The consulate may suspect the marriage, but the suspicion must rest on facts that leave no doubt.
Article 17.1.a of the Immigration Act (Ley Orgánica 4/2000, known as LOEX) allows a spouse to be brought over only if the marriage was not entered into in evasion of the law (just to get round immigration rules), and Article 66.1.a of the 2024 Regulation repeats the condition. The immigration office grants the authorisation on the documents. Doubts about the relationship nearly always come up later, at the consulate, when it interviews the spouse who is to travel. Consulates compare the answers with a list drawn up by the Council of the EU in 1997. The High Court of Madrid holds the consulate to another standard: the signs must prove fraud beyond reasonable doubt. This note is for the spouse of a foreign resident; the spouse of a Spanish national has a separate note.
For Section One of the High Court of Madrid, fraud is found only where the link between the proven facts and the conclusion is precise, direct and unambiguous and excludes any reasonable doubt. A lapse of memory at the interview is not that. Never having met may be.
Updated
The condition, the 1997 list, and who decides
The condition: no evasion of the law
A spouse over eighteen who is not separated, in fact or in law, may be brought over if the marriage was not entered into in evasion of the law; the rule extends to a registered or stable partner (Art. 66.1.b). Marrying, or faking a similar relationship, for gain or to obtain residence improperly is also a serious offence under Article 53.2.b of the Act, with a fine of €501 to €10,000 (Art. 55.1.b), unless it is a crime.
Seven signs and separate interviews
It defines a marriage of convenience as one concluded with the sole aim of circumventing the rules on entry and residence. Its signs: no continued life together; no contribution to the responsibilities of the marriage; not having met before the wedding; getting each other's details, or how they met, wrong; having no language both understand; money handed over for the marriage (except a dowry where that is the custom); and a history of marriages of convenience or of irregular residence. Checks may include interviewing each spouse separately, and the Resolution itself rules out systematic checks: only where there are well-founded suspicions.
What the Directive adds
It allows refusal where the marriage, partnership or adoption was contracted solely to enable entry or residence, and lets the authorities take into account that the wedding took place after the sponsor obtained their permit. Specific checks and inspections require well-founded suspicion; they may also be carried out when the relative's residence permit is renewed.
The consulate can look again
The interview requires two Spanish officials, an interpreter if needed, and a signed record with a copy for the applicant. The visa is refused where there is bad faith or evasion of the law (28.5.b) or where the truth of the purpose is not established beyond doubt (28.5.d). The Supreme Court, in a judgment of 19 February 2026 (appeal 295/2025), confirmed that the consulate may review what the immigration office accepted when granting the authorisation, always with the reasons written into the decision. As a precedent, it cited a marriage declared fraudulent because the spouses had never lived together and, among other things, there was a large age gap.
Three interviews that ended up in court
Not on its own. In STSJ M 2515/2026 of 24 February (appeal 489/2025), the embassy in Conakry refused a visa to a Guinean woman who had married, in 2018, a Malian man working on a farm in Lleida. At the interview she did not know her husband's date of birth, was unsure whether he had children, said they had only seen each other in 2023 and 2024, and admitted she knew the marriage would allow reunification to be applied for. The court weighed the evidence pointing the other way: two public ceremonies, civil and religious, with family and guests, and a wait of more than five years before applying for reunification, which does not fit a marriage made in order to migrate. Not living together is on the 1997 list, but the court said it does not prove fraud by itself when the couple need the authorisation precisely in order to live together. It quashed the refusal, declared the right to the visa and ordered the administration to pay costs capped at €500 plus VAT.
Not in itself. In STSJ M 10531/2026 of 24 July (appeal 1537/2025), the embassy in Dhaka refused a visa to a Bangladeshi woman born in 2002, married in June 2022 to a fellow national living in Madrid, born in 1984. It was his second marriage — he had divorced a month earlier; she said the families had arranged the wedding and that she first saw him three or four days before it, and she hesitated when explaining when and how he had come to Spain. The embassy added that the WhatsApp conversations she showed began in April 2025. The eighteen-year age gap does not even appear in the decision. The court replied that an arranged marriage between adults who freely consent is not fraud in itself. Not knowing minor details is not a sufficient sign where there has been no long courtship. And the embassy could have asked for more evidence, such as comparing the husband's passport with his Social Security employment record to explain why his visits were so far apart. It quashed the refusal, declared the right to the visa and ordered the administration to pay costs capped at €500 plus VAT.
In that case, suspicion is enough. In STSJ M 10252/2024 of 3 June (appeal 1084/2023), the Consulate General in Casablanca refused a visa to a 22-year-old Moroccan woman married in 2022 to a fellow national living in Valencia. They had known each other from the neighbourhood since she was fifteen; he emigrated in 2018, came back in 2021 and they did not see each other; a brother-in-law signed the marriage record on his behalf, there was only a small party without him, and she had not seen him since. Nor was there proof that he contributed to the responsibilities of the marriage, or of continued contact by any means. The court shared the consulate's conclusion: with no life together, not even a single occasion in the same place, the reality of the relationship could not be inferred. It dismissed the appeal and ordered the husband to pay costs capped at €500 plus VAT.
Tell us the case
Say which consulate you will be applying to and roughly when you want to travel. Those two facts change the answer more than anything else. We reply the same working day.
If you have already been refused and the one-month deadline is running, write to contacto@spainvisaservice.com with REFUSAL in the subject line and the date on the notification.