Spain Long-Term Residence: Absences in the Five Years Before You Apply

To qualify for long-term residence, your five years in Spain must be continuous. Time abroad is allowed up to a limit, set in months, and every country outside Spain counts, the rest of the EU included.

Last verified: October 2026

In short: you need five years of legal, continuous residence in Spain immediately before you apply. Absences do not break that continuity if no single one is longer than six months in a row and together they total no more than ten months. Work-related absences can total eighteen months. The regulation counts in months and never says how many days that is.

Status covered: Qualifying for Spanish long-term residence, national or long-term residence–EU
Qualifying period: Five years of legal, continuous residence immediately before the application
Single absence: Up to six continuous months
All absences: Up to ten months in total over the five years
Work-related absences: Up to six continuous months each, eighteen months in total
Absent from: Spanish territory, so time in another EU country counts as absence
Legal basis: Real Decreto 1155/2024, Article 183 (national) and Article 176.a (long-term residence–EU)

The rule

Article 183.1 of the immigration regulation gives long-term residence to people who have lived in Spain legally and continuously for the five years before they apply. Article 183.2 then says which absences do not break that continuity: absences from Spanish territory of up to six continuous months, as long as together they stay within ten months over those five years, unless a departure was made irregularly.

Two limits apply at once. Each absence has its own six-month ceiling, and all absences share the ten-month total. A single seven-month absence is not covered, even with nothing else on the record.
Work has a larger total. For absences for work reasons, the ceiling per absence stays at six continuous months, and the total rises to eighteen months over the five years.
Long-term residence–EU uses the same numbers. Article 176.a applies the same six, ten and eighteen months to the EU version of the status. The same article gives holders of an EU Blue Card issued by another member state a separate route, with its own allowance measured outside the EU.
Some absences are assessed separately. For national long-term residence, Article 183.2 adds that absences for duly justified force majeure are assessed case by case by the authority deciding the application, and that people working abroad as cooperants for registered, officially recognised NGOs, foundations or associations are not affected.

This is the rule for qualifying. Once you hold long-term residence, a different rule decides whether you keep it, measured outside the EU rather than outside Spain. That one is covered in Spain long-term residence: the 12-month absence from the EU.

What counts as an absence

The regulation measures absence from Spanish territory. A month in Portugal or a weekend in Paris is time outside Spain, exactly like a trip to another continent, even though both are in the EU and the Schengen area. The Canary and Balearic Islands, Ceuta and Melilla are part of Spain, so time there is not an absence.

The text also does not say whether the day you leave and the day you come back count as days away. This guide treats them as days in Spain. Counting them as away is the more cautious reading, and adds two days to every trip.

How many days is ten months?

The regulation does not say. It does not give the limits in days, does not say whether a month means a calendar month, and does not say how a trip of a few days turns into months. The Civil Code counts deadlines set in months from date to date, so a period that starts on 3 March ends on 3 January ten months later, but that is a rule for deadlines. It says nothing about adding up many separate absences.

Ten months in a row: 303 to 306 days, depending on which months they are
Separate trips added up: Needs a fixed length for a month. At 30 days, ten months is 300 days; at the average calendar month of about 30.4 days, about 304

300 days is the lowest figure any of these readings gives, so a total that stays within 300 days is within ten months on every reading. Above it, the readings start to disagree.

How to count it

Start from the date your legal residence in Spain began. The five years run from there, and once they are complete, from five years before the date you apply.
List every trip outside Spain with exact departure and return dates, including trips within the EU.
Check each trip against six continuous months on its own.
Add up the days away across the five years and compare the total with ten months. Keep work-related absences identifiable, since they have their own eighteen-month total.

Example. Your residence starts on 1 March 2025, so your first five years end on 28 February 2030. You spend a summer abroad, leaving on 10 July 2025 and returning on 25 August, then spend Christmas with family in Germany, leaving on 15 December and returning on 10 January 2026. In 2027 you leave on 1 March for a five-month stay abroad and return on 1 August.

With travel dates counted as days in Spain, the absences are 45, 25 and 152 days, 222 days in total. That is about 7.4 months at 30 days a month, under ten on any reading, and leaves 78 days before a 300-day total. The Christmas trip counts in full, although Germany is in the EU.

If the 2027 trip had lasted until 15 September, it alone would have been 197 days away, longer than six continuous months on any reading. That absence is outside the allowance even though the total would still be under ten months.

Beyond the day count

Staying within the absence limits keeps the five years continuous. It does not settle the application by itself: the residence also has to have been legal throughout, the status has its own other requirements, and the authority decides on the documents you provide, so keep evidence of your travel dates. The Ministry's information sheet on national long-term residence repeats the six, ten and eighteen months but leaves out the clause on irregular departures, and describes itself as indicative only. The regulation is the text that applies.

Spanish nationality by residence is a separate procedure with its own requirements, and so is tax residence in Spain, which counts days in a calendar year. The same trips can give different answers under each.

AtlasDays tracks your absences from Spain automatically

The free Spain Long-Term Residence preset counts your days away against a 300-day allowance from the day your residence began, and shows how many are left, planned trips included.

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FAQ

Does a trip to another EU country count as an absence?

Yes. The rule measures absence from Spanish territory, so time in France, Portugal or any other country outside Spain counts, including countries inside the EU.

How many days are ten months of absence?

The regulation does not say. Ten consecutive calendar months are 303 to 306 days. Added up from separate trips at 30 days a month, ten months is 300 days, the lowest figure any reading gives.

Is this the same as the 12-month rule for losing long-term residence?

No. The six- and ten-month limits apply to the five years before you apply and count absence from Spain. The 12-month rule applies once you hold the status and counts absence from the EU.

About this article: AtlasDays provides general information, not legal, tax, or immigration advice. Rules change and outcomes depend on your circumstances, so never rely on it alone: check the linked official source or ask a qualified professional.