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@aryooper Are you in Spain already and have NIE? if not apply to the Spanish consulate in your country, I think the visit can be for 90 days without visa, or for a year its about 640£

@aryooper  It depends on your nationality.  For example, if you're British, you have to apply for an appropriate visa at a Spanish Consulate in the UK (London, Manchester or Edinburgh).  In the meantime, you can't exceed Schengen requirements, i.e. visits of a 90 days maximum in a rolling 180 days in all Schengen Travel Area countries. 

Here's a link to details of the visa types available on the Spanish Government website:

@aryooper

Americans can visit Spain visa-free for up 90 days in 180 days. And, you can easily spend 6 months in Spain if you spend 9 months in Europe, and break it up with 3 months Spain/3 months elsewhere/3 months Spain again. Elsewhere must be a non-Schengen EU country (Ireland, Cyprus only, I think) or a nearby non-EU country (Serbia, Turkey, UK, Montenegro, Albania, etc.).

The long-term visa application process is a bit of a time-consuming aggravation which is necessary if you want to retire to Spain, or live there indefinitely... but probably not worth the effort for a short stay of only 6 months.

If you do decide to retire there, the most popular option is the NLV, No Lucrativa Visa, and there's plenty of info online about how to get one.

There are some slightly easier student visa options that might be worth considering if, say, you wanted to study Spanish for 6 months.

My advice is that 6 months is a bad number! :-) Stay much longer (so it's worth applying for a residence visa), or stay less so you can use your visa-free allowance (easy-peasy). Or stay slightly longer while using the Spain/not-Spain/Spain trick to stay inside your Schengen Zone visa-free allowance.