FBI Apostille for Spain's Digital Nomad Visa

The consulate's checklist, in its own terms

Spain's telework (digital nomad) visa asks applicants for criminal record certificates from the countries where they have lived during the past two years. For the United States, the Spanish consulates are explicit about which document that is: the background check must be issued by the FBI. Their published guidance adds, in plain terms, that state and local police background checks are not accepted. The FBI Identity History Summary is the whole requirement; there is no state-level substitute a consulate will take in its place.

Issued within six months

The same consulate guidance sets the freshness rule: the background check must have been issued within the six months before the visa application is submitted. The date that counts is the FBI's issue date. Because the apostille and the translation both happen after that date and consume part of the window, the practical move is to build the rest of the file first and let the FBI check arrive close to the filing, the same sequencing discipline every freshness-window country rewards.

The apostille must certify the FBI's signature

Spain requires the Hague apostille on the check, and the consulates add a detail that decides files: the apostille must certify the signature on the criminal background check itself, not the signature of a notary who stamped a copy. That is the federal rule arriving through the back door. An FBI report is authenticated by the U.S. Department of State as issued; printing it, notarizing the printout, and apostilling the notary's signature produces a document the consulate says it will not accept.

Translation is its own track

The check must arrive with an official Spanish translation by a sworn translator. The consulates treat the two formalities as independent: the translation does not need an apostille, and the apostille does not need a translation. What the file needs is both, side by side: the apostilled FBI check, and the sworn translation of the check. A home-made or machine translation is not the official translation the checklist describes.

Two years of residences, two sets of rules

Applicants who have lived in another country during the two-year look-back owe a criminal record certificate from that country too, authenticated under that country's own system. Spain's requirement runs per residence, not per person. The U.S. part of the file is usually the slowest, which is another reason it is sequenced deliberately rather than left to the end.

Frequently Asked Questions: FBI Apostille for the Digital Nomad Visa

My state check came back in a week. Will the consulate take it while the FBI check is pending?

No. The consulates state that the check must be the FBI's and that state and local checks are not accepted. There is no interim substitute.

Do I translate the apostille as well?

The consulate's guidance is that the translation does not need an apostille and the apostille does not need a translation. The sworn translation covers the background check itself.

I lived in two countries in the last two years. What do I file?

A criminal record certificate from each country of residence, each authenticated under that country's rules. The FBI check covers the United States only.