Each link leads to the page of the site devoted to that topic for this country. The general topic sits at the top of each of those pages.
The country in brief
Spain is home to the largest British community in Europe. Package tourism in the 1960s, the villa boom of the 1980s and cheap flights turned the Costa del Sol, the Costa Blanca, the Balearics and the Canaries into places where Britons retired, worked or wintered: around 290,000 UK nationals are registered on the municipal padrón, more than 70,000 in Alicante province alone, with Benidorm, Torrevieja, Orihuela Costa, Mijas, Fuengirola and Marbella as the best-known enclaves, and estimates run far higher when part-year residents are counted. Brexit changed the terms — those settled before 2021 hold the TIE card under the Withdrawal Agreement, newcomers need a visa, and non-residents are limited to 90 days in any 180 — but not the attachment: Spain remains the first destination of British retirement abroad, British-Spanish marriages are common, and a second generation has grown up bilingual on the coasts. That is why Spain has its page in the English version of this site.
Spain, 48 million inhabitants, is a parliamentary monarchy and EU member state with a Civil Code of 1889 much reformed, and regional civil laws in Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre, the Basque Country, Galicia and the Balearics that change the matrimonial regime and the rules of inheritance. Equal marriage since 2005, no-fault divorce since the same year, abortion on request to 14 weeks since 2010, a comprehensive law against gender violence since 2004, the 'only yes means yes' consent law since 2022: it is one of the most liberal legal frameworks in Europe, with a universal public health service covering contraception, abortion and assisted reproduction. The pages below set out, topic by topic, what Spanish law provides, how things are done and where to go — and what matters for a British resident or couple: the EU succession regulation and the choice of English law, regional inheritance tax, recognition of divorces since Brexit, the Hague Conventions on children, and a drink-driving limit well below the British one.
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