Not that Spain has ever been truly easy.

The cita previa — appointment booking — system alone has broken stronger people than you. The gestor calls, the modelo forms, the three trips to the extranjería — immigration office — because nobody told you about the third document. None of that was easy.

But staying? Staying was easy.

You could arrive, find a flat, open a bank account, and just... be here. The 90-day rule existed on paper. Enforcement was manual, discretionary, and human. Border agents stamped passports and waved you through. If you'd been here for seven months instead of three, the system wouldn't have automatically known.

That's the part that's ending.

The EU's Entry/Exit System goes live across all Schengen borders on April 10, 2026. Spain starts on April 1st.

Every non-EU passport gets a biometric scan. Entry and exit timestamps are recorded to the minute. The 90/180-day calculation becomes automatic — not approximated by a border agent flipping through your passport, but calculated by software that doesn't make judgment calls.

Airlines check your status before you board. If the system shows you've overstayed, you don't get on the plane.

This isn't a crackdown. The rules haven't changed. They're just being enforced by a system that doesn't forget.

Not you, probably.

If you've been here 18 months or more and you did the work — the TIE, the empadronamiento — town hall registration — the conversations with your gestor about structure — you're fine. The system knows you're a resident. The countdown doesn't apply to you.

But you know, people it does affect.

The friend who moved here last year and keeps saying they'll "sort out the visa thing." The couple from your coworking space who've been on tourist entries for eight months. The guy at padel who has a vague plan involving Portugal resets.

Some of them will get legal before April. Some will restructure their lives around strict 90-day rotations. And some will quietly leave.

The grey zone exodus won't be dramatic. No deportations at dawn. Just a gradual filtering. The people who were never fully committed — here for the weather but not the paperwork — will find it easier to be somewhere else.

What's left is a more permanent community. People who made a real decision, not an extended experiment.

This is part of a pattern. The VUT moratorium on new tourist rental licenses. Anti-money laundering requirements are tightening. The Digital Nomad Visa is creating a formal path where, before, there was just... showing up.

Spain is professionalizing its relationship with foreign residents. Choosing quality over quantity. Treating you as participants in the system, not tourists who forgot to leave.

If you did the work to get legal, this is validation. You made a serious decision. Spain is now making everyone else make one, too.

Even if your status is solid, April is a reasonable moment to verify the details.

Is your TIE current? Renewals take 4-6 weeks, and the extranjería in Málaga (Paseo de Sancha 64) gets busier as deadlines approach.

Is everyone in your household covered? If your partner came "with you" but their actual status is tied to yours, confirm that's properly documented. The system will track them separately.

A quick email to your gestor this week: "Confirm my household's immigration status is for the EES transition", takes two minutes and removes any ambiguity.

Gestoría Bocanegra in Marbella (Avenida Ricardo Soriano 65, +34 952 775 812) handles residency verification for English-speaking clients if you need a second opinion. Initial consultations run €100-150. Verified January 2026.

For that gestor email or call:

¿Está todo en orden para el nuevo sistema de entrada/salida? — Is everything in order for the new entry/exit system?

Simple. Gets you a yes or a list of what needs attention.

April 10 doesn't change your life. You did the work. But it changes the composition of the community around you — fewer tourists-who-stayed, more people who made the same deliberate choice you did. The easy part of Spain is ending. The rest of it, you already figured out.

Onwards — A. and the WaypointSur team with no Portugal resets required

With Waypoint Sur, you can always expect plain-English guidance to land, settle, and thrive on the Costa del Sol—work, schools, healthcare, visas, taxes, home, and daily life.  
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