In an earlier article we explained the requirements to rent an apartment in Barcelona. If you read it though you might have noticed that neither of the options apply to you if you are in Spain on a non-lucrative visa.
The law in Spain is very in favor of the tenants offering protection from eviction unless some very strict conditions are met and while that’s a good thing for you once you have an apartment, it’s not in your favor when you’re searching for one. The landlords don’t want to have problematic tenants so they are very strict with their requirements and it’s not uncommon to straight up reject applications that don’t have a stable work contract.
That being said, it’s not impossible to find an apartment if you don’t meet the criterias laid out in our article Documentation required to rent an apartment in Barcelona. It’s just that you will need to provide a lot more documents to support your application and/or will need to leave more money on deposit or have for a bank guarantee.
We suggest you to have a folder with the following documents ready to share with the landlord or agent for review:
- Copy of your Passport
- Copy of your Visa or Tarjeta de Residencia
- Bank statements (preferably from a bank in Spain)
- If you have rented before in Spain, reference letters from your former landlords as well as proof that you’ve paid rent on time
- Any proof of income from investments, work conducted in your home country etc.
- Presentation letter where you explain why you moved to Barcelona, what you did before coming here on a non-lucrative visa and why should you application be taken into consideration
- If you are willing to pay 6-12 months of rent in advance, let them know
Obviously not all of the above might apply to you or you can have other documents to prove your solvency and in our experience the more information you can get the better it is.
Good luck!