you can have expanding your business to Spain in our blog.
