Libbie Stevens | Visa Advisor, Wilmer Health | Published: 6 February 2025 | Last Update: 2 May 2026
This guide is for informational purposes only and reflects requirements as understood in 2026. Visa requirements can vary by consulate and are subject to change. Always confirm specific requirements with the Spanish consulate or immigration authority handling your application. For specific advice about your individual application, contact us at hello@wilmerhealth.com.
If you are applying for a Spanish long-stay visa from the UK — or you have previously lived in the UK and need to submit documentation for a Spanish residency application — an ACRO Police Certificate will almost certainly be required as part of your application.
Getting it right matters. The ACRO certificate must be recently issued, correctly apostilled, and accompanied by a Spanish sworn translation before any Spanish consulate or immigration authority will accept it. Submitting it incorrectly is one of the most common reasons visa applications are delayed or rejected.
This guide covers everything UK applicants need to know about the ACRO certificate for a Spanish visa in 2026 — what it is, which visas require it, what it will show, how to get it prepared correctly, and how Wilmer Health can handle the entire process for you.
The core ACRO requirement itself has not changed — Spain has required a criminal record certificate from UK applicants for long-stay visas since before Brexit, and that remains the case in 2026.
However, a few things are worth noting for this year:
FCDO apostille processing. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office continues to offer both standard and priority apostille processing. Timelines have remained broadly stable in 2026, though peak periods — typically spring and summer, when visa appointment volumes are highest — can cause delays. If you have a fixed consulate appointment, plan well in advance.
No change to the sworn translation requirement. The ACRO certificate must still be accompanied by a Spanish sworn translation (traducción jurada) completed by a translator accredited by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Standard certified translations are not accepted.
An ACRO Police Certificate is an official UK document that confirms your criminal record status. It is issued by the ACRO Criminal Records Office, a national police unit that holds records from the Police National Computer (PNC) and processes certificates for international use.
The certificate will confirm one of three outcomes: No Trace, No Live Trace, or Convictions Recorded. Each of these is explained in detail below.
For Spanish visa purposes, an ACRO Police Certificate is the only accepted criminal record document for UK applicants. A DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check is not the same thing — it is designed for UK employment purposes only and Spanish consulates will reject it. If you are unsure which document you need, our guide to the difference between an ACRO and a DBS certificate for a Spanish visa explains exactly why the two are not interchangeable.
Any Spanish long-stay visa — broadly, any visa permitting a stay of more than 90 days — requires a criminal record certificate. For UK applicants, this means an ACRO Police Certificate.
The visas most commonly requiring an ACRO certificate include:
Non-Lucrative Visa (NLV): the most common route for retirees and those moving to Spain without employment. The ACRO certificate is a standard document requirement at all Spanish consulates in the UK.
Spanish Student Visa: required for study periods exceeding 180 days. Students applying from the UK through a Spanish consulate must include an apostilled and sworn translated ACRO certificate.
Digital Nomad Visa: Spain’s visa for remote workers and freelancers working for non-Spanish clients. Applications are processed through the Unidad de Grandes Empresas (UGE) rather than a consulate, but the criminal record requirement still applies.
Family Reunification Visa: applicants of legal age joining a family member in Spain must submit criminal record certificates for all countries of residence in the past five years.
Work visas and other long-stay categories: the requirement applies broadly to any national visa (visado nacional) permitting residency in Spain.
Short-stay Schengen visas (up to 90 days) do not require an ACRO certificate.
Understanding what your certificate will say before you apply can save significant anxiety. When your ACRO Police Certificate is issued, it will fall into one of three categories.
No Trace means no criminal convictions are recorded against you on the Police National Computer. This is the most straightforward outcome — your ACRO certificate will confirm a clean record and should present no issues for your Spanish visa application. If you have received your certificate and are unsure what your result means, our guide to what No Trace means on an ACRO certificate for a Spanish visa explains each possible outcome in plain English.
No Live Trace means that convictions have been recorded in the past, but they have been stepped down under the UK police disclosure model and no longer appear on your certificate. A No Live Trace ACRO is treated the same as a No Trace ACRO for the purposes of a Spanish visa application — it is not a negative outcome.
The step-down model determines how long different categories of offence remain visible on an ACRO certificate, based on the severity of the offence, the age of the person at the time, and the sentence imposed. Minor offences step down after shorter periods; serious offences may never step down. For a full explanation of how this works, see our guide to what No Trace means on an ACRO certificate and our detailed breakdown of the ACRO step-down model for Spanish visa applicants.
If your ACRO certificate shows active convictions, this does not automatically mean your visa application will be refused. Spanish authorities assess applications on a case-by-case basis, and minor, historical, or isolated offences are treated differently to serious or recent convictions. Our guide to ACRO certificates and criminal records for Spanish visa applicants covers how Spain approaches this assessment and what steps to take if your certificate shows a conviction.
Yes — both are required for the ACRO certificate to be accepted by Spanish authorities.
