Spanish bureaucracy can be complicated and slow at times, so it’s not always easy to get Spanish citizenship. Unless you’re a citizen of an Ibero-American country or marrying a Spanish citizen, you can expect the process to take a while.
Despite this, Spain remains one of the most popular countries in Europe for acquired citizenships – granting the most citizenships of all EU member states according to Eurostat (17% of the total).
If you’re one of the many people hoping to obtain Spanish citizenship, the last thing you want is for your application to be delayed or rejected because of a mistake that could have been easily avoided.
To make sure all your work towards gaining citizenship doesn’t go to waste, here are twelve mistakes you should watch out for when applying for Spanish nationality to improve your chances of success.
1) Not having a passport
This first one is obvious – you won’t get far without a valid passport to prove your identity and current nationality. If your passport has expired, or is due to expire within the next 12 months, you should renew it before applying for Spanish citizenship.
Otherwise, if you submit your citizenship application while waiting for a passport renewal, you must provide documentation to prove it’s in the process of being renewed, then update your application when the passport renewal is complete.
Additionally, you must provide copies of every page of your passport with your application. It doesn’t matter if they’re blank or there are no stamps – you’ll need a clear copy of every single page, not just the page with your photo or the first two pages of information.
2) Applying on paper instead of online
Once you’ve gathered all the required documents and filled out the paperwork, you’ll have to submit it to the authorities. If you already live in Spain, you can book an appointment at the closest Civil Registry, or if you reside abroad, you’ll need an appointment at the nearest Spanish consulate.
Alternatively, you can forego waiting for an available appointment by applying entirely online through the Spanish government website. Not only is filling out information and uploading electronic files much faster online, but applying this way is also likely to speed up the processing time.
Legally, the Spanish government must respond to your application within 1 year – you can keep track of your application status online. If no decision is provided within this time due to administrative inaction, you can appeal for a claim review, which should prompt a response within a few months.
3) Not checking for errors or typos
As with any other bureaucratic application process, ensuring that all information provided is completely accurate and written correctly is crucial. It may seem obvious, but if you make a spelling mistake or mix up details, these errors can slow things down so you’re left waiting even longer.
Everything from your name, date of birth, and address to your NIE/TIE number and background information must be up to date and spelled properly to be accepted by the authorities, who will cross-reference the details you provide against the data they already have.
If the information doesn’t match or the authorities can’t find it, they may contact you requesting corrective action to update your application. If you miss this notification or run out of time to respond, your application cannot move forward, and is likely to be rejected.
4) Submitting incorrect legal documents
Any foreign documents that you provide with your citizenship application need to be translated into Spanish and legalised with an apostille stamp. Your documents will not be accepted if they aren’t apostilled by the country that issued them and submitted in Spanish.
If you’re fluent in Spanish, you could translate your legal documents yourself, but it’s advisable to pay the extra cost to have them translated by a qualified professional to reduce the risk of errors. Again, if there is a mistake, this can hold up your application or result in its rejection.
Similarly, you must ensure before submitting them for translation and apostillation that your documents are valid and in date. You don’t want to pay for translation of an expired document, or pay and wait for an apostille service only for your invalid certificates to be rejected.
5) Not providing exam results
Before you can be granted Spanish citizenship, you must prove that you understand the Spanish constitution and culture, and that you can speak enough Spanish to integrate into society well. To do this, you have to sit and pass the CCSE and DELE exams.
You must then provide proof of passing these exams with your citizenship application. There is an option to allow the Ministry of Justice to transfer your results directly from the exam organisation (Instituto Cervantes), but if you do not check the box to authorise this, they won’t be able to access your CCSE and DELE information.
This is why, even if you do remember to confirm authorisation, you should still provide copies of your exam certificates yourself along with your other documents. The Ministry then won’t need to request copies if there is a technical error, avoiding the delay this would cause.
6) Having a criminal record
Of course, the Spanish government only wants to grant citizenship to people who can prove that they will be upstanding citizens. This means if you don’t have a clean criminal record, both in Spain and in your country of origin, any application for Spanish nationality will be denied. Even relatively minor police records, such as getting a speeding ticket or failing a breathalyser test, could weigh heavily against you when the Spanish authorities consider your civil conduct.
If you do have criminal convictions on your record, there may be a solution. You can apply to cancel your criminal record by ensuring that any fines are paid and any sentences served, then wait the required amount of time before applying for a cancellation. This could be anywhere from 6 months to 3 years for minor offences, and at least 5 years to 10 years for more serious crimes.
Once you have a certificate proving your criminal record has been cancelled, you must also cancel your police record – any police reports, complaints, or arrests will be stored on different databases, so you’ll have to apply separately to cancel these records. However, even after all of this, you must bear in mind there’s still a risk of your application being rejected.
