Spain shut the door Irish assistants walk through, and the notice is buried on gov.ie
You voted for Spain and Southern Europe, so this issue is the full workup: the route, the money and the paperwork, read from the Irish and Spanish governments’ own pages. It starts with something we did not expect to find. The scheme that places Irish graduates in Spanish state schools has no new places this year, and the only public notice is a line on a Department of Education page.
If you hold an Irish passport and want to teach in a Spanish state school this year, the official route is closed. The Department of Education and Youth’s English Language Assistant (ELA) scheme, which is how Irish candidates enter Spain’s auxiliares de conversación programme, says it cannot offer any new places in Spain for 2026/27 because of “continued administrative issues”. The Spanish Ministry pays those assistants €800 a month for 14 to 16 hours a week — the figure published on its 2025/26 call, since the 2026/27 call page carries no monthly figure and its BOE announcement sets a maximum of €5,600 an academic year. The Ministry tells new Irish applicants to go through Ireland’s body, which is the one that has stopped. What is still open to you is the private route (Meddeas, no passport bar but native-level English, French or German required, €850 refundable deposit) and a direct job at a language academy, where the legal floor is Spain’s minimum wage of €1,221 a month over 14 payments for a full week.
Updated 1 October 2026. This issue attributed the Spanish Ministry’s assistant allowance to its 2026/27 call, as “€800 a month for 14 hours a week”. On re-reading the sources, the 2026/27 call page publishes no monthly figure at all; the €800 is published on the Ministry’s 2025/26 English page, and for 14 to 16 hours a week, not 14. The only money figure the 2026/27 announcement carries is a maximum of €5,600 an academic year, which is less than the €6,400 our own eight-month arithmetic implied. Every figure in this issue has been re-stated accordingly.
Three smaller corrections in the same pass. We wrote that last year’s English page “put it at 800 to 1,000 euros … because Madrid tops up its own assistants”; that page publishes one figure, €800, and says only that some regional offices may pay more with the hours rising to match — it names no second figure and no region. We attributed a “does not constitute an employment relationship” clause and an Annex III task list to the 2026/27 resolution; neither is in the call page or the published BOE extract, so both are now marked unverified. And we described Meddeas as having “no nationality requirement” without saying that it asks for a native-level speaker of English, French or German, which for some Irish readers is the bar that matters.
Nothing in the issue’s central finding changes: the Irish ELA route into Spain has no new places for 2026/27, and that was re-confirmed on gov.ie on 1 October 2026. Subscribers received the original wording by email on 30 September.
On the wire this fortnight
- Ireland, the closed line. gov.ie, last updated 15 June 2026: no new places on the ELA programme in Spain for 2026/27. Austria, Germany, France, Italy and Belgium are still listed. The 2026/27 round closed on 12 March 2026 at 5pm.
- Spain, the figure. €800 a month as an allowance for board and lodging, for 14 to 16 hours of classroom collaboration a week. That is what the Ministry published on its 2025/26 call; the 2026/27 call page publishes no monthly figure, and the BOE announcement of 19 May 2026 caps the award at €5,600 an academic year. Where a regional office pays more, the classroom hours rise with it.
- Spain, the registration you must do. An EU citizen staying more than three months must register with the Policía Nacional within three months of arrival, on form EX-18, with fee 790 code 012. The certificate carries your NIE and is issued on the day.
- Spain, the pay floor. Royal Decree 126/2026: €1,221 a month over 14 payments, or €1,424.50 over 12, which is €17,094 a year. Part time is pro rata, so a 30 hour academy week cannot legally pay under €915.75 over 14 payments.
- Ireland, your PRSI. Ask the Department of Social Protection for your Irish record before you go, and bring a Spanish U1 home when you return, so the months count.
- The private route still works. Meddeas places assistants in private and grant-aided schools with no nationality bar and no fees, against an €850 deposit returned at the end. It does ask for a native-level speaker of English, French or German, so it is a language bar rather than a passport one.
The Irish desk: the scheme that quietly stopped taking Spain
Most Irish graduates who end up in a Spanish state school get there one way. Spain runs a bilateral language assistant programme with a list of countries, and it tells new candidates from Ireland to apply through the Irish body, not through the Spanish portal. That body is the Department of Education and Youth’s English Language Assistant scheme, run from an email address at ELA@education.gov.ie. Applications for 2026/27 closed on 12 March 2026 at 5pm, and the page still lists six destinations: Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium/Wallonia-Brussels.
