Student Visas

The Schengen Agreement, which five member states of what was the European Economic Community signed in 1985, aimed to harmonize short-term (up to 90 days) immigration practices among member countries. At present, 25 countries have signed the Schengen Agreement: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Please note that not all European Union members have signed or implemented the agreement and that not all signatory countries are members of the EU. Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, and Romania are European Union members but have not yet implemented Schengen regulations. Ireland and the United Kingdom, also European Union members, have not signed the agreement. Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland, however, have signed the Schengen Agreement although they are not European Union members.

A Schengen visa is the typical 90-day tourist visa that people from some countries (for example, India, Kenya, Peru) need in order to travel to Spain (or any other Schengen country).

Citizens from certain countries are not required to obtain in advance any special tourist visa to visit Spain, and do not have to fill out a Schengen visa application. A tourist visa will be granted upon arrival in Spain and is good for 90 days in any six-month period. People who may obtain visas upon arrival in Spain include citizens of Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Holland, Honduras, Hong Kong and Macao (China), Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

No. Our master’s degree students stay in Spain for more than 90 days so these students need a student visa. Remember, a Schengen visa is only good for up to 90 days in any six-month period and our master’s degree students stay for up to a year; therefore, master’s degree students should not worry about a Schengen visa, no matter which country they are from.

To answer this question we need to highlight an important difference in how visas work. Visas are like keys that allow visa holders to enter Spain. Once in Spain, however, students will be required to get their student residency card, called a Tarjeta de Identificación de Extranjero or TIE (often incorrectly called a NIE, because a NIE appears on the card), within 30 days of their entry into the Schengen Area.

A student visa stamped in your passport will allow you to move through the Schengen Area only while the student visa is in effect. The student visas are usually issued for 90 days, and, of course, during the first 30 days our master’s degree students are here, they will apply for their student residency card, which will allow them to stay in Spain during the rest of their studies (long after the visa stamped in their passport has expired).

Please note, however, that the student residency card, unlike the student visa stamped in your passport, does not grant you travel rights in any other Schengen Area countries. Students, please keep this in mind when you are planning trips around Europe while studying at Berklee. Simply put, while the visa stamped in your passport is valid, you should be able to travel through other Schengen Area countries but once this visa expires, your student residency card holder’s rights are tied to Spanish national territory; therefore, you may need a visa to travel to other Schengen member countries, depending on your country of origin.

Students are responsible for securing their visa for study at Berklee Valencia.
Berklee Valencia will only provide:

• The academic documentation required by authorities.
• A list of local lawyers and gestors (people who help with administrative and bureaucratic processes).
• A list of official translators.

Berklee Valencia does not:

• Vouch for external providers.
• Provide any advice or assistance, legal or otherwise, with the procurement of the visa. Students are responsible for any and all costs associated with this process.

Please communicate this information to the Admissions, Academic Affairs and Student Affairs departments as well as the Program Director, so that we are aware of any possible delays in your arrival to Valencia.

You should request a multiple-entry visa.

Challenge No. 1 Logistics
Many consulates suffer from a heavy workload during the summer months and therefore might not have an available appointment for a month or two.
Be aware of your timeline. Most students only need between two to four weeks to get their documents ready, and the Spanish government usually needs at least a month to process your student visa. You want to be here in September—don´t get caught waiting for a visa appointment.

Be sure to contact the consulate as soon as you are accepted and see when the next available appointments are for visa applications. If the consulate is asking people to wait a month or more, grab an appointment now, before you have all your paperwork done.

Challenge No. 2 Criminal Background Check
If you are applying for your visa in the United States, remember that the FBI usually takes six weeks to resolve criminal background checks. Ask the consulate if it accepts a criminal background check from the state police. If so, contact the state police where you live and see how long it would take to complete a background check. Usually, the state police can resolve your request much faster than the FBI.

