Independent professionals and intra-corporate transferees in Spain: trade mobility vs national migratory regulation

With the aim to promote international mobility, Spain has been undertaking active action on various fronts, the national and international level and within the EU. At the national level, Spain implemented in 2013 the Entrepreneurs Act aiming to attract talent, investment and boost the economy while removing bureaucratic hurdles and time consuming requisites. This scheme covers investors, intra-corporate transferees, highly qualified professionals, researchers, entrepreneurs, and family dependents. At the international and EU level, in addition to the different EU labour migration related directives (e.g. Blue Card Directive 2009/52, Intra-Corporate Transfer Directive 2014/66, Single Permit Directive 2011/98) in place, Spain is a signatory of the major Free Trade agreements in place such as the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. These agreements intend to affirm the commitment to a harmonized migration regulation of certain migrants’ categories by the EU Member States. In the same vein, the current Spanish national regulation is being adapted to enhance benefits and improve requirements so as to attain this goal under the Entrepreneurs’ Act. The aim of this paper is to understand national regulations covering the requirements established in these trade agreements and the barriers and benefits when applying these categories, this paper presents a practitioners analyses of the requisites, processing time and validity of permits with a focus on independent professionals and intra-corporate transferees, which are novel migratories models not involving being hired locally. Its contribution will be to shed light on the application of any of these migration routes and the reasons for migrants and businesses to take one route or another.