That Sunday video call, the one you wait for all week. The child comes close to the screen and asks, “Dad, when are you coming?” and every time you have the same one answer — “just a little longer”. Then the call ends and the same silence is left in the room.
This pain is not understood by anyone who has never borne it. You are sending money, the household is running, everything is “fine” — but the child is growing up without you and those two years will not come back. This is why, sooner or later, the same question comes into the mind of everyone living in Spain: how do I bring them here?
The law allows it. The name of this route is Reagrupación Familiar — that is, the family coming together again. But it is better to understand one thing from the first day: this decision is not made on grounds of sympathy. The official sitting in the office does not see your separation; he sees three things — how long you have been here legally, how much your income is on paper, and what the home is like into which you are bringing them. The whole purpose of this article is that you should face those three prepared.
The first condition: a one-year wait
The family cannot be brought as soon as you reach Spain. You must have Spanish residence and you must have lived here legally for at least one year. Another condition is attached to this: your permit must have been renewed, or at the least the renewal application must have been submitted.
In practical language this means that during the first year this door is generally closed, and it opens with the first renewal or after it. Many people, not knowing this, file in a hurry, pay the fee, work for months on the papers and then hear a refusal. For those who have long-term residence (larga duración) or an EU Blue Card, the conditions are somewhat easier.
So if your first year is not yet complete, do not waste this wait. This is the very year in which the contract has to be strengthened, the salary has to be brought onto paper, a better home has to be found and the attestation of documents from Pakistan has to be started. Those who put this year into preparation get their file through in one go later on.
Who can be brought — and who cannot
This is the part where hearts are broken most, so we are writing it plainly. The law has kept the circle narrow:
- Spouse — wife or husband, and a registered partner as well. Only one at a time; in the case of more than one marriage only one spouse can be brought.
- Children — under 18 years of age. In the case of disability, older children can also be included.
- Parents — only in the case where they are over 65 years of age, and it is proved that they are financially dependent on you and that reasons for their care exist.
Now the other side of this. Healthy children over eighteen years of age cannot come by this route — neither son nor daughter, however much they may want to live with you. This is the most common misunderstanding and in many households hopes are pinned on it. In the same way, parents under sixty-five cannot normally be brought, however alone they may be, however ill, or even if you are their only support.
The route for parents over sixty-five does exist on paper, but in practice it is the most difficult category — proving dependency is not easy. For those holding long-term residence it is comparatively less difficult. For adult children the realistic route is a study visa or a work visa, not family reunification; it is better to think in that direction from now on, rather than waiting for years at the wrong door.
Income — this is the real obstacle
The government’s question is simple: can you support the people you are bringing? And the answer to it is given not by your hard work but by your papers. The name of the measure is IPREM — an official accounting unit by which income thresholds are measured in Spain.
- To bring one person (for example only a wife): about 150% of IPREM — a rough estimate of somewhere around 900 euros a month.
- For each additional person, about 50% of IPREM more — that is, for a wife and two children, a rough estimate of a steady income above 1,500 euros a month.
These amounts are approximate and IPREM changes every year, so be sure to check the correct amount at the time of application on the official website. Consider the word “steady” as well — one good month’s salary is not enough; the office looks at whether the income will continue in future or not. The proof comes from the contract, the payslips (nóminas) and the tax return.
And here is the thing that harms our people most: income from undeclared work does not count. You may put in sixty hours a week and have a good sum coming into your hand, but if it is not on a contract and a payslip then for the file it does not exist at all. Many people who have been working hard for years cannot bring their children for this one reason alone. This is the real value of a proper contract, not a few euros more or less in the salary.
The housing report — informe de vivienda adecuada
After income, the second question is the home. You have to show that the place into which you are bringing the family is fit for a family to live in. The town hall or the relevant provincial body inspects the home and issues the adequate housing report, in which the number of rooms, their condition and the number of people already living there are examined.
