Digital Nomad Visas for Coliving Operators

Remote work stopped being a novelty a while ago, and the digital nomad visa is the policy that turned it into coliving demand. What started as an emergency response in 2020 has settled into something closer to the default. By Gallup's workplace numbers, 52 percent of remote-capable employees now work in a hybrid arrangement and another 27 percent work fully remote, which means close to eight in ten people who could work outside an office do, at least some of the time. In my role as Head of Living at UrbanPay, the question I get from operators is less about whether remote work survives and more about what this new member, the visa holder, changes on the ground.

The visa is the demand signal

The clearest signal is the growth of digital nomad visas. Around 66 countries now offer some kind of dedicated visa or residency pathway for remote workers, up from a handful five years ago, and estimates put the number of people living this way worldwide somewhere between 35 and 40 million in 2026. Spain, one of the markets I spend most of my time in, has had its own digital nomad visa since 2023, and it shows in how many international remote workers are now looking for flexible, furnished housing in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia rather than a traditional one-year lease.

For an operator, a visa programme is a forward indicator. Each one creates a pipeline of people who will arrive in a specific country, on a legal basis that assumes they will stay for months rather than weeks, with income from an employer or clients abroad. That is a coliving member profile almost by definition, and the Madrid coliving market already reflects it, as does Lisbon.

Why coliving fits the visa holder

Coliving fits that need better than almost any other housing format. Coliving spaces are built around community and usually include the workspace as part of the offering, not as an afterthought, so a remote worker moving to a new country gets a place to live and a way to meet people on day one. That matters more than it sounds. The return-to-office debate keeps citing the loss of casual interaction with colleagues as the main argument against remote work, and coliving is one of the few housing models that replaces that interaction with something else entirely: a building full of people in the same situation. Whether that workspace should be on site or through a partner is a separate decision, covered in coworking in coliving: build or partner.

Companies are starting to book coliving too

Companies are starting to notice as well. A handful of employers now use coliving stays as part of onboarding or team offsites, treating a few weeks in a coliving building as a cheaper, more social alternative to a hotel block booking. It is still a small pattern, but it is a real one, and it tracks with a broader shift: companies increasingly measure remote work by output rather than presence, which makes where someone lives, and how comfortable that place is, a bigger part of retention than it used to be.

What changes for the operator

None of this is frictionless for operators. The visa holder is a specific kind of member, and a standard onboarding built for local tenants tends to break in four places:

• No local bank account on day one. A member moving from Lisbon to Madrid for three months does not always have one, and may not open one for weeks. Rent and deposit arrive from a foreign bank and still have to reconcile to the right room.
• No local identity documents. Passport and visa are what exist. A verification flow that assumes a national ID number stalls at the first screen.
• Distance. The member is usually still abroad when they book. A lease that requires a physical signature, or a week of back and forth, defeats the point of flexible housing.
• Timing. Visa holders often arrive with a fixed date and a stay length tied to the permit. The contract term, the extension mechanism and the deposit return all need to work around that calendar.

That is the exact problem UrbanPay was built to solve for operators serving this kind of tenant: identity verification that works for someone without local paperwork, an eIDAS-compliant e-signature they can complete from their phone before they have even landed, and account-to-account collection through open banking that reconciles a rent payment automatically whichever bank it comes from.

Watching the right signals

Coliving operators who are watching this shift closely, tracking visa policy, corporate demand and how their own members actually use the workspace in the building, are the ones positioned to benefit as remote and flexible work keeps settling into its permanent shape. Visa policy also tells you where demand goes next: the same remote workers are already moving beyond the capitals, which I cover in where remote-worker demand moves next.

FAQ

Why do digital nomad visas matter to coliving operators?

Each visa programme creates a predictable pipeline of international remote workers who will stay for months, have foreign income and want furnished, flexible housing with a community.

What breaks in onboarding a digital nomad visa holder?

Verification that assumes local ID, contracts that need a physical signature, and payments that assume a local bank account. All three can be handled remotely before arrival.

Does Spain have a digital nomad visa?

Yes, since 2023. It is one of the reasons international remote workers now look for furnished, flexible housing in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia instead of a conventional one-year lease, and why operators in those cities see more applicants arriving without a Spanish bank account.

Talk to Óscar

If you run a coliving, flex living or student housing operation and want to see how collection, verification and contract signing fit together on your volumes, book 20 minutes with me or write directly.

Book 20 minutes with Óscar · [email protected] · Contact UrbanPay