7) Expired police certificate
One of the documents required to apply for Spanish citizenship is a police certificate proving that you have a clean criminal record with no outstanding charges. You may need to provide certificates from both your country of residence and country of origin to confirm your lack of criminal history.
Depending on which country you’re from and the organisation that issues your background check and documentation, the police certificate may not have an expiry date. However, the Spanish government only considers these certificates valid if they were issued within the previous 6 months.
This means you should only apply for your police certificate within 6 months of when you intend to submit your citizenship application, otherwise it may be considered invalid by the time you complete your application. If your certificate does have an expiration date, be sure to submit your application well in advance of this date.
8) Not living in Spain for long enough
There is usually a minimum residency requirement for time spent living in Spain as a legal resident, which applicants must meet before applying for citizenship. If you attempt to submit an application early to allow for the processing period, it will be rejected, as you had not yet completed your required period of legal residency at the time of submission.
This period can vary depending on the nationality or legal status of the applicant, ranging from 1 year to 10 years. The residency requirements are typically as follows:
- 1 year if you’re a foreigner married to a Spanish citizen or the child of a Spanish national
- 2 years if you’re a citizen of a Latin American country, Portugal, Equatorial Guinea, Andorra, or the Philippines
- 5 years if you’re a refugee (granted refugee status in Spain)
- 10 years for all other cases
You must also be sure not to mistake short stays as periods of residency, because the authorities will not count any time spent in Spain on a tourist visa or student visa. To be a valid year that counts towards your minimum residency requirement, you must live in Spain with a residence permit for at least 6 to 9 months of the year.
9) Staying outside of Spain for too long
Living in Spain for long enough to accrue the minimum number of years as a resident for your desired application type also means making sure that your valid periods of residency are continuous. This means not staying outside of the country for longer than permitted.
The amount of time that you are allowed to spend outside of Spain each year will depend on the citizenship application route. For example, if you want to apply as a citizen of a former Spanish colony after 2 years, you must not leave Spain for more than 3 consecutive months each year.
However, if you intend to apply under the general rules after 10 years, you must not spend more than 6 consecutive months outside of Spain out of each year. If you do, you won’t be counted as a resident for that year, and you’ll have to wait even longer before you can apply for citizenship.
10) Not living with your Spanish spouse
Though marrying a Spanish citizen or the child of a Spanish national is probably the fastest route to gaining Spanish citizenship, it’s not quite that simple. The applicant must not only fulfil the requirement of living as a Spanish resident for 1 year, but must also be living with their spouse.
This means the married couple must live together at the same address in Spain for the whole year to prove the marriage has not been dissolved during this time. Both individuals must be registered with the local municipality to confirm they have been living as a couple in the same residence.
If you are married to a Spanish national or the child of one, but you live at separate addresses – for example, if one person lives in a different area or abroad for work – this unfortunately will not be considered an effective marital bond for the purposes of claiming citizenship through marriage.
11) Forgetting to check dual nationality
Many people may not realise that in order to claim Spanish citizenship, they’re likely to have to renounce their current nationality. Part of the process of becoming a Spanish citizen requires you to swear allegiance to Spain before a judge, thereby renouncing your original nationality.
However, as long as you follow the rules of Spanish citizenship and only use your Spanish identity documents when in Spain, the Spanish government is likely to be indifferent to how your country of origin regards your original citizenship status – they won’t take your other passport from you.
In fact, Spain has dual nationality agreements with many countries, including all Ibero-American countries, Portugal, the Philippines, Andorra, and Equatorial Guinea. France has also arranged a special agreement with Spain to allow dual nationality for their citizens.
Some countries allow their citizens to hold multiple citizenships with other countries at the same time as maintaining their original citizenship, while others don’t. It’s important to check whether your country of origin demands singular citizenship – in which case you would have to give that up to become a Spanish citizen – or whether dual nationality is permitted.
12) Not getting help from a professional
Though you may want to save some money by completing as much of your Spanish citizenship application as possible independently, it could cost you time and further effort and money if you have to resubmit documents or reapply after rejection due to any of these mistakes.
It’s best to hire a professional Spanish-speaking solicitor to help manage your application and ensure that all the required documents are provided in the required formats, complying with translation, apostillation, and validity rules.
The expert knowledge of Spain immigration lawyers can be invaluable in making the Spanish citizenship application process run as smoothly as possible, increasing your chances of a successful application on the first try.
With their assistance, you could be holding your Spanish passport before you know it, and residing in Spain with all the legal rights of a fully-fledged Spanish citizen.