Apostille: The UK Hague Apostille, issued by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), is a form of legalisation that confirms your ACRO certificate is an authentic UK public document. Without it, Spanish consulates and immigration authorities will not accept the certificate. Our guide to whether your ACRO certificate needs an apostille for a Spanish visa explains what the apostille is, how it is obtained, and how long it takes.
Sworn Translation: Because the ACRO certificate is issued in English, it must be translated into Spanish before submission. Critically, this must be a sworn translation (traducción jurada) completed by a translator officially accredited by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A standard certified translation, or a translation by any bilingual professional, will not be accepted. For a full explanation of the difference and what to look for, see our guide to sworn translations for an ACRO certificate for a Spanish visa.
Spanish consulates generally require the ACRO certificate to have been issued within the six months prior to your visa application submission date. The certificate does not carry a printed expiry date, but most consulates will not accept a certificate older than six months at the point of submission.
This six-month window applies to the date the certificate was issued by ACRO, not the date you apostilled or translated it. Timing your application carefully around your consulate appointment is important — apply too early and your certificate may have expired by the time you submit.
Factor in the full processing chain: the ACRO certificate itself (up to 20 working days on standard service, or around 2 working days on premium), the FCDO apostille, and the sworn translation. When arranged through Wilmer Health’s managed service, the complete process typically takes around 12 working days.
Before including your ACRO certificate in your Spanish visa application, it is worth running through a pre-submission check. The most common document errors — wrong certificate type, incorrect apostille, missing sworn translation — are entirely avoidable and can cause significant delays if missed.
Our 2026 ACRO certificate requirements checklist for Spanish visa applicants covers every condition your documents must meet before submission, including how to handle the cover sheet that ACRO sometimes includes with your certificate (it does not need to be apostilled or translated — only the certificate itself does).
There are two routes to obtaining your ACRO certificate.
You can apply directly through the ACRO Criminal Records Office website. You will need to complete an online application form, provide proof of identity (including a photograph of yourself holding your passport), and supply your address history for the past ten years. ACRO offers a standard service (up to 20 working days) and a premium service (approximately 2 working days) — but it is important to understand that these are processing times only. ACRO dispatches all certificates by standard untracked post, with no fast track or tracked delivery option available. In practice this means that once your certificate has been processed, you have no visibility over where it is or when it will arrive — and postal delays do happen.
Once received, you then need to arrange the FCDO apostille and the sworn translation separately. Members of the public can only access the FCDO’s standard postal apostille service, which takes up to 20 working days and can slow further during busy periods. That is two separate providers, two separate timelines, and no guarantee of when your documents will land.
Wilmer Health handles the entire process — certificate application, FCDO apostille, and Spanish sworn translation — coordinated in the correct order and delivered to your address in the UK or internationally within 12 working days.
The difference is in how we work. With direct counter access to the FCDO Legalisation Office in Milton Keynes, we can obtain your apostille in as little as 4 working days — significantly faster than the public postal route. Your completed documents are then sent to you via tracked courier, so you always know exactly where they are.
For a full comparison of both routes including timelines, costs, and what each involves, see our guide to how to get an ACRO certificate for a Spanish visa in the UK.
The ACRO certificate is one of the most frequent sources of problems in Spanish visa applications. The most common issues include:
Submitting a DBS certificate instead of an ACRO. Spanish consulates will not accept a DBS check under any circumstances. If you have already submitted one and been rejected, you will need to obtain the correct ACRO International Police Certificate and resubmit.
Submitting a certificate that is more than six months old. If your certificate has lapsed before your appointment date, you will need to apply for a new one. Factor the full processing timeline into your planning from the outset.
Using a non-sworn translation. A standard certified translation is not sufficient. Only a sworn translation from a Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs accredited translator will be accepted by Spanish consulates.
Apostilling a copy rather than the original. The apostille must be attached to the original issued certificate, not a photocopy.
For a full breakdown of every reason an ACRO certificate gets rejected and how to fix each one, see our guide to why ACRO certificates are rejected for Spanish visa applications and how to resolve them.
At Wilmer Health, we provide a fully managed, end-to-end ACRO certificate service designed specifically for Spanish visa applicants. Rather than coordinating three separate providers in the correct order, we manage everything in one place — ensuring your documents are prepared correctly for consulate submission and delivered within just 12 working days.
Our service includes:
No. A DBS check is not accepted for a Spanish visa application. Spanish consulates require an ACRO International Police Certificate specifically — a DBS check will be rejected regardless of what it shows.
Spain requires criminal record certificates from every country where you have resided for more than six months in the past five years. If you have lived in countries other than the UK during that period, you will need certificates from those countries as well as your ACRO certificate.
Yes. The ACRO application is completed online and does not require you to be in the UK. Wilmer Health’s service includes international delivery, so the completed documents can be sent to a Spanish address.
Having a conviction does not automatically result in visa refusal. Spanish authorities assess each application individually, and minor, historical offences are unlikely to be determinative.
No Live Trace means past convictions exist on record but have been stepped down under UK police disclosure rules and no longer appear on your certificate. For a Spanish visa application, a No Live Trace result is treated identically to No Trace — it is not a negative outcome