Why you need bookings at all when the visa isn't ready yet
The consulate needs to see that the trip is real: it has dates, a city or cities, and it's clear where the applicant will stay each night. Hotel and flight bookings are a way of showing exactly that — not that the trip is already fully paid for and can't be changed. The difference matters: a confirmed booking with dates is a mandatory condition, but the consulate never requires — and can't require — a 100% paid non-refundable ticket, since at the time of application there's no visa decision yet.
Hence the main logic of this article: you need a booking that looks real and matches the dates in your other documents, but that you can cancel or change without financial loss if something goes wrong — with the visa, with your travel dates or with your plans altogether.
Which hotel booking works
A hotel or apartment booking for each point on your itinerary will do — so if the trip covers several cities, you need a booking for each of them, not just the first. This is where a common mistake lies: the applicant books a hotel in the arrival city for the whole trip but actually plans two more nights in another city — and in the itinerary submitted with the documents, the mismatch is immediately visible.
An unpaid booking that can be cancelled with one click isn't prohibited in itself — many booking sites offer this option by default, and applicants use it all the time. But unreliable proof of accommodation is on the list of common reasons for extra scrutiny from the consulate: if a booking looks too much like a formality, holding a room with no real commitment, it may raise questions. A sensible compromise is to book through services where the booking is confirmed by an email with the dates, booking number and hotel address, and to keep it active until you get the visa rather than cancelling it right after applying.
If your accommodation is provided by your host — a friend or relative in Spain — you don't need a separate paid hotel booking at all; more on this below, in the section on invitations.
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Take the quizTickets: booking or buying
To confirm a return ticket, the consulate needs a round-trip booking with specific dates — not necessarily a ticket fully paid for and issued by the airline. Many agencies and services provide exactly this kind of document: a confirmed booking with a flight number and dates, which costs a small fixed fee or is even free, and which doesn't become a ticket unless you go on to purchase it.
Buying a non-refundable ticket in advance, before the visa decision, is a risky saving. Visa refusals aren't that rare, and under the rules a visa that was applied for and not issued doesn't get you your visa fee back — so with a refusal the applicant already loses the fee, and there's no reason to add the cost of a ticket that can't be refunded either. If time pressure comes into it — processing can take longer than 15 days, up to 45 if an interview or additional documents are required — a ticket bought in advance with a fixed departure date becomes an extra source of stress.
If you do end up buying tickets in advance for another reason (for example, because of the price), it's better to choose a fare with free or inexpensive cancellation at least for the visa processing period — the same principle as with a hotel booking: the proof should be enough for the consulate but shouldn't create a financial risk for the applicant.
If your itinerary covers several cities
When the trip covers not one Spanish city but several — for example, Madrid and Barcelona, or a trip to a neighbouring Schengen country — the itinerary attached to your documents must show all the moves: dates and the city where the applicant will stay each night of the trip. You need a hotel booking for each leg of the itinerary separately, and the dates of these bookings must cover the entire stated period without gaps or overlaps — the consulate cross-checks the application form, itinerary and bookings, and any discrepancy in dates or cities is a common reason for documents being sent back for revision or for further explanations being requested.
If some journeys within Schengen are planned by train or bus without a fixed schedule at the time of applying, it's more sensible to give approximate dates and cities in the accompanying itinerary than to leave those days unaccounted for — the consulate wants to see a logical, continuous picture of the trip from the date of entry to the date of departure from the Schengen area.
If you're visiting friends or relatives
A private visit works differently: instead of a hotel booking, proof of accommodation is an official invitation — a Carta de Invitación (also called a Certificado de Hospedaje), which the host in Spain arranges at the local police station where they live. In this case you don't need to buy or book a hotel separately — the invitation itself is the proof of accommodation.
But the invitation only covers this one point: it doesn't replace insurance, proof of funds or proof of a return ticket — you still need those documents separately. More on how such an invitation is arranged and what the host in Spain needs for it is in a separate article: Invitation from friends or family for a tourist visa.
Final checklist
- A confirmed hotel or apartment booking with dates for each point on your itinerary.
- A round-trip flight booking with dates — not necessarily a purchased ticket.
- Matching cities and dates across the application form, itinerary, hotel bookings and tickets.
- Hotel bookings that stay active at least until you get the visa, not cancelled right after applying.
- The original invitation (Carta de Invitación) instead of a hotel booking — if you're visiting friends or relatives.
- No non-refundable tickets bought before the visa decision.
- A continuous itinerary by date — no gaps between moves within Schengen.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, formally it isn't prohibited — many services offer a booking with free cancellation by default. But unconfirmed or unreliable accommodation is on the list of common reasons for extra scrutiny from the consulate, so it's better to choose a booking with a confirmation email, number and dates, and not to cancel it right after applying.
No, and it's better not to. A flight booking with dates is enough to apply — not necessarily a purchased ticket. A visa that was applied for and not issued doesn't get you the visa fee back, so there's no point adding a non-refundable ticket to that risk.
You don't need to pay the full cost of accommodation to apply — you need a confirmed booking with dates, not a paid bill. Look for a booking with free cancellation for the dates you need: it meets the consulate's requirement without committing you to pay in advance for accommodation you may not end up using in that form.
The visa doesn't tie you to the specific hotel or flight given when you applied — they're only proof at the time of processing. But if you have a single-entry visa or one limited by dates, it's important not to exceed your permitted length of stay and to remember the 90/180 rule, which applies to the whole Schengen area, not to Spain separately.
If something in your situation doesn't fit the general pattern, that's normal — visa cases almost always have nuances. and we'll look at it for free and suggest your next step.