Only students in higher education can bring their family, and the family cannot work.
Article 56 of the 2024 Immigration Regulation (Real Decreto 1155/2024) lets a student's spouse, partner and children come along, but only if the student is in higher education or specialised health training; the 2011 regulation allowed it for any study stay. The relative comes in on a stay visa tied to the student's, for the same length of time and with no permission to work. Consulates refuse almost always over the family unit's money or where it comes from. A researcher's family takes another route — Article 62.4 of Law 14/2013 (Ley 14/2013), through the Large Companies and Strategic Groups Unit (UGE) — which also covers dependent parents.
The consulate has to check that the family unit has the means. Where the money comes from is not a requirement: so said the High Court of Madrid in July 2026 when it quashed three refusals from Havana, because the balances were held in lawful, available accounts.
Updated
Who comes with the student, and on what terms
Who counts as family
The spouse; a registered partner; a stable partner after a year of living together, or with proven stable cohabitation if there are children in common; unmarried minor children of the student or of their spouse or partner; and adult children who need support because of disability or illness. Always provided the student is in higher education under Article 52.1.a or in specialised health training, and has at least ninety days left on their authorisation. Paragraph 8 adds anyone who provides support to a student with a disability or illness.
What must be proven, and how much money
The family relationship, health insurance, not being in Spain irregularly and — for anyone over the age of criminal responsibility staying more than six months — a clean criminal record in the countries of residence of the last five years. And means for the whole family unit: on top of 100 % of the IPREM for the student, 75 % for the first relative and 50 % for each of the others. If a visa is sought, the consulate checks this; if the relative is already in Spain, the immigration office does.
Same length of stay, no work
The relative stays as long as the student and in the same situation, and loses the stay if the student loses theirs. They are not authorised to work while it lasts. The student may work, up to thirty hours a week with no extra formality (Art. 57), but that does not pass to the family. Children born in Spain acquire the authorisation automatically; the father or mother applies in person within six months of the birth.
When the student stays on
If the student, on finishing, switches to residence and work, they can at the same time apply for residence for the relatives living with them, provided they have sufficient means and suitable housing. It is granted as family reunification, and while it is processed the relatives' stay becomes provisional. If the student applies for residence to look for work or start a business, relatives who were already with them can stay on (Law 14/2013, 17th Additional Provision, para. 5).
Three families before the High Court of Madrid
The sum of the IPREM percentages for the length of the stay. In STSJ M 742/2026 of 20 January (appeal 351/2025), the consulate in Lagos refused visas to the wife and three children of a Nigerian man on a four-year doctorate, saying that the truth of the stated reasons had not been shown. In court, the State Attorney spoke of the situation in Nigeria and the devaluation of the naira. The court did the arithmetic: 100 + 75 + 3 × 50 = 325 % of the 2024 IPREM, €27,300 a year (it took an annual IPREM of €8,400, the fourteen-payment figure), against some €55,600 in several accounts, one of them in dollars, and a salary in Spain of €2,641. It would not admit the 'report' the consulate wrote after deciding, because it was not part of the file, and noted that there had been no interview. It declared the right to the visas, with costs against the administration capped at €500 plus VAT. The 2011 regulation applied; the percentages in today's Article 35.h are the same.
Not as a requirement in its own right. In STSJ M 10105/2026 of 13 July (appeal 1302/2025), Havana refused student-family visas to the husband and two minor children of a Cuban woman doing a PhD in Social Sciences at the University of Valencia, 'for failing to prove reliably the origin of the financial means'. For three relatives the court calculated 175 % of the IPREM, €12,600 (this time it took the IPREM over twelve payments, €7,200 a year), plus €3,600 for tickets: €16,200. The couple's two accounts, one in Cuba and one in Spain, held €20,317 between them. The rules say nothing about where the means come from, and those balances were in lawful, available accounts. It declared the right to all three visas, with costs against the administration capped at €500 plus VAT. The file also contained a booking at a residence in Valencia for four people.
It is refused along with yours, and in court the two are won or lost together. In STSJ M 2652/2024 of 26 February (appeal 413/2023), Havana refused a Cuban woman a visa for a higher vocational course (Técnico Superior) in diagnostic imaging in Tarragona, and refused her son, born in 2018, his family visa because hers had been refused. The grandmother, a lawyer in Tarragona, was paying, with a salary of about €1,600, rent of €360 and no savings in her account; the court could not tell what other commitments she had and dismissed the case, with costs against the applicants capped at €500 plus VAT. The reverse happened in STSJ M 7243/2026 of 22 May (Bolivia): once the mother's refusal was quashed, so was her young daughter's. Under the current Regulation, first check what the student is studying: that Técnico Superior course now counts as higher education under Article 52.1.a), because it leads to a qualification at level 1 of the Spanish Qualifications Framework for Higher Education, and students on it can bring their family (Article 56).
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.