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Local Spain
5 days ago
- Business
- Local Spain
Spain grants citizenship via residency to 220,000+ foreigners in one year
Spain granted nationality through residency to a total of 221,805 foreigners in 2024. This new figure is 8.9 percent lower than the 243,481 granted in 2023, the highest figure in the entire historical series since 2009. But 2024's annual total is still the third highest over the past 15 years. The data provided by Spain's Immigration Observatory confirms an upward trend of the number of people successfully applying for Spanish nationality. Much of this is down to automation - in other words using bots - when reviewing applications, an effective way to alleviate the backlog and streamline the citizenship paperwork. The highest number of Spanish nationalities granted since records began was in 2013 when Spain gave total of 261,295 people citizenship. The majority of people granted citizenship are of Ibero-American origin with Venezuelans taking the top spot with 33,021 citizenships granted. This is followed by Moroccans with 29,033. In third place are Colombians with 27,946 citizenships granted, then Hondurans with 13,915, Peruvians with 10,799, Ecuadorians with 9,925 and Argentinians with 9,165. The average age of foreign nationals who obtained nationality based on residency in 2024 was 34, and 57 percent were women. Almost 70 percent of those with successful applications were between the ages of 18 and 49. The vast majority of people – a total of 61 percent have been granted nationality after two years of legal residence in Spain, as is the case with those from Latin American countries. These citizens of Ibero-American countries also have the option of keeping their original passports as dual nationality is allowed for them. In addition to acquisition through residency, Spanish nationality can also be acquired by origin and by naturalisation. Twenty-four percent acquired citizenship after just one year because they were born in Spain (32,572), married a Spaniard (20,185), or they are the children or grandchildren of a person with Spanish nationality (637). A total of 13 percent achieved it after ten years of legal residency in Spain – 99 percent of them Moroccans, while only 17 people were granted residency through asylum, which requires a period of five years. To be granted Spanish nationality through residency, applicants need to have good civic conduct, a sufficient degree of integration into Spanish society, and have resided in Spain legally and continuously for a period of time immediately prior to the application. For those born in Spain and for those who have married a Spaniard it's one year; for those with previous nationality from an Ibero-American country Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, Portugal, and Sephardic Jews it's two years; for those those who have obtained refugee status it's 5 years; and for the rest it's 10 years. It's worth noting that Spain also rejected a record number of citizenship applications in 2024, a total of 20,099. This is more than double the number of rejections that were issued in 2023, which was a total of 7,399 people. Experts believe this could be down to the fact that more applications which were stuck in limbo are now being processed, the number of applicants keep increasing and technological advancements means the process is now quicker, so more people can be rejected quicker too if they don't meet the requirements. Another reason is that Spain extended the deadline to apply for citizenship through the Grandchildren's Law (Ley de Nietos in Spanish) until the end of 2025, which was initially scheduled to be October 2024.
Local Spain
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Local Spain
UK Embassy insists Brits in Spain get TIEs or risk being 'treated as overstayers'
The British Embassy in Madrid on Tuesday wrote yet another on Facebook post telling Brits who reside in Spain to exchange their pre-Brexit green EU residency certificates for Tarjetas de Identidad de Extranjero (Foreign Identity Cards), better known as TIEs. "Only those with a biometric TIE are exempt from the EES when entering Spain," wrote the Embassy. "If you only have the green certificate, it will not be accepted as proof of residency for EES purposes." Since July 2020, British residents in Spain have been told that their EU green certificates would still be valid and that the exchange was not compulsory, but Spanish and British authorities have been increasingly encouraging them to get the biometric TIE card, identical to that issued to other third-country nationals living in Spain but with the words " Acuerdo de Retirada" (Withdrawal Agreement). This is now the third post about exchanging residency cards that the British Embassy has posted since March 21st 2025, suggesting that they are really trying to drill the issue home. While in past years they've sang the praises of the TIE for being a biometric document that's more durable than the paper-based green certificates as well as including a photo, more recently they have been warning that the old green certificate will not be recognised by the EU's new Entry Exit System (EES). According to the British Embassy in Madrid, "To be exempt from registering with the EES, British residents in the EU will need to show a valid uniform-format biometric card". For British nationals who are legally resident in Spain, this means that only a TIE will be accepted by Spanish and EU authorities when travelling. If you only have the green certificate, it will not be accepted as proof of residency for EES purposes. Now, the embassy is saying that 'You could be treated as a tourist at the border, subject to full EES checks and potentially accused of overstaying in the Schengen Zone'. This means that if you go on holiday to another EU country, boarder guards at the airport could potentially think that you're not a Spanish or EU resident, that you've overstayed your allotted time within the Schengen Zone (the 90-day rule) and you could