It depends on your two flights, your bags and your passport. Changing planes to a flight outside Europe's Schengen area with your bags checked through, most travellers stay in the transit area and need nothing, even if the next flight leaves from another terminal. To leave the airport, US, UK, EU, Canadian and Australian passports need no visa; Indian passports do.
Not to change planes to a flight outside Schengen with your bags checked through: you stay in the transit area, and between Terminal 4 and Terminal 1 an airside shuttle bus takes you across. Even then, Spain asks a long list of nationalities, including Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt and Turkey, for an airport transit visa. For a trip into town, holders of US, UK, EU, Canadian and Australian passports can enter Spain without a visa, while Indian passport holders need a Schengen visa.
If you stay airside
At Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport (MAD), whether you meet Spanish passport control depends on where your two flights go and which terminals they use. Spain is one of the Schengen countries, a group that takes in most of the EU along with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland and has no passport checks at its internal borders. Flights to or from the UK, Ireland, the Americas, Africa or Asia cross its outer border.
Madrid has two separate places to change planes: Terminal 4 with its Satellite building (T4S), joined past security by a driverless train, and Terminals 1, 2 and 3. Iberia and the other oneworld airlines use Terminal 4; check your booking for the others.
- From outside Schengen to outside Schengen, bags checked through (Bogotá to Tel Aviv, say): you stay in the transit area and never pass Spanish passport control, so most passports need no visa. These flights use the S gates in the Terminal 4 Satellite and the A and B gates in Terminal 1. You go through a security check for connecting passengers, so allow time for it.
- Between Terminal 4 and Terminal 1 on that connection: you still stay airside. Follow the blue connection signs, and before any passport check tell Aena’s information desk, staffed in green jackets, that you’re connecting to the other terminal: they call an internal shuttle bus that takes you across without passport control, and then you pass the security check for connecting passengers. Leave time for the wait, the ride and the security check.
- If you must collect your bags or check in again, as on separate tickets: you pass passport control, whichever terminals you use, so you need permission to enter Spain.
- From outside Schengen to a Schengen country (New York to Rome): you enter the Schengen area at Madrid, so you pass passport control here and need permission to enter, even if you never leave the airport.
- From a Schengen country to outside Schengen (Paris to Mexico City): you pass passport control at Madrid on the way out.
- Within Schengen, or within Spain (Paris to Barcelona): no passport control at all.
Airport transit visa
Spain’s list is longer than the one shared by every Schengen country. You need an airport transit visa even to stay in the transit area if you hold a passport from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkey, Uzbekistan or Yemen, or one issued by the Palestinian Authority.
You don’t need one if you hold a Schengen visa, or any visa or residence card from an EU or EEA country or Switzerland that lets you return there; a residence card from Andorra, Canada, Japan, San Marino, the US or the Dutch overseas territories; or a diplomatic passport, or if you’re the family member of an EU or EEA citizen.
Indian passports. India isn’t on the list, so an Indian passport needs no visa to change planes in the transit area, including on the airside shuttle between Terminal 4 and Terminal 1. To leave the airport, or to collect your bags and check in again, you need a Schengen visa.
An airport transit visa only lets you change planes, including on the airside shuttle between terminals. It doesn’t take you through passport control, so to leave the airport, or to collect your bags and check in again, you need a Schengen visa.
If you want to leave the airport
You’re entering Spain and the Schengen area, even for a few hours, so you need permission to enter.
| Passport | What you need to leave Madrid airport |
|---|---|
| EU and Schengen | Only your passport or national ID card |
| US | Your passport: no visa for stays of up to 90 days in 180 |
| UK | Your passport: no visa for stays of up to 90 days in 180 |
| Canada | Your passport: no visa for stays of up to 90 days in 180 |
| Australia | Your passport: no visa for stays of up to 90 days in 180 |
| India | A Schengen short-stay visa, which you must get before travelling; an airport transit visa won’t get you out of the airport |
Schengen visa
If your passport needs one, apply to a Spanish consulate or its visa centre between 6 months and 15 days before you travel. You apply in person, because your fingerprints and photo are taken. A decision takes up to 15 calendar days, or up to 45 if the consulate asks for more documents or an interview, so leave plenty of time.
Passport validity
Visa or no visa, your passport must be valid for at least 3 months after you leave the Schengen area and have been issued within the last 10 years. The border officer can ask why you’re visiting, so keep your onward boarding pass to hand.
The EES and ETIAS
Non-EU visitors are registered at the border under the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES): instead of a stamp in your passport, the officer takes your fingerprints and a photo. That makes the queue slower than it used to be, which is one reason to allow about an hour from landing to the train.
You may also have read about ETIAS, the EU’s coming online permit for visitors who don’t need a visa, Americans, Britons, Canadians and Australians among them. It isn’t in force, and the EU hasn’t named a start date; when it begins, a transition and grace period of at least 12 months follows. Look at the EU’s ETIAS timeline before you travel.
If you’re on separate tickets
Two separate bookings usually mean collecting your bags and checking in again, and that takes you through passport control into Spain and back out. So you need permission to enter, either a visa-free passport or a Schengen visa, even if you never planned to leave the airport. Leave time for check-in, security and passport control before your second flight, and check which terminal it leaves from: switching between Terminal 4 and Terminals 1 to 3 adds the free shuttle bus, about 15 minutes.
At the border
Allow about an hour from landing to sitting on the Cercanías train at Terminal 4, and about 15 minutes more from Terminals 1 to 3. Arriving at the Terminal 4 Satellite, you clear passport control there and ride a driverless train to the main building and the baggage hall; the hour allows for it.
Madrid has automatic border gates (ABC) as well as staffed desks: if the signs show your passport can use the gates, they’re quicker. At the desks, the EES checks add time. A long queue shortens your time in town but doesn’t change when you must head back, and if it runs well past an hour on a 6-hour layover, staying at the airport may be the better call. See getting into Madrid for the train.
Before you go landside
- Carry your passport and the boarding pass for your next flight; you’ll show both on the way back in.
- On one ticket, ask at check-in or look at your bag tag to be sure your luggage goes through to your final stop. Collected it on separate tickets? The left-luggage desks in Terminals 1 and 4 open from 5am to 11pm.
- Plan to reach the airport 90 minutes before your flight leaves. With a boarding pass already in hand, that covers security and, for a flight out of Schengen, passport control; anyone checking in or dropping a bag needs more.
- The trains, the metro and the bus into town, and when to head back: getting to the city.
Stopovers
Flying Iberia through Madrid, you can choose its Stopover Hola Madrid when you book: a stop of 24 hours up to 10 days and 9 nights, at no extra cost on the fare, on the way out or back. The hotel is yours to arrange, and you enter Spain, so the passport rules above apply.