Hola ! • About us • Que pasa ? • Our own Nerja top-10 • Nerja News • Suggestions for emigration • House in Spain • Links • Pictures • Guestbook

Suggestions for emigration

Regularly we receive questions through this site by people who have plans for emigration to Spain (or even Nerja). Everybody’s situation of course is different and there are no ‘golden rules’. But we can give some suggestions and advice based on our own experiences. If you have any specific questions, don’t hesitate to contact us!

1. Learn the language

In general the Spanish don’t speak a lot of English. Even within the restaurant business the level is rather low. On both personal and business levels it’s a big plus to at least know some basic Spanish. We definitely felt more at home once our Spanish improved. From a business view-point you would surely miss a great deal of opportunities if you were only to focus on the English speaking community.
Our own experience is that learning a new language is more difficult than we thought (especially when you’re not 18 anymore), but it’s certainly not impossible! Best is to have a mixture of grammar (for example through an extensive language course) and practicing ‘on the street’. Of course it helps if you speak Spanish at work and watch Spanish television, but for most immigrants it’s a matter of years rather than months.
N.B. We did a language course at Quorum in Nerja.

2. Find a good gestor

A gestor can help you personally as well as business wise to do all your administration and we definitely advise against trying to do it yourself to save costs. Insurances, taxes, all kind of applications, advices, company administration, importing cars, applying for social health care, your NIE (tax number) & recidencia (residence card) are all tasks for a gestor.
Waiting lines in bureaucratic organisations often are long. Gestors get priority and can handle a lot of cases for different clients at the same time. Of course you should always check if your gestor does his job well and gives you all the necessary copies.
In Torrox (10 km from Nerja) we can recommend a good gestor.

3. Make sure you have enough financial backup

The price level in Spain has risen substantially during the last 10 years, though the wages are still much lower than in Northern Europe. The average wages in Spain are about 800 Euros. As a waiter or chef you earn about 1000 Euros a month, but these hours probably won’t stay at 40 hours a week. Moving always costs money*, you might not find a job right away and – according to your line of work – there might be no work in certain seasons at all. Maybe the cosy sunny tourist place is completely dead during winter or it’s too hot to breath in July and August. So it might be wise to visit your destination in different seasons before you make the final decision to live there.

If you want to start your own business, keep in mind that it always costs more money than expected and you’ll probably open later then you hoped for. Besides that you have a severe chance that your business won’t be profitable right away – just like in Northern Europe – and you also need money for publicity, otherwise nobody will know you exist. It depends on your own wishes, expectation and attitude, but reality shows that a lot of new residents need to adjust their plans due to a lack of cash, some even have to return ‘home’. So be critical towards your own plans and try to investigate as much as you can. Having your own Bed & Breakfast might sound romantic, but if high real estate prices drive you inland, you’ll have to ask yourself if you’ll be able to attract enough tourists to make the whole thing profitable.

4. Flexible and positive attitude

Emigration is not something people do overnight. Long days at work, a new language, uncertainty about your finances, bureaucracy, relationship problems, being homesick and building a new social life. These are all emotional matters you might have to deal with and possibly you will forget why you made this big step in the first place. Nowadays the psychological distance might be smaller because of cheap flights, email, Skype and satellite TV. A lot of people experience this as a positive thing, but it can also make it harder to integrate and really start a new life.

Our experience is that if people are already used to complaining a lot, they probably will find enough to complain about here as well. Of course there are always 2 sides to every story… A lot of emigrants leave their country because of the stressful and goal oriented life ‘running against the clock’, the rat race, and then they are frustrated if things in Spain take a long time or aren’t organised perfectly. In the end it’s not your setbacks that determine whether you’ll be happy here, but it’s the way you handle those problems. If for example your B&B isn’t running like you’d hoped, it doesn’t say you can’t be happy working for a real estate company. The same thing is true about your personal finances which probably will be lower then you are used to. Maybe you can spend less and live a less materialistic life because, for a lot of people, the improved quality of life comes from ‘living under the sun’, if this is the case, then you will be a winner!

For more information also see www.thisisspain.info