Then, under the Spain form, there is a boxed note. It reads: “Due to continued administrative issues, it will not be possible to offer any new places on the ELA programme in Spain for the 2026-2027 academic year.” The page was last updated on 15 June 2026. We found no press release, no circular and no explanation of what the administrative issues are. If you applied for Spain in March and heard nothing, this is why.
Why you cannot just apply to Spain directly. The Spanish Ministry’s 2026/27 call is explicit: new candidates from Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the UK and Switzerland must apply through the organisation in their own country, on that organisation’s timetable. Candidates from the United States, Canada, Australia and others apply to Spain directly through Profex. So an Irish passport is routed to a door that is shut, while an American one is not. The Spanish application window itself ran from 2 June to 30 June 2026 and is marked finalised.
What that means in practice. For the year that starts this October there is no state school assistant route open to a new Irish applicant. Renewals are different: assistants already in the programme renew directly on Profex, and the closure note is about new places only.
Sources: Department of Education and Youth, English Language Assistant (ELA) Scheme, last updated 15 June 2026, and the Spanish Ministry of Education, Auxiliares de conversación extranjeros en España, 2026-2027, read 30 September and re-read at source 1 October 2026. The closure wording is quoted from gov.ie.
Three ways into a Spanish classroom, and which ones an Irish passport can use
| Route | Status for an Irish applicant | What the official page says |
|---|---|---|
| State schools Ministry auxiliares, via the Irish ELA scheme |
Line closed | No new Irish places for 2026/27. When it runs: €800 a month on the 2025/26 call, 14 to 16 hours a week, October to May, age 18 to 45 for new candidates. The 2026/27 BOE announcement caps the award at €5,600 a year. Not an employment contract, so no Spanish payslip and no PRSI equivalent |
| Private and grant-aided schools Meddeas language assistants |
Live wire | No nationality requirement, but you must be a native-level speaker of English, French or German (German and French speakers also need B2 English). No fees; a refundable €850 deposit is due when you accept a placement and is returned once you complete it. Placements run September or October, or January, to May or June. Stipend not published as a single figure |
| Language academies A direct job, hired by the school |
Live wire | An employment contract under Spanish labour law. No published TEFL pay scale, but the legal floor for a full week is €1,221 a month over 14 payments, pro rata for fewer hours. Hiring peaks September to October and again in January |
Sources: gov.ie, ELA scheme; Spanish Ministry 2026-2027 call; Meddeas, teach English in Spain; La Moncloa on Real Decreto 126/2026. All read 30 September 2026. We are not an agent for Meddeas and earn nothing from the listing.
This edition is about one year and one closed door. For the standing picture, our own Spain pages carry the rest: TEFL jobs in Spain sets out who is hiring and what a month actually costs to live, Barcelona academy pay versus the auxiliares grant puts the two routes above side by side in one city, teaching English in Spain from Ireland covers the move itself, and teaching English in Spain without a degree answers the question the closed scheme now raises for a lot of readers, since the ELA route required one. If you are still deciding where in the country, start with the best places to teach English in Spain.
What Spain pays an assistant, in the Ministry’s own words
The figure to plan around is €800 a month, described as an ayuda for food and lodging, in return for 14 to 16 hours a week of collaboration in the school. That is the Ministry’s own wording on the English-language page for the 2025/26 call. The 2026/27 call page publishes no monthly figure at all; what it publishes is the BOE announcement of 19 May 2026, which sets a maximum of €5,600 an academic year. The same English page adds that for some regional education offices the allowance may be higher, and that the classroom hours rise with it — so the figure you see depends on which regional office you are reading, and the published range is one figure with a stated exception rather than a band.
The wording that matters most is about status. The Ministry treats the money as an ayuda, a grant towards room and board, rather than a wage, and that is the legal reason an assistant year does not build a Spanish social insurance record the way an academy job does. We have attributed that to the 2026/27 resolution and to an Annex III listing tasks an assistant may never do; neither the 2026/27 call page nor the published BOE extract carries that wording, so we are marking it unverified until we can read the full resolution. What the Ministry does publish on the call page is that applicants must be under 45, which it elsewhere ties to Spanish labour rules.
