Filing your E-2 visa at the U.S. Embassy Madrid

Madrid sorts E-2 cases by a code, and it belongs on the cover page. Getting it wrong routes the case into the wrong process:

The two Iberian posts use codes that look identical and do not mean the same things. At Lisbon, E2-ROI covers any owner or investor. At Madrid, E2-ROI is specifically a renewal of an E-2 previously issued at that post.

An applicant who has read Lisbon’s instructions, or an adviser working from a Portuguese case, will reach for E2-ROI on a first Madrid filing that should be E2-N. The codes are the first thing on the cover page, so the error is also the first thing an officer sees.

The cap is 50 pages. Madrid also asks you to leave out brochures and any material that does not directly contribute to the case, which is guidance about editing rather than a second limit — but it tells you how the post reads a package that pads.

The structure has to earn its place too. Madrid requires a clickable table of contents and tabs dividing each section clearly, and a cover page carrying the case summary on one single sheet including the category code.

The introduction letter is capped at two pages and must address every element of 9 FAM 402.9. That is a genuine compression problem — nine substantive requirements in roughly a thousand words — and it is the reason Madrid packages are harder to draft than longer ones elsewhere.

The discipline it forces is useful. Two pages leaves no room to restate the business plan, so the letter becomes what it should be: a map showing the officer where each requirement is answered.

Madrid requires a detailed spreadsheet of all funds spent, and states plainly that funds merely transferred into a bank account do not qualify as at-risk, citing 9 FAM 402.9-6(B).

This is the single most common way a well-funded application fails. A large balance sitting in a U.S. business account demonstrates capacity, not commitment. What Madrid wants to see is the money leaving that account against real obligations — lease payments, equipment, inventory, payroll — line by line.

Three years of signed federal business tax returns. Madrid states that state returns are not accepted, so a package built from state filings is incomplete regardless of how complete it looks.

Colour photocopies of the passport bio pages of the ultimate parent company owners are also mandatory. "Ultimate" is doing work in that sentence — where ownership runs through a holding structure, the bio pages required are those of the people at the top of it, not of the immediate shareholder.

Documents not in English or Spanish require a sworn translation into English. Madrid names one document specifically as not accepted: the Libro de Familia.

That exclusion catches Spanish families who reasonably assume their standard civil record will serve. It will not, and finding a substitute late is avoidable work.

Complete the DS-156E online — Madrid does not accept handwritten forms. Create an account on the visa information service and pay one MRV fee per applicant before emailing anything.

Then send two separate PDFs to evisasmadrid@state.gov: the DS-156E at a maximum resolution of 300 DPI, and the complete package. ZIP archives, shared folders and links are not accepted because the post cannot open them.

Two instructions here look contradictory and are not. Do not send a physical package to the consulate — but do bring a printed copy of the whole package to the interview. Nothing goes in the post; something goes in your hand.

We score Madrid a 2 for third-country nationals, which is comparatively open for a European post. The score describes willingness to schedule an appointment, not eligibility for approval.

The practical point for a non-resident is the printed copy. Madrid expects you to arrive at the interview carrying the full package on paper, which is a different logistical problem when you are flying in for the appointment.

There is no single total. One MRV fee is payable per applicant, and it must be paid before the package is emailed. Preparation costs vary with the case: business plan and projections, the funds-spent spreadsheet Tab E requires, sworn translations, and attorney fees where counsel is involved.

Madrid adds a printing cost that pure email posts do not, because the printed copy for the interview is required rather than optional. Check the current published MRV fee before you pay.

The Department of State publishes current appointment wait times by post, and that is the figure to check rather than any fixed estimate. Any post-interview administrative processing sits on top of it and is not uniform across applicants.

The rule worth planning around at Madrid is not the wait but the resubmission consequence. A package returned for exceeding 50 pages does not get corrected in place, so the time cost of an over-length filing is a full rebuild rather than a follow-up email.

The E-2 is a nonimmigrant treaty investor visa open to nationals of countries holding a qualifying treaty of commerce with the United States, and Spain is one of those treaty countries. You must have invested, or be actively in the process of investing, a substantial amount of your own at-risk capital in a real and operating U.S. business that you will direct and develop.

The enterprise must be at least 50 percent owned by persons holding the treaty nationality, or controlled by a qualifying national. A Spanish applicant’s own eligibility does not survive a non-treaty partner holding the majority stake, however strong their personal position looks.

Madrid’s Tab E instruction is really the at-risk element of that test made concrete. Capital that can be withdrawn is not irrevocably committed, and a spreadsheet of what has actually been spent is the cleanest way to show that it cannot.