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The free guide
Everything we wish someone had told us.
Twelve chapters, 27 pages. Costs, visas, renting, buying, the paperwork in order, healthcare, money and building — written from having done it, not from a brochure.
No email address required. No sign-up. It is just the file.
What is inside
The whole thing, chapter by chapter.
So you know exactly what you are getting before you download it.
- 01 Is Green Spain actually for you?The part most companies skip — including the reasons not to come.
- 02 What it actually costs to live hereReal monthly figures for one person and for a couple, and where the north sits.
- 03 The visaWhich route applies to you, and what happens if you hold an EU passport.
- 04 Renting first — and the wall you’ll hitWhy most people should rent before buying, and the foreign-income problem nobody warns you about.
- 05 BuyingWhose side the estate agent is actually on, and what that means for you.
- 06 The paperwork, in the order you’ll meet itFour pieces, and why the order matters — each one is needed for the next.
- 07 The rest of a lifeSchools, driving licences, pets, internet — the things that decide daily life.
- 08 Healthcare, properly explainedEligibility, the Tarjeta Sanitaria, and the Convenio Especial at €60 / €157 a month.
- 09 Money and transfer feesWhy you need a Spanish account, and the €210–375 most people lose per €10,000.
- 10 Building or restoring your ownLand classifications, the Certificado Urbanístico, and where budgets go wrong fastest.
- 11 If you’d like a handWhat we do, what it costs — and why you do not have to use us.
- 12 People who already did itNot case studies written by us. Their own words, as they gave them.
Before anything else — Caroline’s own account
Caroline Harris founded Galicia & Green Spain. This is what she has written about her own move, in her own words:
“My name is Caroline and I moved to Galicia with my four small children in 2002. I was originally from South London and spent most of my young life there.
I did however have a connection to Galicia as my mother was born here and we often had holidays in Vigo in Pontevedra and Monforte in the Ribeira Sacra. We had previously lived 2 years in Catalunya in Castelldefels near Barcelona and later in Segur de Calafell a little further south on the Costa Dorada.
I wanted a different childhood for my children and a different lifestyle than I had experienced in London which was the main reason for moving to Spain. And after a little adjusting, we found it. We found a welcoming, children-friendly environment in Galicia, and lived life simply but to its full. We didn’t have a two-week package holiday a year but went to the beach nearly every day after school to eat a picnic lunch and watch the waves. It was and still is magical.
Although it wasn’t plain sailing, we had to learn the language, there was a lot of paperwork which I still find hard to make sense of and the work ethic was quite different from what I had been used to, however, the pros outweighed the cons.
We felt safe, freer, much more than I had ever felt living in London. So we immersed ourselves in the local customs, culture and local pastimes including the siesta!”
— Caroline Harris, Gondomar, Pontevedra
That line about the paperwork is the honest one, and it’s why this guide exists. Caroline has lived here since 2002 and still finds parts of the bureaucracy hard to make sense of. Nobody should have to work it out alone, and most of what follows is the map we wish someone had handed us.
This is not a brochure. Parts of it may talk you out of moving. We’ve left those in.
The last page of the guide
Before you go — the short checklist.
If you can tick these, you are genuinely ready. If you cannot, the chapter that covers it is in the PDF.
- Visited in the off-season
- Tax position assessed before moving
- Visa route identified and current income threshold checked
- Private health insurance quoted
- Rent-or-buy decided
- If buying as a non-EU citizen: Military Authorisation checked
- If renting: foreign-income acceptance planned for
- Pet: microchip then rabies, then Animal Health Certificate
- Internet checked at the specific address
- Your own independent lawyer appointed
- First-year budget, not average-year budget
- Someone here you can ask
When you have read it
Bring us the questions it leaves you with.
Four short questions, and a real person comes back to you with the honest answer about what you would actually need — if anything. The first conversation is free.
