GOT MY VISA!!!
I ended up going to Spain visa or not, but anyway my visa was granted this month and I have to pick it up in NY. The funny thing was that I was turned down for a visa by the Junta of Castilla y Leon but accepted by the Ministry of Labor. Ah, the workings of beaurocracy. The academy agreed to start me, assuming that I would get my visa. I´m really glad that I got it after all that trouble! Burgos is not the best place in the world to live and the language school I work for treats us like crap, but I like teaching and my students are great (I have 13 different classes!). And I´m happy to be here in Spain. Depending on how long my visa is good for, I might stick around Spain longer and move to another city. But this job has really opened my eyes about the TEFL world and how the teachers are exploited!

Congratulations Kerry!

Congratulations.

I am really interested in hearing more about Burgos. I was there for a couple of days, and just remember getting a weird vibe after reading that it was a place particularly fond of Franco and the Fascist movement.

That's great, Kerry! So it IS possible to get a work visa.... IF you have someone willing to hire you afterall. Good for you. And yes, please tell us all about Burgos in our "Favorite Places" forum!

Saludos, MadridMan

Sorry MadridMan, didn't mean to get off track.

Regarding the sponsoring question, still the question is for what type of visa sponsoring is applicable. From all the legal sources I have seen, the "Visado de residencia para trabajo por cuenta ajena", which is the regular working visa for employees, does require a valid contract with a Spanish company and this paperwork cannot be substituted by sponsoring, and the "Visado de residencia por reagrupación familiar" just applies to close relatives. The other types of visados de residencia equally do not allow for sponsoring by friends. I just saw such sponsoring in the context of tourist and business visas (which would not entail a working permit).
Do you remember the exact name of the visa you were sponsoring, Diana?

Connie, I can't give you the exact name of the visa because this happened about 5-6 years ago, and I don't have any of the papers any more. It was a working visa. These two sisters were not from the USA, and the first had come into Spain after proving economic hardship in her country. (I doubt anyone could get away with that coming from the US.) We (actually, it was my Spanish husband, because I'm not Spanish) signed the papers stating we would hire her to work in our home. So we were not sponsoring her as friends, but as employers. The contact, however, was "friendly." I hope this information doesn't confuse people more. Perhaps sponsor was the wrong word to use. Also, it is possible that individual cases are dealt with differently depending on the type of work sought, and the country of origin. I do apologize for any confusion I may have caused.

On a more personal note, since I had legal working papers / residencia through my work alone for many years, I can say that the rules about these documents change constantly, to the point that the people who work in the police stations processing foreigners' papers complain about new procedures introduced on an almost weekly basis. I was lucky in that someone did all my paperwork for me in the beginning, and for all the renewals(and I was hired in Spain without having to return to the US for a visa - but I'm the only person I know of in that situation - I understand it's actually "impossible"),and this person, who was in the Madrazos station at least twice a week with some foreign employee for many years, told me she never knew when she walked in the door what paper she would need that day as a new requirement.

My recommendation - try anything. If something doesn't work, try something else. Maybe you can even try the same thing again. Don't give up. Kerry's message is encouraging, and sounds oh-so-right for Spain!

Thanks for the clarification, that makes sense, I would just have been surprised if a purely "friendly" letter would have been sufficient.

[originally posted by kerry....]

I spoke too soon. Those incompetent morons at the Spanish Consulate in New York sent me the wrong letter- instead of sending one that said I was declined they sent one saying that I was approved, so no work visa after all. I'm unbelievably angry- after 6 months of this B.S. I went all the way to New York to find out that I didn't have it after all. So much for trying things the legal way! As my friend Quique says, "Viva la xenofobia!"

I noticed a recommendation to use a relocation or expatriate service in getting set up. How do I find a service? I am negotiating a contract to work in Madrid for a year. I would like to register my U.S. "S" corporation and obtain the appropriate work permits. Apparently the contract is mine if I get a permit, but the companies I am talking to have no experience yet in helping a U.S. citizen/corp. get set up.