face problems with entering or re-entering. The EU's much-delayed EES system of biometric passport checks could begin in October this year, after an agreement was reached in March between member states. According to the latest data from Spain's Immigration Observatory, 403,925 UK nationals were officially registered as living in Spain as of June 2024, but only 217,408 of those had TIEs. This suggests that there could still be tens of thousands of UK nationals who still haven't carried out the exchange, and the ongoing Facebook messages by the UK Embassy suggest that is indeed the case. The response from the British community in Spain to this latest message has been varied, from complaints that there aren't any appointments available to exchange their residency cards to others saying their fellow countrymen have had plenty of time already to make the swap. One person wrote: 'My partner has been trying to get an appointment in Valencia to change his green credit card size certificate for a TIE since last September'. Another wrote: 'I hope the Consul is going to ask the Spanish authorities to make more appointments available. Many existing TIEs will be approaching renewal and appointments are already scarce'. Getting an online appointment for administrative processes is already a big issue in Spain, with bots run by criminal groups booking up all the available appointments and charging people for them, when in fact these citas previas should be completely free. Other Brits advise just hiring a gestor to do the exchange for you, but again that's an extra expense for a process that shouldn't cost anything at all. Some readers have been pointing out that the Withdrawal Agreement stated that the green residency certificates would be recognised as proof of residency for Brits and that they shouldn't have to exchange them.
Local Spain
05-02-2025
- Politics
- Local Spain
How many Brits are living illegally in Spain?
There is no official data on the number of British people living in Spain without legal residency. This makes sense as after all, they're 'under the radar', invisible in the eyes of authorities. Having never registered as residents nor paid taxes in Spain, there is no real way of finding this out. Could they be in their thousands? Tens of thousands even? We simply don't know. However, if we look at 2020-2024 data from Spain's Immigration Observatory, 59,951 UK nationals who applied for a Withdrawal Agreement TIE (the residency card for third-country nationals) did so without having had the previous EU green residency certificate to exchange it for. Even in June 2024, years after the deadline, 45 Brits with no previous residency papers applied for WA Spanish residency for the first time. By comparison, 168,036 UK nationals who applied for a TIE did already have the green residency documents that they were required to have if they resided in Spain, paid taxes here, worked here etc. Therefore, more than one in three Brits who applied for a TIE were not officially registered as residents before Brexit 'forced' them to. This gives us an idea of how common it was for UK nationals to never register before being left with little choice. It does of course not tell us exactly how many Brits have chosen to continue living in Spain 'under the radar', despite the risk of overstaying as an unregistered non-EU national, but it does indicate that there are probably more than we would expect. With 403,925 UK nationals officially registered as living in Spain in 2024, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to estimate that the number of Brits living here illegally is more in the tens of thousands than in the thousands. In fact, many registered Britons in Spain mention on online forums and Facebook groups that they know of fellow countrymen who never registered and have lived off the grid on the costas or in villages for years, even decades. There's little sympathy for them from those who have done everything above board, with a general desire for them to 'get caught', judging by online comments. Whereas suggesting that those who aren't registered have wanted 'to have their cake and eat it' does ring true in many cases, there are clearly some who have fallen between the cracks, be it due to old age, isolation, fear. This was brought to light by a recent study carried out by the Murcian public prosecutor in which it analysed the "vulnerability of elderly and disabled foreigners in the region" who live on the coast and on golf estates in the southeastern region. "As they are not currently European citizens, they do not have a health card and must pay for the social and health benefits that are presented to them. "In these cases we find ourselves not only with the problem of the language barrier, but also with the reluctance of authorities to intervene". Although their unregistered status isn't directly mentioned, the fact that they don't have access to public healthcare or other forms of care in Spain certainly suggests that this is the case. This not only brings to light the question of how unregistered Brits manage to get by without having access to healthcare (presumably through private means), but also how they can open a bank account, rent a property and, of course, if they ever fly back to the UK or travel outside of Spain without the worry of passport stamps or lack of residency documents lifting the lid on their status. Back in 2020, the then-Conservative UK government awarded funds to three charities - IOM Spain, Babelia and Age in Spain - to help them offer legal help and Spanish residency assistance to Brits struggling with the Spanish language, those in remote areas, and the elderly and those with disabilities. The UK Embassy in Spain has made numerous callouts on social media and through other means to get as many Brits in Spain as possible to apply for a TIE residency card. But just as 200,000+ green certificate holders (2023 figures) have refused to budge and do the swap-over, it's highly likely that many of the under-the-radar Brits will also be sticking to their guns.