The plain truth is that this report is not issued for one room shared with six or seven men. Many files stop at this very stage, because people get everything else ready and leave the housing matter to the end. Changing home takes time, it takes a deposit and the landlord’s contract has to be in your name — start this work months before the application, not afterwards.
The process — step by step
The whole chain runs in two countries: half the work you do in Spain, half your family does in Pakistan. The order is this:
- The application in Spain: the person bringing them, that is you, submits the file at the Extranjería of your province — the income papers, the housing report, and the relationship documents (marriage certificate, children’s birth certificates) in attested and translated form.
- The decision: it generally comes within a few months. In the case of approval, the next stage belongs to your family.
- The visa: after approval, within two months your family members apply for the visa at the Spanish embassy or consulate in their own country. Here the relationship is verified again and there may be an interview too. Do not let these two months’ grace go to waste.
- Arrival in Spain and the TIE: within one month of arriving, a fingerprint appointment has to be taken for the residence card (TIE).
The Pakistan side of the work — start this first of all
Experience shows that the file hangs up less in Spain and more on your own country’s documents. Attestation and translation take weeks, and getting this done sitting far away is slower still. So take out this list on the first day and keep it:
- The marriage certificate and the children’s birth certificates from NADRA or the union council, in English.
- Attestation on these documents — apostille or embassy attestation, whatever the procedure is at the time.
- A sworn translation into Spanish (traducción jurada) — an ordinary translation is not accepted.
- The same spelling of names on every document — a difference between the passport, the marriage certificate and the birth certificate hangs the file up for months.
The point about the spelling of names seems small, but among us it is the fault that comes up most often — “Muhammad” in one place, “Mohammad” in another, the father’s name in the middle here, missing there. Spain’s system takes names very seriously. If a difference exists, get it corrected in Pakistan itself; do not file in the hope that perhaps nobody will notice.
The mistakes that sink a file
Most rejected applications do not fall on some complicated point of law, but on a few mistakes repeated again and again. The very first: applying before the first renewal. The second: the income being low on paper — overtime and cash work do not come into the count, however much comes into your hand. The third: submitting the file without the housing report, in the hope of attaching it later.
The fourth: a difference in names on the documents, or the translation not being sworn. And the fifth, which is the most painful: a contradiction in the details of the relationship at the interview in the visa stage. The date of the marriage, the members of the household, each other’s daily routines — if the answers from the two sides do not match, suspicion arises. The way to avoid this is not rote learning; it is simply that before the interview both sides should go through the details of the papers together once, so that the dates and names are clear in the mind.
When they arrive, what rights will they have?
This part is a happy one and many people are not aware of it. Along with residence, your spouse also gets permission to work — no separate work permit has to be taken. That is, the door to a second income in the household is open from the first day, and it also strengthens your file in the renewals that come later.
The children will go to school and be included in the health system. The only thing to remember is that the duration of the family’s permit is tied to the permit of the person who brought them — if your card breaks, theirs will be affected too. So renewing on time is now not only your business but the whole household’s.
An easier route: if the person bringing them is a Spanish citizen
If you have obtained Spanish citizenship, then a completely different and comparatively easier system applies to the family (the EU family regime or arraigo familiar) — the income conditions are easier and the process is faster. Suppose two men came to Spain in the same year: one took citizenship after ten years, the other stayed on the residence card. In the matter of bringing family, these two do not face the same wall today.
The lesson in this is not that you should wait for citizenship in order to bring your family — ten years is a very long time and children cannot wait that long. The lesson is that you should never let the residence card break, because that same chain is what opens the doors for your whole family later on.
Official links — check the current conditions here
- Official forms and conditions for family reunification: inclusion.gob.es
- Appointment (Cita Previa): sede administración
- Embassy and visa information: exteriores.gob.es
The amounts and periods given here are approximate and keep changing with time — the IPREM threshold in particular is new every year. This piece is here to explain the system to you; it is not legal advice. Once a family file is rejected it takes months to build again, so before submitting, check the current conditions on the official website given above, or show your file to a registered immigration lawyer.