The number to plan around
€800 a month over eight months would be €6,400, but the 2026/27 BOE announcement caps the award at €5,600 an academic year, so treat €5,600 as the ceiling and €800 as the monthly rate the Ministry last published. Spain’s minimum wage for the same eight months, at 14 payments, is €9,768 gross before the two extra payments fall due. The assistant post is a subsidised year with a light timetable, not a salary, and the hours left over are yours. Plenty of assistants teach privately in the evenings; if you do, read the pay floor and the registration sections below, because private lessons make you self-employed in Spain.
Sources: Ministry 2026-2027 call, Ministry 2025-2026 English page, which is where the €800 and the 14 to 16 hours are published, and the BOE announcement of 19 May 2026 for the €5,600 annual maximum. Re-read at source 1 October 2026. The eight month arithmetic is ours.
The paperwork an Irish citizen actually needs in Spain
You need no visa and no work permit. What you do need is a registration that most people do late, and a number that every employer, landlord and bank will ask for on day one. The order below is the order that removes the most friction.
Six steps, in the order that saves you a second trip
- Get your Garda Police Certificate before you leave. Issue 4 covered this in full: it is free, takes about three weeks, and inside the EU it needs no apostille. Your degree and TEFL certificate do, at €40 a stamp. Meddeas asks for a certificate of absence of police records, and some academies do too.
- Register on the padrón at the town hall. The empadronamiento is the municipal register of residents. It is free, it proves your address, and several offices will ask to see it before they will register you as an EU citizen.
- Register as an EU citizen within three months of arriving. Anyone from an EU or EEA state who will be in Spain for more than three months must apply for the Certificado de registro de ciudadano de la Unión. The application goes to the Policía Nacional on form EX-18, with fee form 790, code 012 paid first, by appointment, and the Policía says the certificate is issued immediately. It shows your name, nationality, address, the date, and your NIE. You will need to show you are employed, self-employed, a student, or have means and health cover.
- Get a Social Security number if you will be employed or self-employed. The número de afiliación is what an academy needs to put you on payroll and what you need to register as autónoma for private lessons. The Ministry assistant scheme does not need it, because it is not employment.
- Ask the Department of Social Protection for your Irish record before you go. A request for your Irish social insurance record for U1 can be made from Ireland. If you do not bring it, the Spanish office will request it, which is slower.
- Bring a Spanish U1 home. When you come back, the U1 from the Spanish social security office is the document that lets your Spanish contributions count towards Irish payments such as Jobseeker’s Benefit. Citizens Information’s rule of thumb is that your most recent contribution has to be an Irish one before the foreign ones are added.
Sources: Policía Nacional, Certificado de Registro de Ciudadano de la Unión Europea; Citizens Information, leaving Ireland and your social security entitlements; Citizens Information, combining social insurance contributions from abroad; and Issue 4 for the Garda certificate. All read 30 September 2026.
The honest pay floor: what an academy cannot legally pay you under
There is no official pay scale for TEFL teachers in Spain, and we will not invent one. What there is, in the Official State Gazette, is a minimum wage that every employment contract in the country sits on top of. Royal Decree 126/2026, published on 19 February 2026 and backdated to 1 January, set it at €1,221 gross a month over 14 payments. Spain pays two extra months, in summer and at Christmas, so if a school spreads those across the year the same money reads €1,424.50 a month over 12. Either way the annual figure is €17,094, and at that level the Spanish tax office takes no income tax.
| Contract hours | Legal minimum, 14 payments | Legal minimum, 12 payments | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full time, 40 hours | €1,221.00 | €1,424.50 | €17,094 |
| 30 hours | €915.75 | €1,068.38 | €12,820 |
| 20 hours | €610.50 | €712.25 | €8,547 |
| Ministry assistant, 14 to 16 hours | €800 allowance, not a wage, so the floor does not apply | Capped at €5,600 a year | |
Source: La Moncloa, SMI 2026, Real Decreto 126/2026 and the SEPE notice on the BOE publication, read 30 September 2026. Part time rows are the full time figure pro rata; the Decree says a shorter week is paid proportionally. Gross figures before Spanish social security deductions.
