Picture a retired couple with €3,000 a month coming in from their pensions. That clears Spain’s income test for a couple to the euro. In Italy, the same couple would fall €2,000 a year short of the €38,000 advisers usually quote for two people. Spain’s non-lucrative visa and Italy’s elective residence visa are both built for people who live on money they no longer work for. Neither lets you work, and both want private health cover and proof of income. The order of the steps differs, so this guide takes both routes in the sequence you will meet them.

Six months before the move: the money

Spain sets its bar by formula. According to the Ministry of Inclusion’s information sheet on the initial non-lucrative permit, the main applicant needs a monthly income of 400% of IPREM, a public benchmark Spain uses for means tests, and each family member you support adds another 100%. With IPREM at €600 a month, that comes to €2,400 a month, or €28,800 a year, for one person, plus €7,200 a year for a spouse or other dependant.

Italy publishes no formula. Its consulate in Paris, for one, calls roughly €31,000 a year a starting point rather than a threshold, and a 2026 guide to Italy’s elective residence visa puts the working figures at €32,000 for one person and €38,000 for a couple.

The two also differ on what counts. Spain’s consulate in London accepts a regular income or assets large enough to guarantee one, so savings can make up for a modest pension. Italy wants a steady passive income from pensions, annuities, rent or investments, backed by letters from your bank or pension provider and your last two years of tax returns. Savings alone will not carry an Italian application.

If your pension is paid in pounds, leave headroom. A weak year for sterling can push its euro value below the threshold just as a renewal falls due.

Three months before: health cover and an address

Spain requires public or private health insurance from a company authorised to operate there, and consulates look for a policy with no co-payments. UK state pensioners can instead show that they have registered an S1 form with Spanish social security, which the Spanish consulate in London accepts in place of a private policy.

Italy asks for long-stay health insurance valid across the Schengen area, with at least €30,000 of cover per person. Travel insurance does not qualify. Once resident, S1 holders register with the local health authority, and others can join the national health service for an annual contribution that starts at around €2,000 (see also accessing healthcare when you retire abroad).

The Spanish consulate in London does not ask for a home in Spain when you apply. Italy will not issue the visa without a registered lease of at least a year, or a deed for a property in your name, and holiday lets do not count. You will choose your Italian town, and start paying for it, before you know whether the visa will come through.

In Spain, retirees from outside the EU tend to settle on the Costa Blanca around Jávea and Alicante, on the Costa del Sol near Málaga, in and around Valencia, and on the Canary Islands (more in the best places to live or retire in Spain). In Italy the old favourites are Tuscany, Umbria, Le Marche and the northern lakes. More people now head to Puglia, Sicily, Abruzzo and Sardinia, where homes cost less and a tax rule covered below favours small towns.

The consulate appointment

You apply at the consulate that covers your home address. Spain’s London consulate takes applications up to 90 days before your planned entry date. Italian appointments are booked through the Prenot@mi portal, and slots go early. The paperwork:

• Both: the national visa form, your passport, photos, proof of income and the insurance policy.
• Spain only: the EX-01 residence form, a criminal record certificate (from ACRO in the UK) and a medical certificate no more than three months old, both apostilled and translated into Spanish by a sworn translator.
• Italy only: the registered lease or deed, a letter explaining why you are moving and a one-way travel booking, as the Italian consulate in London sets out.

Non-British UK residents also need their UK residence permit, and consulates elsewhere publish their own lists.

The first month in the country

You must enter Spain while the visa is valid, three months at most. The one-year residence permit starts on the day you arrive, and within a month you apply in person at a police station for your foreigner’s identity card, the TIE.

Italy’s deadline is shorter. Within eight working days of arrival you send off the residence permit kit from a post office, then attend the Questura, the local police headquarters, for fingerprints before collecting your permesso di soggiorno.

Neither permit allows work of any kind, and both countries apply that to remote work for a foreign employer or clients. Anyone still earning should look at the digital nomad visas.

Every renewal after that

Spain’s first permit runs for one year, and renewals come in two-year blocks, so two renewals take you to five years. Each time, you apply in the two months before the permit expires and show that you still have the income, that you kept your health insurance throughout, and that you spent more than 183 days of the calendar year in Spain. For the full Spanish sequence, see the renewal rules for Spain’s non-lucrative visa.

The first Italian permesso normally runs for a year. You renew it through the same post-office kit, 60 to 90 days before it expires, with fresh proof of income, insurance and housing. Italy also expects you to live there, and long absences put a renewal at risk.

Your first full year as a tax resident

Spend more than 183 days a year in either country and you become tax resident there, taxed on your worldwide income, pensions included. Spain’s scale for general income starts at around 19%, with top rates that vary by region. Foreign assets above set thresholds must be declared on the Modelo 720 return, and some regions still charge wealth tax.

Italy also taxes residents on worldwide income, but it gives some retirees a flat rate. If you receive a foreign pension and move to a town of no more than 30,000 people in Sicily, Calabria, Sardinia, Campania, Basilicata, Abruzzo, Molise or Puglia, you can opt to pay 7% on all your foreign income for up to ten years, provided you were not tax resident in Italy in the previous five. The population cap rose from 20,000 in April 2026.

Under the UK’s treaties with both countries, private pensions and the State Pension are generally taxed only where you live, while civil service, armed forces and local government pensions normally stay taxable in the UK. Your pension provider will keep deducting UK tax until HMRC issues a no-tax code, which you claim on form DT-Individual once the local tax office has certified your residence. Take advice from someone who knows both systems before your first tax year abroad begins.

Five years on, and ten

After five years of legal residence, both countries offer long-term status that also lets you work. In Spain, long-term residence ends the income test at each renewal. Italy’s EU long-term permit needs an A2 Italian test, and you must not have been away for more than six months in a row, or ten months in total, over the five years.

Citizenship takes ten years of legal residence in both. Spain adds a language exam (DELE A2) and a civics test (CCSE), and most applicants, the British included, must formally renounce their existing nationality. Italy asks for Italian at B1 level and lets you keep your old passport.

A rule of thumb for choosing

If your income is between €28,800 and about €32,000 a year as a single applicant, or between €36,000 and €38,000 as a couple, Spain is the realistic choice. Above those figures, pick Italy if you want to keep your current nationality for good, or if a foreign pension and a small southern town could put you on the 7% rate. If you want to arrive first and choose a town once you know the area, the Spanish route from London allows that and the Italian one does not.