Family Relocation to Madrid

Hello,
We are a small family (husband, 4 year old son and myself) looking to relocate from Israel in 2020, to Madrid.
I have done a small research about long term visa documents, but i still have a few questions:
1. Is the best way of filling a long term family visa, with an immigration lawyer? and if so do you have any recommendations ? What is the maximum cost?
2. When should i start filling applications?
3. How long does it take to get this kind of visa?
Thanks for everyone who will answer

It depends on whether you are going to work or not.

Work visas for non-EU nations are much more difficult to obtain. Normally you would need to have a job offer from a Spanish company before you apply for the visa.

If you are NOT going to work, then a non-lucrative visa is relatively easy to obtain. There are many sites talking about it; the one I got the most information from was Wagoners Abroad, a web site by a US family who got the visa.

Hi,
Thank you for your answer!
My husband and myself are self employed, we are working together, do you know which visa should we apply ?

Okay, that depends... if your business is something you will do here in Spain, you would need to be autonomos. The process to get that visa is more complicated, as you have to show a business plan that will be checked and approved by the Spanish government.

If your business is something you do online and not with Spanish clients, but with clients and billing elsewhere, then you can still sometimes do the non-lucrative visa.

The non-lucrative visa is for people who are not going to work in Spain and who simply have either a large amount of money saved that they will live from, or who have a regular income coming in somehow (early retirement pension, own a business, etc).

So if your work is something where you can tell the Spanish consulate "oh, we own a business that pays us profits, but we won't be working" and keep your business going, then you can often get the non-lucrative visa that way.

Of course, Spain does not know whether you are actually working remotely on the business. The problem is that these international laws and regulations have not kept up with changes in how and where we can work.

If you are an American who works in your home, remotely with clients in Israel, and you live in Spain, who should get the income tax? Where is the "work" actually being performed?

Anyway, it is a complicated question and would partly depend on what type of work you do, how much money you have saved, whether or not Spain would approve your job as an autonomo situation, etc.

Do you know a good immigration lawyer that you can recommend?

I suggest go for non-lucrative as long as you can prove a regular income of approx 30000 euro per year by means of any business or activity, this is the requirement to support your expense of 3 member family.
Generally, you will not have any obligations to pay taxes under this category, unless you are not paying taxes in the country of your business.

I can recommend the immigration lawyer that I'm using now in Madrid. She's process driven, knowledgeable and proactive. Reasonably priced after asking a couple others. Of you still need one you can PM me