Two things to check on any offer. First, whether the hours on the contract match the hours you will actually be in the building, because a 20 hour contract for a 30 hour week is how a legal-looking payslip ends up below the floor. Second, whether the school is paying the extra months or spreading them, because €1,221 and €1,424.50 are the same salary, and a school quoting the higher one is not offering you more.
Southern Europe board: the same scheme, three other doors
The Irish ELA scheme still lists Italy and France, and both take Irish candidates on the same terms: one country per application, a single PDF by email, placements made by the receiving country in merit order, and results at the end of May or start of June. The 2026/27 round is over, so these rows are about what to watch for rather than what to apply to today.
| Where | Status | What the official page says |
|---|---|---|
| Italy ELA scheme, Irish route | Watch it | Listed with its own application form and terms on gov.ie for 2026/27. No closure note. The 2027/28 forms are not up yet; last year’s round closed on 12 March, so expect the forms in the winter |
| France ELA scheme, Irish route | Watch it | Listed with a tutorial for Irish candidates and French terms and conditions. Same closing pattern as Italy. This is the Irish equivalent of the TAPIF route Americans use |
| Spain ELA scheme, Irish route | Line closed | No new places for 2026/27. We will check the gov.ie page each edition and print the line the day it changes |
| Spain NALCAP | Not yours | NALCAP is the North American strand of the same Spanish programme. It is not open to an Irish passport, so its dates are not your dates |
Source: gov.ie, ELA scheme, read 30 September 2026. For the direct-hire picture in each country, our guides to Italy, France, Portugal, Greece and Spain apply the same free-movement logic locally.
The schools desk: Transition Year, and the word the NCCA does use
Two new guides for TY coordinators went up this fortnight, and they settle a question we kept hearing. The redeveloped TY Programme Statement does list “Elective” as a component type, with a combined time guide of three to four hours a week, but it does not say which electives a school should run. What it does require is that any activity can be checked against four curriculum dimensions and reported into the student’s portfolio. What counts as a recognised TY elective walks through every place the Statement mentions certified courses, and TY elective vs TY module explains the two timetable words. Coordinators can start from the complete guide to Transition Year TEFL programmes. For the student-facing side, our online TEFL course for a Transition Year programme and the best Transition Year courses in Ireland set out what a TY student actually does with the qualification, and schools enrol a group through the Transition Year course page.
And the line that survives every edition: a TEFL certificate carries no CAO points and no UCAS tariff points. It is a qualification a student can use, not one that moves a college offer.
Elsewhere on the Group wire
Our sister title covers the deadlines that matter outside Europe, and this fortnight had two that were close: the US Fulbright competition, which closed on 6 October 2026, and the JET application for Japan, open until 13 November for applicants in the United States. Neither route takes an Irish passport as written here. JET Ireland runs through the Embassy of Japan in Dublin on its own timetable, and that date is now published: 23:59 on Friday 4 December 2026. The document lessons carry either way. The TEFL Institute’s Hire Wire keeps Asia, the Americas and the Gulf. We keep Ireland and Europe. Neither reprints the other.
Updated 8 October 2026. This paragraph was written on 30 September and said the US Fulbright competition “closes on 6 October”. That window has now closed, so the sentence has been moved to the past tense. The JET date of 13 November is the United States deadline; the United Kingdom closes on 5 November 2026 and Ireland at 23:59 on 4 December 2026, as the paragraph above already says. No figure in this edition was changed and nothing else was re-stated — the issue was correct on the day it was sent.
They also keep the reference layer, which is worth a word here because this edition leans on an acronym that means two different things. On their glossary of TEFL qualifications and terminology, ELA is English Language Arts, an American school subject. On gov.ie, and throughout this edition, ELA is the English Language Assistant scheme. Same three letters, unrelated things, and the search results mix them. If you are checking what a certificate is actually worth to an employer rather than which scheme is open, that glossary is the page to read: TEFL against TESOL, what Level 5 and the RQF mean, and the difference between regulated and accredited.
What we could not verify
Added 1 October 2026: two more. The Ministry’s 2026/27 monthly figure is not published. The call page carries no monthly allowance; the €800 and the 14 to 16 hours below come from the 2025/26 English page, and the only 2026/27 money figure published is a maximum of €5,600 an academic year in the BOE announcement. And we could not verify the “not an employment relationship” wording or the Annex III task list in the 2026/27 call page or its BOE extract; both may sit in the full resolution, which we have not been able to read.