Challenge No. 3 Medical Certificate
Contact the consulate and ask for information about the medical certificate. Pay special attention to what kind of wording the certificate needs to contain and what other elements have to appear (doctor´s letterhead, signature, etc). Also, you may want to ask the consulate if it has a list of doctors who provide such certificates. Many doctors on consulate lists are used to issuing the certificates and know what kind of language they need to use. If not, any family doctor can examine you and issue the certificate.

Challenge No. 4 Translating and Legalizing Documents
Verify with the consulate, which documents have to be:

a) Notarized
b) Legalized internationally (Apostille)
c) Translated by a sworn translator who is licensed to work in Spain. Often consulates have a list of sworn translators. Remember that many translators charge extra for emergency work, so be sure to notify your translators ahead of time to book their services.

Spanish law states that you need a criminal background check from all the countries in which you legally resided during the last five years.

No, your visa expires three months after it is issued.

You have 10 business days to correct (subsanar) any problems in your application after you have submitted it. The 10 days are calculated starting the day after you present your application, and the days that count are Monday through Saturday (not Sunday, nor any holiday that causes the consulate to close. These holidays might be Spanish national holidays or local holidays in the country where the consulate is located).

No. Unfortunately, Berklee does not provide students with this letter. You must fulfill this obligation by another means.

Do not worry too much about your housing requirement. Your acceptance letter should be enough proof of residence. In the rare case that it is not, you will have to book a hotel or a student residence for your first few days in Valencia so you can satisfy this agreement. Bring your paid receipt with you back to the consulate and that should fulfill the requirement.

You CAN get into Spain for 90 days without a tourist visa IF you are from:

Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Holland, Honduras, Hong Kong and Macao (China), Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, or Venezuela.

If your visa will not be ready by the time your classes start, and you are from one of the above countries, you could come to Spain and start your classes and then return to your home country to pick up your visa when it is issued. Remember, you have up to 90 days to be here without the student visa. Once you are notified that the visa is issued you have 60 days to pick it up in your home country; be careful, if you don't pick it up within 60 days, it will be canceled!

Also remember that the consulate will hold your passport while it processes your visa application, but you will need your passport to come to Spain. Therefore, you will have to ask the consulate if it will let you keep your passport while it processes your visa. The best way to convince the consulate is to bring paid plane tickets/hotel accommodations to your visa appointment. Since each consulate has a degree of administrative leeway, we cannot guarantee that it will let you hold on to your passport, but so far, all of our students and employees who have found themselves in this situation were able to keep their passports.

Academic Affairs will work with the corresponding Program Director and faculty involved to ensure that you are able to start the semester and attend classes and other important events remotely for a limited amount of time. Students are strongly discouraged from traveling without a student visa as they will not be able to attend classes or access campus until their visa resolution.

Spanish law states that you must come to the consulate in person to get your passport. There have been cases in which a consulate will let someone use a courier service to retrieve his or her passport, but that decision is at the discretion of the consulate. You would have to negotiate that, and you may or may not be successful in doing so. The better you document your case (paid airline tickets, for example) the better chances you have of being able to have a courier pick up your passport. Also, there is an important nuance that you should be aware of. The consulate usually holds the passport while it processes the visa, so if you want to fly to Spain during this time, you should let the consulate know of your plans when you submit your application (again, bring paid airline ticket receipts, hotel receipts, etc.)

Yes, the student insurance that Berklee provides meets all the health insurance requirements from the Spanish government, including covering medical expenses and repatriation in the case of accident or sudden illness for the entire period of the stay in Spain.

Yes, the acceptance letter Berklee provides meets the acceptance letter requirements for the Spanish government.
The official acceptance letter is written in Spanish and certifies that you are a full-time student in Spain from the Spanish University/School or US program indicating: name, address, telephone and fax number, and registration number with the Ministry of Education of Spain; full payment tuition; duration of the program (date of start & date that finishes); subjects of study; hours of study per week (20 at least).

