Posted: Fri Jun 2, 2023 9:12pm
Hi Kim,
Free healthcare in Spain is only available to Spanish residents who pay social security contributions, either through employment, or if you are in receipt of the State Retirement Pension from your home country (Belgium), which makes you eligible for Form S1, enabling Spain to charge the cost of your 'free' healthcare back to Belgium.
If you're not eligible under either of these circumstances, you could opt to join the Convenio Especial, at a cost of €60 per person, per month up to the age of 65, when it increase to €157 per person, per month, but you need to be resident for 1 year before you can apply for this scheme. Alternatively, you will need to pay for Private Health Insurance. The advantage of the Convenio Especial is that, unlike PHI, it covers pre-existing conditions, but neither PHI nor the CE cover the cost of prescriptions. I'm sure you know that you need healthcare in place for your residency application, so if you're under State retirement age, your only option for the first year is going to be PHI.
At the Spanish government level, free healthcare is supposed to be granted to 'permanent' residents, i.e. foreigners who have lived in Spain for a minimum of 5 years; however, its provision is delegated to the regional governments, many of which make it impossible to obtain - Comunidad Valenciana being one of them!
Kind regards,
Kim