The Spanish government is looking at ways to increase healthcare access for non-resident foreigners in Spain by including new forms of paperwork and documents to prove their rights, including the ‘padrón’ town hall registration.
Spain’s Health Ministry is currently undertaking consultations on ways to reform public healthcare in order to allow non-resident foreigners and Spaniards living abroad wider access to the system.
This has always been something of an uncertainty among non-natives who spend time in Spain but haven’t got legal residency.
You can read our breakdown of these confusions, including the contradictions within Spanish law, here.
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To that end, the Ministry has released an incredibly wordy draft royal decree that is currently in the public consultation phase and aimed to clear all this up. It is hoped that the amplification of healthcare for non-resident foreigners, including the requirements, will be confirmed with this proposal.
Cutting through the legalese, the thrust of the reform is essentially to make it easier for non-resident foreigners in Spain to prove their connection to the country via paperwork in order to access public healthcare.
READ ALSO: Do all foreigners in Spain have access to free public healthcare?
Effective residence
Back in 2024 the Spanish cabinet approved a draft bill aimed at recovering the “universality of the healthcare system”, so that all people living in Spain, regardless of their residency status, may be treated in hospitals and health centres, without being denied assistance or later receiving an invoice demanding payment.
Though still in the consultation phase, if approved, the change would widen the range of documents allowed to prove what is referred to in the draft text as “effective residency”.
In doing so, the government wants to allow the empadronamiento certificate as proof, for example.
However, in the event of not having one or being able to present it, one of the following documents will also serve as proof:
- Enrolment in a school or educational centre in the region in question.
- A certificate of schooling of a dependent minor.
- A travel letter issued by a consulate more than 90 days before the application for health care
- A visitor’s registration certificate issued by a social service of a municipality or region
- Utility bills proving that the person resides in Spain at least for some of the year
READ ALSO: How to get healthcare in Spain as a tourist
