Do I Need a New FBI Check for Spain’s Digital Nomad Permit if I Already Hold Spanish Residence?

• The exemption has two conditions: an authorisation exceeding six months and a certificate already submitted to obtain it.
• The authorisation’s duration differs from time physically spent in Spain.
• The five-year declaration and the substantive criminal-record requirement remain.

What the law requires, and what UGE waives

Article 62.3(c) of Law 14/2013 requires applicants to have no criminal record in Spain or countries where they resided during the preceding two years, for offences recognised in Spanish law. It additionally requires a declaration concerning the preceding five years. These are different reference periods, not competing versions of the same checklist.

The certificate exemption appears in UGE’s documentation guidance for initial international teleworker applications, page 5. It is an administrative instruction about evidence; it does not erase the statutory eligibility condition. A person whose record has changed cannot treat an earlier clean certificate as an answer to that change.

Check your authorisation, not just your arrival date

The guidance refers to a Spanish residence or stay authorisation exceeding six months. It does not say that you must have completed six months of physical residence before invoking the exemption. A six-month authorisation is also different from one exceeding six months.

The second condition is equally important: the certificate must already have been provided to obtain that authorisation. A card, NIE number or municipal registration does not by itself show what was submitted in the earlier application. If your previous route did not require a criminal-record certificate, do not assume that its duration alone gives you the exemption.

Hypothetical example: an American holds a valid one-year Spanish residence authorisation, obtained using an FBI certificate, and now prepares an initial UGE teleworker application. The published wording supports assessing the exemption even if the person arrived only four months ago. The evidence to check is the authorisation and previous submission, rather than simply counting days since arrival.

Put the earlier submission in a form UGE can follow

Before ordering another certificate, retrieve your approval decision, current immigration document, earlier application receipt and the copy of the criminal-record certificate you submitted. Where available, keep the document index or submission record showing that the certificate formed part of that file.

Prepare a short explanation identifying the earlier procedure, file number, authorisation dates and certificate. This is a practical way to substantiate your reliance on the exemption, rather than a separately prescribed statutory bundle. If you cannot establish that the document was submitted, resolve that gap before deciding to omit it.

Include the current five-year declaration separately. Do not silently leave the certificate section empty: make the reason for the omission clear. Respond to any individual evidence request; UGE’s guide reserves the possibility of requesting additional documents when the material supplied is insufficient.

If the exemption does not fit your case

For the US record, start with the FBI Identity History Summary procedure. The FBI explains that applicants outside the United States can begin electronically and mail their fingerprint card with the confirmation printout. Returning to the US is therefore not inherently necessary just to request the check.

Plan authentication and translation as separate steps. The US Department of State’s apostille guidance places FBI checks among federal documents handled by its Office of Authentications. UGE’s guide also requires foreign public documents to be apostilled or legalised and appropriately translated. Check the submission requirements before paying for a document service.

Keep the application route clear

This article concerns the initial residence application submitted to UGE inside Spain. Do not automatically transfer its evidence exemption to a consular visa checklist abroad. Our guide to applying inside Spain as a US visitor explains the separate lawful-status question.

ANEMOSS ASESORÍA JURÍDICA S.L. offers eligibility review, help organising application evidence and guidance through the relevant procedure. Through our Digital Nomad Visa service, we can review your existing status and documentation before you decide which records to obtain.

• Assuming every TIE holder is exempt without checking the earlier certificate submission.
• Confusing an authorisation lasting more than six months with six months already lived in Spain.
• Omitting the five-year declaration because the certificate exemption applies.