You’re a blended family: you are Spanish, and your partner, a foreign national, has children from a previous relationship. The question comes up at the school gate: can they live with you in Spain, with what papers and up to what age? Let’s take it question by question.
Can my partner’s children live with us in Spain?
Yes. Since May 20, 2025, Spain’s Immigration Regulation (Royal Decree 1155/2024) has governed, in Articles 93 to 99, the temporary residence permit for family members of a Spanish citizen. Its Article 94.1 contains a closed list of family members, and letter (d) includes the children of the Spanish citizen’s spouse or partner, provided that partner also lives or will live in Spain: your partner’s children, even if they are not yours.
The door is opened by your relationship, which must be one of these three: marriage, a partnership registered in a registry of a European Union country, the European Economic Area or Switzerland, or a stable partnership with 12 continuous months of living together (no minimum period if you have children together). These routes are mutually incompatible: only one is proven.
Did you meet when the children had already been born, and outside Spain? It doesn’t matter: Article 93 takes the family relationship into account regardless of where and when it was formed, as long as it continues and the children accompany the Spanish citizen or join them in Spain. This is not family reunification, nor the EU family card (tarjeta comunitaria) under Royal Decree 240/2007; those are different schemes.
Up to what age does it cover them?
Your partner’s children don’t get a separate permit: it is the same residence permit for family members of a Spanish citizen that Lexmovea handles for spouses and partners, and letter (d) of Article 94.1 opens it to those under 26 and, beyond that age, only to those who are dependent or have a disability requiring support.
Under 26, being dependent is not required: what counts are the family tie and living together, as long as the child is not married and has not formed their own family unit. The baby who still takes naps, the girl in elementary school and the 22-year-old college student are in the same box; turning 18 doesn’t take them out of it.
What if they’re young and the other parent is still in their home country?
If they are under 18, the rule requires that your partner have sole parental authority (patria potestad) or sole custody. If not, the consent of the other holder of custody rights is valid, given before a public authority or an official empowered to certify it (a notary, for example). That consent isn’t needed if the children were born in Spain and have stayed here since birth.
If the other parent agrees, the sensible thing is for them to sign before you start, and in that form: a homemade letter is not the same. If they sign in another country, as a general rule the document will have to arrive legalized or apostilled and translated. Without an agreement, the first step is a family-law matter.
School and padrón: living together shows in everyday life
Letter (d) requires the children to live with the Spanish citizen, but the rule does not set a specific document to prove it. In practice, joint registration with the municipal census (padrón) is the usual way to document a shared home, although not the only one. A school enrollment with your home address can tell the same story: children who live where you say they do. If they are still abroad, planned cohabitation counts: the rule includes children who intend to live with you.
Where do you apply, and what deadlines does the rule set?
It depends on where each of you is (Art. 97.1):
- You in Spain and the children abroad: application at the Immigration Office and then a visa.
- Everyone abroad: a visa at the consulate.
- Everyone in Spain: application at the Immigration Office, a route open to letter (d).
There is no application fee, and the file gets priority processing (Art. 97.8). The legal deadline for a decision is two months and, if there is no answer, it is a deemed refusal (administrative silence): the application is considered rejected. It is a legal maximum, not a fixed date. If the office asks for documents, there are 15 days at most to provide them. If the application is filed in Spain and admitted for processing, the child has a provisional authorization to reside, and to work if of working age, until the decision.
Once residence is granted, the foreigner identity card (TIE) is requested in person at a police station within one month of notification or, if the child arrives with a visa, of entry into Spain, with form EX-17 and the 790-012 fee (paid with form 790, code 012).
They turn 18 and want to work: do they need another permit?
No. The permit lasts five years (or the period the Spanish family member plans to reside in Spain, if shorter) and allows them to reside and work as an employee or self-employed, anywhere in the country and in any occupation or sector, without the national employment situation test, Spain’s labor-market check, and “without the need to carry out any additional administrative procedure,” once they are over the minimum working age (Art. 95).
Eighteen marks the first summer job or a personal project after high school, but the rule doesn’t speak of turning 18, only of that minimum age. What does exist is registration with social security: the employer handles it if there is a contract, or the young person does it themselves under the self-employed workers’ scheme (RETA). And anyone who obtained residence as a dependent keeps it even if they start working.
In a blended family, the paperwork is more logical than it seems: your partner’s children follow their mother’s or father’s path, with an age limit, the other parent’s consent when needed and a shared home that shows every day.