Spanish Student Visa Insurance Requirements by Consulate
Spanish consulates do not ask for the same insurance. One post requires repatriation cover; another states in writing that it is not necessary. Three posts contradict themselves. Here is what each published list actually says, and what to do when they disagree.
Most of what you have been told is a requirement is not in the regulation
The insurance condition for a Spanish student visa sits in Real Decreto 1155/2024, article 35(i). It has exactly four parts, and it is short. Everything else you will read on a consulate checklist — no copayments, no waiting periods, repatriation, a €30,000 minimum — is consulate practice, added post by post. Practice is not uniform, and that is the whole reason this page exists.
Real Decreto 557/2011 was repealed on 20 May 2025. Guides that still quote it are quoting a regulation that no longer applies. The operative text is RD 1155/2024.
- ✓A health insurance policy
- ✓From an insurer authorised to operate in Spain (checkable on the DGSFP register)
- ✓Benefits similar to the SNS basic common portfolio (cartera común básica)
- ✓Valid for the whole intended stay
- ✕No copayments
- ✕No waiting periods (carencias)
- ✕Repatriation cover
- ✕A €30,000 minimum
- ✕A fixed policy length for stays over six months
What a full-text search of the regulation returns
We searched the consolidated text of RD 1155/2024 — 783,908 characters — for the terms that appear on consulate checklists as though they were law.
| Term searched in RD 1155/2024 | Occurrences | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| copago (copayment) | 0 | No copayment condition exists in the regulation |
| carencia (waiting period, insurance sense) | 0 | No waiting-period condition exists in the regulation |
| repatriación, as a requirement | 0 | Repatriation is not a statutory condition |
| 30.000 | 0 | No €30,000 minimum appears anywhere in the text |
Each post links to its own published student-visa page, checked on 23 August 2026. Consulates change their published requirements without notice — always read your own consulate’s current list before you buy.
The Spanish Embassy in Ottawa includes Sanitas among the Spanish providers it lists as offering appropriate health-insurance plans. That is the Embassy naming examples, not endorsing one insurer — you still need a policy that meets the requirements published by the post handling your own application, and eligibility, premium and policy terms are confirmed before any policy is issued.
The €30,000 figure and the repatriation condition come from the Schengen short-stay Visa Code, article 15 — the rules for visits of up to 90 days — and have been carried across onto some student sheets. That is why they read like law and behave like local practice.
Three thresholds worth keeping straight. 90 days decides the visa type (RD 1155/2024, art. 52.1) — not six months. Six months decides the criminal-record certificate, the TIE, and at some posts the policy length. And the authorisation itself runs from one month before the course starts to fifteen days after it ends (art. 55.2) — the window your cover dates are read against.
What each consulate publishes, post by post
Sixteen consular posts, taken from their own published wording and checked on 23 August 2026. Where a cell says not stated, the wording we checked says nothing either way — it does not mean the condition never applies. Consulates change their published requirements without notice, so treat this as a map of the disagreement, not a substitute for your own post's current page.
