I am new to the site, but there seems to be a lot of great advice and experience, so I thought I would try.  I am an American citizen who will be here to work in spain for 18 months.  Before coming here, I applied for and received a residency visa with work exemption that is valid until Dec 2007.  Since arriving I have gotten my NIE, Spanish SS#, and have applied for and am waiting for my residency card.  My questions is this, I am planning to travel to the US for Christmas, which is right around the time my visa will expire.  Even though I will have my NIE and residency card, do I need to reapply for another visa to come back to Spain after the holidays, and do I need to make sure to return to the US before my current visa runs out?  I tried to ask these questions to the Spanish Embassy in the US where I received my visa, but answers were not very forthcoming.  Does anyone know, or can anyone direct me where to find the anser?  Many thanks.

To be honest logic would suggest (well to me anyway - the Spanish Immigration may be different!) that if you are going to get a residency card (I think they can still be issued to Non Eu-ers) then why would you need a Visa ?

I have a document I downloaded (sorry cant remember where from but it was somewhere official) called Legal status of non EU persons in Spain - if you email me I will send you a copy, it might help.

If not I think you have to go to a Spanish Immigration office and ask them. Also see their site - http://www.mtas.es