Five things from publication, named so the gaps are visible. We do not know what the “administrative issues” are. The Department’s note gives no cause and we found no statement from either government; the address that would know is ELA@education.gov.ie, and if the Department publishes a reason we will print it. We could not find how many Irish places Spain normally offers, so we cannot tell you the size of what has been lost. Meddeas publishes no single stipend, so there is no monthly figure for it here. No 2027/28 ELA dates are published for any country; the March closing date above is last year’s pattern, not a promise. And Ireland’s JET closing date was unverified when this issue went out. Updated 1 October 2026: it has since been published and our Deadline Alerts panel now names it — 23:59 on Friday 4 December 2026, set by the Embassy of Japan in Dublin.
Every figure in this edition is published in euro at source, so no currency conversion was applied.
Can Irish graduates apply to be language assistants in Spain for 2026/27?
Not through the official route. The Department of Education and Youth’s English Language Assistant scheme, which is how new Irish candidates enter Spain’s auxiliares de conversación programme, states that no new places in Spain can be offered for the 2026/27 academic year because of continued administrative issues. The Spanish Ministry directs new Irish applicants to that Irish scheme rather than to its own portal, so there is no direct alternative for a new applicant this year. Renewals by existing assistants are handled separately on Profex.
How much does Spain pay a language assistant?
The Ministry published a monthly allowance of 800 euro for 14 to 16 hours a week of classroom collaboration on its 2025/26 call, described as a contribution to room and board rather than a salary. The 2026/27 call page publishes no monthly figure; its BOE announcement of 19 May 2026 caps the award at 5,600 euro an academic year. The Ministry adds that some regional education offices pay more, with the classroom hours rising accordingly.
Do Irish citizens need a visa or NIE to teach English in Spain?
No visa and no work permit. An Irish citizen who will stay in Spain for more than three months must register with the Policía Nacional within three months of arrival for the Certificado de registro de ciudadano de la Unión, using form EX-18 and paying fee 790 code 012. The certificate carries the NIE, the foreigner identity number that employers, banks and landlords ask for.
What is the minimum wage for an English teacher in Spain in 2026?
Spain has no TEFL-specific pay scale, but every employment contract must meet the national minimum wage. Royal Decree 126/2026 sets it at 1,221 euro gross a month over 14 payments, or 1,424.50 euro over 12 payments, which is 17,094 euro a year for a full-time week. Part-time contracts are paid pro rata, so a 30 hour week cannot legally pay less than 915.75 euro a month over 14 payments.
Does working in Spain count towards my Irish PRSI record?
Contributions paid in Spain under an employment contract can be combined with Irish contributions under EU rules. Bring a U1 form from the Spanish social security office when you return, and request your Irish record from the Department of Social Protection before you leave. Citizens Information notes that to use foreign contributions for an Irish payment, your most recent contribution must have been paid in Ireland. A Ministry assistant allowance is not employment and does not build a Spanish record.
Is Meddeas open to Irish applicants?
Yes. Meddeas places language assistants in private and grant-aided Spanish schools with no nationality restriction, so an Irish passport is not a bar. It does require a native-level speaker of English, French or German, with German and French speakers also holding at least B2 English. There are no participation fees, but a refundable deposit of 850 euro is due when you accept a placement and is returned when you complete it. Placements run from September or October, or from January, to May or June.
Issue 6 is live: JET Ireland, line by line
The Embassy of Japan in Dublin closes JET 2027 at 23:59 on 4 December, by email only. Issue 6 takes the eleven-item checklist apart, and records a line that moved on gov.ie about Spain.
Read Issue 6Every edition, kept on the record
Written by Ian O’Sullivan for The Hire Wire, The TEFL Institute of Ireland. Every figure was checked against its official source on 30 September 2026, re-checked on 1 October 2026, and links to it. Nothing here is immigration, legal or tax advice; the offices named are the ones to ask. Corrections are made here in place and noted. Read our Editorial Charter, or open The Paperwork Desk, The Visa Desk, The Salary Index and EFL jobs in Europe.