| Consular post | Copayments | Waiting periods | Repatriation | Minimum amount | Longer policy for a stay over six months | What we checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | Not stated | Not stated | Required | Not stated | Not stated | Consulate student-visa page |
| Toronto | Not stated | Not stated | Expressly not required — “it is not necessary to cover repatriations and/or evacuations” | Not stated | Not stated | Consulate student-visa page |
| Ottawa | Required — “no copay, deductible, or coverage limit” | Not stated | Not stated | No coverage limit. A policy from outside Spain accepted only at USD $500,000 or more | Yes — activity over six months means a one-year visa and “the health insurance must also be valid for one year, starting from the date of entry into Spain” | Embassy student-visa page |
| Boston | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Yes — “If the total of days is over 180, the health insurance will cover 365 days” | Consulate page |
| Chicago | Required — “no co-payments or deductibles” | Not stated | Not stated | €30,000 minimum, and the provider “must be registered with the General Directorate of Insurance and Pension Funds” | Yes — “if the planned activity exceeds 6 months… the health insurance must also be valid for one year, starting from the date of entry into Spain” | Consulate student-visa page |
| Casablanca and Nador | Not stated | Not stated | Required | €30,000 minimum | Not stated | Consulate PDFs |
| London | Contradicts itself — the consulate's web page requires no copayments; the BLS checklist it uses omits the condition | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Consulate web page and the post's own BLS checklist |
| Manchester | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Consulate page |
| Edinburgh | Contradicts itself — the website omits copayments; the post's own PDFs impose the no-copayment condition | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Consulate website and the post's own PDFs |
| São Paulo | No copayments | No carencias | Not stated | No cover limit required | Not stated | Consulate PDF |
| Miami, Houston, Mumbai, Shanghai, Sydney | Silent | Silent | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Consulate pages |
One more UK-specific finding. London, Manchester and Edinburgh accept the UK GHIC as medical insurance for the student visa application. That is a genuine acceptance, published by those three posts. What the GHIC buys is narrower than a private policy: access to the Spanish public system, not a private network, not English-speaking consultations, not dental.
Every entry above was read from the post's own published wording on 23 August 2026. Consulates revise these lists without announcing it. Check your own post's page before you book your appointment, and treat anything you find there as authoritative over anything you find here.
Three posts disagree with themselves — which is why you cannot plan around one list
The variance is not only between consulates. At three posts, the consulate's own documents do not agree with each other — and at one of them, a single page contradicts itself.
Why this matters more than it looks
Your file is not always assembled, lodged and assessed in the same place. London's own case shows it plainly: the web page and the application-centre checklist say different things about the same policy. You cannot reliably predict which wording your file will be read against, and you will not get a second attempt at the appointment to find out.
So the safest policy is the one that meets the strictest published wording, not the wording of the page you happened to read. If your cover satisfies the four statutory parts and also carries no copayments, no waiting periods and cover for the whole authorised period, then a post that asks for less has nothing to object to — and a post that asks for more has already been answered.
The one condition that genuinely splits the posts is repatriation: San Francisco, Casablanca and Nador require it; Toronto states in writing that it is not necessary; every other post we checked says nothing either way. It is not a statutory condition at all — so if your post requires it, that requirement comes from your post, and it is your post's wording that has to be satisfied.
Where a post publishes something more generous than the regulation — Ottawa's acceptance of a foreign policy at USD $500,000 is the clearest example — that is the post's own published position. It does not change what article 35(i) says, and a policy that meets art. 35(i) in full is not put at risk by relying on the stricter reading.
What “meets the strictest published wording” looks like
Working backwards from every list above, a policy that is not going to be argued with at any of these posts looks like this.
- Issued by an insurer authorised to operate in Spain
- Benefits similar to the SNS basic common portfolio
- Valid for the whole intended stay, with no gap
- Zero copayments — satisfies London's web page and São Paulo
- No waiting periods — satisfies São Paulo's carencias condition
- Cover dates read against the +1 month / +15 days authorised period
- A certificate stating the insured period, so the officer can verify it
- Policy length matched to the post's rule where it publishes one
The Sanitas International Students plan is written by an insurer authorised to operate in Spain and carries zero copayments and no waiting periods, so it answers the two conditions posts most often add. Repatriation is included; the exact scope is set out in your policy documentation. Cover varies by plan, so always check your particular policy details — or ask us for a plan that includes it. Eligibility, premium and policy terms are confirmed before the policy is issued.
The certificate is the document the consulate actually reads. See what the certificate contains and when it is issued, and the full student visa insurance requirements for the date rules.
Cover that answers the strictest list
See your exact price for the Sanitas International Students plan — zero copayments, no waiting periods, and a certificate in Spanish for your visa file.
Consulate insurance requirements — FAQs
Consulate wording on this page was read from each post's own published documents and checked on 23 August 2026. Consulates change their published requirements without notice; always confirm against your own post before your appointment.