Retiring in Spain as an American: Income Proof, Healthcare, Taxes

Retiring in Spain as an American usually means the non-lucrative visa, the permit for people living on unearned income. Spanish law sets the money test at 400 percent of IPREM, Spain’s public income index, or 2,400 euros a month in 2026, but each U.S. consulate decides which pensions, annuities and accounts prove it, and their pages disagree. Health coverage changes after the first year, Medicare mostly stops at the border, and the more than 183 days a year in Spain that your renewal requires also make you a Spanish tax resident. This article is for informational purposes only and is not immigration, tax, financial or medical advice; verify current requirements with the relevant Spanish authority or a licensed professional.

Could the consulate reject the retirement money you plan to show?

Yes, for some accounts: pensions, annuities and cash pass, while IRA, 401(k) and brokerage balances depend on your consulate. Royal Decree 1155/2024, the immigration regulation, asks for 400 percent of IPREM a month, plus 100 percent per family member. You can show it as funds for the whole permit or as a regular income, by any lawful evidence.

For 2026, SEPE, the public employment service, and the Los Angeles consulate’s table give IPREM as 600 euros a month, so the test is 2,400 euros a month for one person and 3,000 euros for a couple on one file. Over the 1-year first permit, that is 28,800 euros for one applicant, 12 times the monthly amount. IPREM, the indicador público de renta de efectos múltiples, still rests on the 2023 budget law, per SEPE: the Constitution extends a budget automatically until a new one passes, and the budget office publishes the 2026 budget as that extension. Washington converts the test to $32,000 plus $8,000 per dependent, Houston to about $33,400 and $8,330.

Your consulate follows your state of residence, on the embassy’s list; Los Angeles also claims Inyo County, California, missing from that list. Beyond pensions and cash, the nine pages part ways:

• Los Angeles (dated February 11, 2026) accepts investment accounts for retirees, and alone bars applicants who have or leave loans or mortgages in the United States.
• San Francisco (dated July 30, 2025) accepts investment accounts in one sentence and refuses them in its retiree list.
• Washington asks for investment account statements without saying whether those balances count.
• Boston alone names IRA and 401(k) plans, and refuses them as proof for anyone not officially retired, a term it leaves undefined.
• Houston names only checking and savings statements.
• Chicago (dated February 10, 2026) and New York (undated) accept a periodic income or an estate that guarantees one.
• Miami and San Juan state only the general rule.

Build the file so pensions and cash reach the minimum alone; the non-lucrative visa guide covers the rest of it.

Each retirement income: does it count, what proves it, how it is taxed

Article 21 gives government pensions to the U.S. unless you are also a Spanish national, but Article 1(4)(b) keeps Spain from taxing them only if you have no immigrant status in Spain, a term the treaty’s 1990 technical explanation defines only for the United States, as permanent residence.

From 12 months before the appointment to your first renewal

1. 12 months before. Read your consulate’s page and match each stream to the table. Savings count by the December 31 balance of the year before you apply and the last year’s average, so the money must sit in the account well before the appointment.
2. 3 to 5 months before. Washington also wants a certificate from each bank with both balances, and your latest tax return. Download the SSA benefit letter online; once you live abroad, the SSA cannot mail it to you.
3. Before you book. Buy the private health policy described below. From January 1, 2026, Washington charges U.S. citizens $140 for the visa and $13 for the permit, revised quarterly.
4. After the decision. Collect the visa within 1 month of notification, or the regulation treats it as renounced. Washington says it is valid 1 year and Houston and San Juan 365 days, as article 37 of the regulation allows. The six other mainland pages say 90 days, and Hoja 6, the migration ministry’s information sheet, says 3 months at most. Go by the dates printed on it.
5. Before you fly. Report your new address to the SSA, as its instructions for beneficiaries leaving the U.S. ask, even when payments go to a bank.
6. Entry. The permit runs 1 year from the day you enter, per Hoja 6. Apply in person for the TIE, the foreigner’s identity card, within 1 month.
7. First weeks: the padrón. Register on the padrón, the municipal register: its certificate is one proof of the year of residence required by the convenio especial, the public health coverage you can pay into.
8. First weeks: pension deposits. Social Security can go to a euro account at a Spanish bank with form SSA-1199-SP, and the Federal Benefits Unit in Madrid serves Spain. Military retirees enroll with DFAS on form SF 1199-I, allowing 45 to 60 days. For a civil service annuity, Treasury names OPM among the agencies offering international direct deposit, but OPM’s annuity payments page does not confirm it for Spain.
9. May or June. Answer the SSA’s foreign enforcement questionnaire, mailed every year or every 2 years, within 60 days; after a second notice, benefits can be suspended.
10. 2 months before expiry. File the renewal. Hoja 7, the renewal sheet, asks for more than 183 days of real residence in the calendar year, means for the renewal period and insurance kept throughout. The fee is paid on form 790 code 052, heading 2.2.1. Article 64 accepts filing up to 3 months late, with a possible sanction; the renewed permit lasts 2 years, and silence after 3 months means approval.
11. After 12 months in Spain. The convenio especial opens.

