visa requirements.

If your partner can work remotely back to the UK (like working for a British company online from Spain) then he could qualify to apply for a "Digital Nomad Visa".  Just look that up on the internet for the rules.

If as you suggest, you are retiring from work and not going to be working in Spain at all, you would need a Non-Lucrative Visa, but this could be approached differently if your partner can financially justify that he is supporting you and put you on his Digital Nomad Visa as a dependent.  Again, look up non-lucrative visa on the internet for the qualification terms - but £1,500 passive income for a Non-Lucrative Visa is not enough to meet the qualification for sure.  You would need to top that up with savings to prove you as self-sufficient financially for the first year to the total of 28,800 Euros (2,400 Euros a month) for one person (add another 7,200 Euros a year for dependents) and for the renewal at the end of year one you would need double that additional savings amount as the next visa runs for two years.  You are not allowed to work in Spain at all on a Non-Lucrative Visa.

If your partner cannot work remotely back to a UK company, then he would need a visa allowing him to work in Spain, which I am told is very difficult to obtain these days but have not really looked into it as we will not be doing that.  One approach is possibly for him to stop working and come down on a Non-Lucrative Visa supported by his private pensions with you and try to find work in Spain and then convert to a working visa later.  But this will take some time, people typically suggest more than the first year's visa duration.

If you can invest 500,000 euros in property in Spain (can be more than one property so renting one out to increase your living income whilst living in the other is a potential), then you can apply for a Golden Visa - again, qualification requirements are available by searching for that on the internet.  And you and your partner are allowed to work in Spain on that Visa too.

If your partner has a private pension and is close to retirement, then there is the possibility of both of you stopping work early and using the Non-Lucrative Visa.  The financial qualification for that is a joint combination of passive income (income like pensions, renting a property either in the UK or Spain, investments etc) and/or savings totalling currently 36,000 euros for both of you if coming from countries classified as "Third Countries" - which the UK is.  I say currently because the actual figure is derived from a calculation of 400% of I-PREM which changes slightly every year.  And remember if either of you can find work, then you can apply for the normal working visa at that time - but make sure the job is going to stick until your application for residency period (5 years) is over or it could get messy.

Other than that, unless one of you can get an EU passport by some ancestral route (including the Republic of Ireland), I am not aware of any others, but hope that helps a bit.

How much to live in Spain each month?  That depends on where you want to live, what your lifestyle is like, do you have a big villa with a big expensive pool to run or a 2 bed apartment, one car or two cars, like going out a lot etc.  Some say they can live (after house is bought and paid for) on as little as 1500 Euros a month.  I don't think we could, but that old phrase strikes up again "it depends".

A few points to add to this response...

You will also need to have no criminal records and need to purchase private heath insurance for the first year (after which you can either continue with private health insurance of pay into the Spanish NHS). You should allow €700+ per annum per person for this, depending on your ages and if you have any pre-existing medical conditions.

If your partner doesn't have work suitable for the Digital Nomad Visa, then you should also consider that unemployment in Spain is very high; salaries in Spain are, on average, around 2/3rds of the salaries for comparative jobs in the UK; and to get a working visa you need to have a firm job offer from an employer (who may also have to justify why they couldn't employ a native Spaniard instead) - i.e. you can't just get a working visa and then look for work; and you will also need to speak fluent Spanish to have a chance of getting most jobs.

Whilst it is correct that you need to prove €36,000 pa passive income, you don't need to spend that, so any 'underspend' can be carried forward to proving the next period's income. I know there is a lot to consider, but, roughly speaking, from your figures, if you have a £1,500 per month pension income and you have around £50,000 in the bank after buying a property, then it should be doable.

Hope this helps - and happy to answer any further questions...

Absolutely - hence pointing to the internet to search for each visa name and get the complete, actual qualification rules - as there are still a few missing from what we have both mentioned.  I just focussed on the financial question asked and named a few visas, but you are absolutely correct in what you added.  But I am budgeting 2.5 - 3k health insurance as we are in our early 60s and I smoke.

With regard to criminal records, I am advised that minor offenses are viewed not so bad.  Anything violent or serious with a penalty greater than a fine seems to be a bit more of an issue.  Drink Driving will appear on an ACRO these days too and is quite frowned upon.  Fortunately we are squeaky clean.

Something to be aware of on supporting documentation (health, finance, criminal records etc) is that the ACRO is now accepted for up to 6 months age.  All the other documents still need to be sub 3 months.  And also worth knowing that 2 of the 3 UK application centres hold your passport from the date of your appointment for the entire duration of your visa application (up to 90 days estimated) meaning that if you need to travel abroad whilst applying for your visa, you are stuffed.  That is an absolute pain for us as we need to be back and forth buying a couple of villas and it looks like work will have me bouncing between then UK, Switzerland and India shortly.

If I hadn't been using a service such as Chris Goodacre's team at Upsticks, I would not have been aware of that and just that would have caused havoc with work and the timing of the move.  Absolutely great value to have that knowledge and experience on your side so that when you plan the timings for documents and rock up for your Visa appointment you can be confident that you have a file with all the right paperwork, all in the right order, in date and properly translated and certified and with any explanations or mitigations expressed in writing in Spanish.  Great value, removes all the stress, and Chris pre-qualifies you to a large extent in a free 20 minute call up front - and not too expensive.