How to Get Spanish Citizenship (Step by Step)

Diagram text version

Nationality of origin covers defined birth and filiation cases. Option covers specified links to Spanish parents or parental authority. Naturalisation by residence generally requires ten years, with statutory five-, two- and one-year categories. Marriage to a Spaniard does not confer nationality automatically; it can support a one-year residence category if legal conditions are met.

Spanish citizenship comes by descent, by marriage after a year of residency, or by naturalization after ten years of legal residency in general, with shorter terms for some applicants. All three routes sit in the Codigo Civil. This guide covers the three routes and then walks the residency application step by step, because that is the one linear procedure among them.

What Are the Ways to Get Spanish Citizenship?

Spain grants citizenship three ways. A child of a Spanish father or mother is Spanish from birth under Codigo Civil Article 17. Marriage to a Spanish national sets a one-year residency term. Naturalization by residency takes ten years in general, with shorter terms for some applicants.

Descent runs through three separate provisions of the Codigo Civil.

• Article 17. A child of a Spanish father or mother is Spanish from birth, wherever the child is born, and no residency is required.
• Article 20. People who are or have been under the parental authority of a Spaniard have a right to opt for Spanish nationality, as do people whose father or mother was originally Spanish and born in Spain.
• Article 22.2(f). Someone born outside Spain to a father, mother, grandfather or grandmother who was originally Spanish reaches the one-year residency term.

The Ley de Nietos ran as an Article 20 option route under Ley 20/2022, and filings closed on October 22, 2025. Marriage runs through Article 22.2(d), and naturalization by residency runs through Article 22.1. Both are applications for nationality by residence, so the exams and the fee this guide sets out for the residency route apply to a marriage filing too. Our citizenship by descent guide and citizenship by marriage guide carry those two routes in full.

Do You Need a Lawyer to Get Spanish Citizenship?

Whether you need a lawyer turns on how complicated your own route is. A single clear line of descent with a complete civil registry record is a filing you can make yourself. Four situations point the other way.

• Ancestry documentation crossing countries or generations. Records sit in more than one registry and travel through translation before filing.
• A dual-nationality position you cannot place. The renunciation exemption runs off the closed list in Codigo Civil Article 24.1 and one 2022 treaty.
• A previous refusal. The file has already been decided once, and a second attempt starts from that decision.
• A deadline you cannot move. Exams, translations and the registry appearance then sequence backward from one date.

How Do You Apply for Spanish Citizenship by Residency?

You apply for Spanish citizenship by residency by completing the term the Codigo Civil sets, passing two Instituto Cervantes exams, and filing electronically with the Ministerio de Justicia.

What Does a Residency Application Require?

The residency application requires two exams, a fee, and a residency history that meets three conditions at once.

• Two Instituto Cervantes exams, unless an exemption applies. Ley 19/2015 sets a DELE A2 diploma or higher and a test of the Spanish Constitution and Spain’s social and cultural reality. Applicants from a country where Spanish is the official language skip the language test, and minors and applicants whose legal capacity has been judicially modified skip both.
• Residency that is legal, continuous and immediately prior. Codigo Civil Article 22.3 attaches all three conditions to the residence the term counts.
• A 100 euro fee. Ley 19/2015 sets the fee at 100 euros and leaves the Ministerio de Justicia to administer it. The sede electronica, the ministry’s online filing portal, publishes the Modelo 790-026 payment form.
• A sworn translation, where you use one. The Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores states that a translation certified by a traductor jurado, a sworn translator, carries official character and may be submitted to judicial and administrative bodies.

The document list for a citizenship filing depends on your route, so send your route and your dates through the form, and the specialist handling your case tells you what it needs.

Can You Apply for Spanish Citizenship Without a Lawyer?

Yes. The Ministerio de Justicia’s nationality-by-residence page carries a form you complete for yourself, or as the legal representative of a minor or of a person who needs support to exercise legal capacity. Ley 19/2015 treats representation as optional and makes the applicant liable for the 100 euro fee either way.

Paid help does specific work on the four situations named above. We gather and order an ancestry chain that crosses borders. We check a dual-nationality position against Article 24.1 and the Spain-France convention before any declaration is made. We read a previous refusal before anything is filed again. We sequence the exam sitting, the translations and the registry appearance around a date that cannot move.

How Long Does It Take to Get Spanish Citizenship?

It takes between one and ten years of legal residency before you can file at all, and Codigo Civil Article 22 decides which term applies. A claim under Article 17 counts no residency.

Real Decreto 1004/2015 then gives the procedure one year to be resolved and notified, counted from the day the application reaches the Direccion General de los Registros y del Notariado. Silence past that year counts as a denial.

Actual timing varies by file, and the Ministerio de Justicia case-status service shows which phase a submitted application has reached. On the Ley de Nietos route the government reported 876,321 applications filed at consular offices and 237,145 nationalities granted as of September 19, 2025. Those two numbers count filings and grants. The Spanish citizenship lawyers page on this site carries a fuller timing section.

What Does the Law Require You to Get Right?

Four rules come straight from the statute.

• The two-year term belongs to nationals of origin. Article 22.1 gives it to nationals of origin of Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea or Portugal, and to Sephardic Jews. Someone who naturalized in one of those countries later does not reach it.
• Article 23 sets three validity requirements. The applicant swears or promises fidelity to the King and obedience to the Constitution and the laws, declares renunciation of the prior nationality where no exemption applies, and registers the acquisition in the Civil Registry.
• The renunciation exemption runs off a closed list. Article 23(b) exempts nationals of the countries Article 24.1 names, plus Sephardic Jews of Spanish origin. The Codigo Civil list omits France. French nationals are exempt through the Spain-France nationality convention in force since April 1, 2022, applied in the DGSJFP instruction of March 31, 2022.
• The Ley de Nietos window has closed. Ley 20/2022 set a two-year filing window, extended by one year by the Council of Ministers on July 9, 2024. A grandparent claim now runs on Article 22.2(f) and its one-year term.

The 100 euro fee is the statutory amount Ley 19/2015 sets. Confirm the amount on the Modelo 790-026 form when filing.