Spanish citizenship by residence: requirements, deadlines and the process step by step

What it is

Citizenship by residence is the route by which a foreign national who has lived legally in Spain for years becomes Spanish. The law calls it nacionalidad (nationality) por residencia. It is granted by the Ministry of Justice, and it should not be confused with other routes such as option (opción), carta de naturaleza, or the one the Ley de Memoria Democrática opened for descendants of Spaniards.

How many years of residence you need

It depends on who you are. The Civil Code (article 22) sets these periods:

Ten years is the general rule.
Five years if you have recognised refugee status.
Two years if you are a national by origin of an Ibero-American country, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea or Portugal, or are Sephardic.
One year in several cases, among them: having been born in Spain; having been married to a Spaniard for one year without being separated; being the widow or widower of a Spaniard, if you were not separated; or having been born outside Spain to a father, mother, grandfather or grandmother who was Spanish by origin.

In every case the residence has to be, in the words of the Civil Code, "legal, continuous and immediately prior to the application". That is why you should not let your authorisation expire while you wait to complete the period: renew your card on time.

What else is required

Besides the time, you have to prove what the Civil Code calls "good civic conduct and a sufficient degree of integration into Spanish society". Integration is shown with two Instituto Cervantes exams:

DELE A2 or higher, the Spanish language diploma. Those who already hold it are exempt, and so are nationals of Spanish-speaking countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Equatorial Guinea, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela.
CCSE, the test of constitutional and sociocultural knowledge. It is a closed-answer test: 60% of the questions are about the Constitution and how the State is organised, and 40% about culture, history and society.

The documents

The regulation for the procedure (Real Decreto 1004/2015) asks for:

The application form.
Your birth certificate from your country, legalised and translated if necessary.
Your passport.
A criminal record certificate from your country of origin, if you are of legal age.
The certificates for the Instituto Cervantes exams, or your authorisation for the Ministry of Justice to check them.
Proof that you have paid the fee.
Whatever proves your case if you are applying under a shorter period: the marriage, the birth in Spain, the refugee status.

The Ministry can check your padrón registration, your criminal record in Spain and your immigration details itself if you authorise it in the application. If you do not, you have to provide the padrón certificate (certificado de empadronamiento), the Spanish criminal record certificate and your TIE or your EU citizen registration certificate.

How to apply and what it costs

The procedure is electronic: the application is filed in the Ministry of Justice's e-office, with a digital certificate or through a representative. Before that you have to pay the fee with modelo 790, code 026 (the Ministry of Justice fee form). The current amount is €104.05.

The deadlines

One year to decide. The Ministry of Justice has one year from the date the application reaches the Dirección General. If that passes with no answer, the application is deemed rejected, which opens the way to appeals.
Checking the status. You follow your file in the Ministry of Justice's e-office, in the tool everyone knows as "Cómo va lo mío".
180 days to take the oath. Once it is granted, you have 180 days from the notification to swear or promise before the Registro Civil (the civil registry). If you do not do it within that period, the grant lapses.

At the oath you have to declare that you renounce your previous nationality, unless you are from an Ibero-American country, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea or Portugal, or are Sephardic.

Afterwards: the DNI and your old NIE

Once your nationality is registered, the DNI (the Spanish national identity card) and the Spanish passport arrive, with a new number. Everything you did until then is still under your NIE: the bank account, your Social Security work history, the car. The document that ties the two numbers together is the certificado de concordancia, which you apply for at a comisaría.

Where Cita Ping comes in and where it does not

The citizenship application does not go through the cita previa portal for extranjería and Policía Nacional, which is the one we check, so we cannot help you with this procedure.

We can with what surrounds it. While you complete the period, the fingerprint and pickup appointments that renew your card. And afterwards, the one for the certificado de concordancia. For any of them you can create an alert in your province and you will get a notification by email or Telegram as soon as our checks find available appointments. You book it yourself on the official portal, free: Cita Ping does not book for you and cannot guarantee you an appointment.