Entering Spain a few days before your student visa is in effect won’t be a problem if you are from the countries listed below*. Just be sure that when you enter the Schengen Area, you get your passport stamped. If, for some reason, an immigrations officer doesn’t stamp your passport (this is rare, but does occasionally happen), please be sure to keep your boarding passes and the paid receipt for your flight. You would need them to get your Spanish student residency card.

*These countries are: Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Holland, Honduras, Hong Kong and Macao (China), Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Save your boarding passes and the paid receipt for your flight. You will need to present them to the police in order to get your student residency card.

Yes, your immediate family members can accompany you during your studies in Spain. Each family member will have to apply for a separate visa; they should each apply for a Non Lucrative visa. Depending on the consulate that corresponds to you, each family member may need a separate appointment in order to present their visa application. We recommend checking with the consulate to see what their procedure is.

Remember to bring a copy of your marriage certificate and/or birth certificates with you to Spain, because Spanish police will want to see them in order to issue your family members their own residency cards.

NIE stands for Numero de Identificación de Extranjero, or a foreigner’s registration number. This number is used to identify foreigners while they stay in Spain and it is imperative to have for all administrative and financial matters.

A student residency card is a type of Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero, or a foreigners’ residency card. This is a physical card that all non-EU foreigners must obtain if they are staying in Spain more than six months. This card contains your photo, your fingerprint, and your NIE.

Berklee will send you more information on getting your residency card several weeks before your program begins.

The calculation for time spent in Spain in order to apply for citizenship is based on what is called residencia. Unfortunately, student visas don´t grant residencia, but rather estancia and, therefore, your time at Berklee doesn´t count toward the required time need to apply for citizenship.

If you choose to apply for a visa once you are in Spain, you should be aware of the following:

• If you don’t receive a visa by November 20 of your first semester of enrollment in your program, you will be withdrawn from the program, and refunds, if any, will be processed following Berklee’s withdrawal policy. Based on our experience, it is unlikely students will receive a visa by November 20. Please keep in mind that if you arrive in Spain without a visa, you most likely can only stay for 90 days, depending on which country you are from.
• Should you be withdrawn from a master’s program, you will have to reapply for the program. Should you be readmitted to the program, you will have to restart the program from the beginning. Readmittance to the program is not guaranteed.

There is a gray area of the law that could be beneficial to you if you only want to stay for a few months after your card expires. Technically, you have to renew your card before it expires. However, there is a grace period of 90 days for people who did not renew in time. That means you could still legally be in Spain for up to 90 days after your card expires. However, remember that your card is what allows you to re-enter Spain if you leave, and your card will be expired during that 90-day grace period.

This means that if you leave Spanish national territory during the 90-day grace period, you will not have the right to get back in, especially if you are not from the following countries: Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Holland, Honduras, Hong Kong and Macao (China), Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, or Venezuela.

Unfortunately, your spouse cannot work because his/her visa status won't permit him/her to work.

To answer your question, we have to break down the concept of "work" and "internship" into two separate categories, because Spanish law divides them into different legal concepts.

Internships: If the internship in question stems from your Berklee master’s degree program, your student visa grants you the right to participate in the internship. Spanish immigration law is designed, in part, to protect Spanish workers in a global labor market while giving students opportunities to continue their education with practical internships in both public and private companies. Therefore, foreign students have the right to participate in internship programs sponsored by their universities, and these arrangements are not considered labor contracts even if the student receives economic compensation by the company for his or her participation; this compensation is in the form of a student grant or expense reimbursement. Please contact the International Career Center on campus for more information about internships.

Work: Under Spanish law, the concept of "work" or "a job" involves a different kind of economic relationship that comes with different rights and responsibilities than does an internship. Your student visa permits you to work part-time in a job that does not conflict with your class schedule. It also permits you to work full-time for up to three months under the same conditions. However, the business that hires you must solicit permission from the government and many employers are reluctant to take this administrative step. Therefore, few foreign students receive legitimate job offers during their studies.

More information in English can be found here for student visas and here for work visas. Both links lead to the Spanish Ministry of Labor website.