Healthcare in order: private policy, convenio, then the Part B choice

Year one: a policy written to your consulate’s wording

Article 61 of the regulation asks only for health insurance, and Hoja 6 for a public or private policy with an insurer authorized in Spain; neither mentions copayments. All eight mainland consulate pages rule out copayments. Each adds its own extras, such as no coverage limit, no waiting period at Los Angeles or no pre-existing condition exclusion at San Francisco. Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Miami and Boston refuse travel insurance. Buy to your own consulate’s wording; the health insurance and Medicare guide compares the pages.

After a year: the convenio especial

Under Royal Decree 576/2013, the convenio especial is a paid agreement with your region’s health service. It needs one continuous year of effective residence in Spain just before you apply, a padrón registration in the region and no public coverage by any other right. It costs 60 euros a month under 65 and 157 euros at 65 or over, more where a region adds services. The Ministry of Health lists the basic public services without copayments, but outpatient drugs are paid 100 percent by the patient.

The open question is the renewal. Article 64 of the regulation and Hoja 7 ask only that you kept your health insurance and continue it, and no official page says whether an Oficina de Extranjería, the provincial immigration office, accepts the convenio. The Ministry of Health aims it at inactive foreigners who need insurance to reside, but its page cites Royal Decree 557/2011, which the current regulation repealed from May 20, 2025. Keep the private policy until your office answers; the convenio especial guide goes region by region.

Medicare: what it pays, and the Part B choice

Medicare does not pay for care outside the U.S. in most situations, says its April 2026 fact sheet. Its drug plans do not cover prescriptions bought abroad, per Medicare’s travel page, and the U.S.-Spain Social Security agreement does not cover Medicare. Abroad, the SSA sets up Part A only: Part B is not automatic at 65, per its manual on the Medicare program. To take Part B from abroad in your initial period, you mail form CMS-40B to the SSA’s Division of International Operations, per its manual on enrolling beneficiaries abroad.

The official consequences of keeping or dropping Part B:

• Keeping it. A standard $202.90 a month in 2026, more at higher incomes, and a $283 deductible, per CMS.
• Dropping it. On return you enroll in the General Enrollment Period, January 1 to March 31, with coverage from the next month. No Part A or Part B special enrollment period on that page covers a return from abroad, except for certain volunteers serving in a foreign country. You pay a 10 percent penalty per full 12-month period without Part B, usually for life. In the SSA’s own example, a beneficiary living in France who enrolled shortly before moving back paid 10 percent more.
• Part D. The CMS guidance for 2026 tells drug plans not to count days you lived in a foreign country toward the penalty. After moving back, you have 2 full months after the month of the move to join a plan (Medicare.gov).
• Medigap. Most plans pay 80 percent of emergency care abroad after a $250 yearly deductible, up to $50,000 per lifetime, and only for care that begins in the first 60 days of a trip, per the fact sheet.

The health insurance and Medicare guide goes further on Medicare.

When Spain starts taxing your retirement income

Under article 9 of the income tax law, more than 183 days in Spain in a calendar year make you tax resident, and so does a center of economic interests in Spain. Sporadic absences count toward the 183 days unless you prove tax residence in another country. A spouse, not legally separated, and dependent minor children living in Spain create a presumption you can rebut. The Agencia Tributaria, the tax agency, adds that residence covers the whole calendar year: there is no split year.

Pensions, Social Security included, go to the income tax’s general base, taxed half on the state scale and half on that of the region where you spend the most days, under article 28 of Ley 22/2009; where to live in Spain compares four regions.

The saving clause in Article 1(3) of the treaty lets the United States tax its citizens as if the treaty did not exist, and Article 1(4) does not except private pensions or annuities. Under Article 24, Spain deducts U.S. tax only where the U.S. taxes for a reason other than citizenship, as with Social Security; otherwise the U.S. credits the Spanish tax. The foreign earned income exclusion does not reach pensions, annuities or Social Security. The 401(k) and IRA guide and the Social Security guide set out both returns.

Modelo 720 is due once your foreign accounts, securities or real estate exceed 50,000 euros as a block, and again after a block grows by more than 20,000 euros or after you sell or close an asset already reported. A wealth tax return is due when tax is payable, with a general exempt minimum of 700,000 euros where the region sets none, or when gross assets exceed 2 million euros.

The renewal counts days in Spain, not months away

Article 64 of the regulation and the renewal sheet, also in English set a day count, not an absence limit: more than 183 days of real and effective residence in the calendar year. The six-month figure often quoted is a different rule, an absence limit the current regulation sets only for long-term residence, where absences of up to 6 consecutive months, and 10 months in total over 5 years, keep your continuity.

Neither text says how a first permit that starts mid-year is counted, and a September arrival cannot reach 183 days by December 31. Ask the Oficina de Extranjería before a long absence in your first 2 years, and keep dated proof of your days in Spain.

Your next step: set your streams against your consulate’s page

This week, open your consulate’s non-lucrative page, write each income stream and account beside the table above and mark what that page accepts. If your consulate asks for bank certificates, as Washington does, ask each bank for one with both balances.

A retiree whose pensions alone reach 2,400 euros a month, or 3,000 euros for a couple, can usually assemble this file alone. Get a licensed professional if the test rests on IRA, 401(k) or brokerage balances at a consulate that limits them, if you hold a U.S. government pension, or if your assets abroad approach the Modelo 720 or wealth tax thresholds. Talk to the SSA and Medicare before any Part B decision. The Spain Navigator puts every step of your move to Spain in order, from the visa to settling in.