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All the options to get the Spanish passport easily
Living in Spain under a residence permit is a great opportunity for many foreigners, but it also has limitations—such as the need to renew it periodically and the inability to work in other EU countries. How to get Spanish citizenship? This is the ultimate solution, providing full rights and long-term stability.
Obtaining Spanish nationality allows you to:
While most Spanish citizens acquire nationality by birth, foreigners can also apply through four different legal pathways. Understanding how to get Spanish citizenship and selecting the right option for your case is essential for a smooth process.
If you want to become a Spanish citizen, there are four main pathways to obtain nationality. The process you follow will depend on your specific situation, including your time spent in Spain, family connections, or exceptional circumstances. Below, we break down the four different ways to become a Spanish citizenship and their requirements.
Spanish citizenship by residency
The easiest way of getting the Spanish nationality. After 2,5 or 10 years of living in Spain with your residency permit, you can easily get Citizenship by residency.
Spanish citizenship by option
If your parents were Spanish nationals, you can also get citizenship for yourself, as long as you meet the requirements. You or your children must be under 18 years old.
Spanish citizenship by descendant
Are you the grandchildren of Spanish citizens (for example of those who got it to trough historical memory)? Then under this new law, you may be able to also apply.
Spanish citizenship by marriage
If you get married to a Spanish citizen, you just need to live in Spain for one year in order to qualify for the nationality. It’s that simple! The marriage must be registered in Spain.
We will prepare all the required documents and send them to the competent authority.
Together we will make sure that you meet all the requirements and find the best path.
We will guide you step by step throughout the whole process, solving all your doubts.
In order to get Spanish nationality, there are several requirements you must meet. Even though there are 4 different paths to get citizenship and each of them have its own requirements, some of them are general and those are the ones we will explore now.
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How long does it take to get your Spanish passport? After submitting your application, the government will take from 1 to 2 years after submitting a response. You can check possible status of your citizenship application.
Nevertheless, if you apply online, chances are that you will get a response much faster.
Once you receive your favorable resolution, however, there will still be an extra step: taking the oath of allegiance of the Spanish constitution. This is something you can do before a notary, at the Spanish consulate or at the Civil Registry; and the duration of the process will depend on the availability of appointments in each of the 3 options.
After finishing all, you will be ready to get your DNI and your “certificado de concordancia“.
In order to get Citizenship, there are two different nationality exams you will need to pass, both from the Cervantes Institute:
There are 3 groups that don’t need to take this exams after requesting an exemption, which you can find out here.
This type of citizenship is the nationality granted to some children born in Spain to foreign parents living in the Spanish territory.
It is not by the mere fact of being born in Spain that the child of foreign parents becomes Spanish.
Parents (foreigners) who have had their child in the country, if they want their children to automatically get Spanish nationality, must first deny the child their own nationality, so that the daughter or son would be left stateless.
As regulated in article 17 of the Spanish Civil Code, it will be then when the Spanish Government, in order to prevent the newborn from losing his or her rights, would grant her Spanish citizenship by the mere value of presumption.
This refusal is something that is done in the consulate of the country of origin in Spain.
However, this process is not always possible, as it will depend largely on the parents’ country of origin. For example, there are many Latin American countries that do NOT allow their nationals to deny their children nationality, as is the case with Ecuador.
*Be aware that this process also applies when both parents are stateless: that is, they lack nationality.
Countries that deny their children their original nationality are: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guinea Bissau, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Sao Tomé, Portugal, and Uruguay.
The answer is yes. You can travel for a short period of time abroad without any problem, as long as, as detailed in this post, you respect the periods required by your current residence card.
How much does it cost? As of today (2025), the application fee for Spanish nationality is 104,05€. Bear in mind that this fee can be updated each year, and the amount can be increased by a few cents or even a couple of euros.
Each of the 4 types of nationalities has its own documents and requirements. Nevertheless, as a general rule, you will always need to include:
The Spanish Civil Code is the main document regulating Citizenship in the Spanish territory.
Nevertheless, recently, the government approved a new law that will grant grandchildren of Spanish nationals the possibility to obtain citizenship themselves thanks to the Democratic Memory Law.
Yes, it is entirely possible to lose your Spanish nationality.
In cases where you start living in a third country, and within three years (without notifying your intention to keep your citizenship) either you only use your original nationality or you acquire a third one, you will lose your Spanish nationality.
The Spanish Ministry of Justice created an online platform that allows you to check the status of your citizenship application completely online and in real-time. It is called “cómo va lo mío”.
The are 7 typical errors that may reject your application:
Not meeting the required residency period: Ensure you have completed the full 1, 2, 5, or 10 years of residency before applying, as submitting even a day early will lead to denial.
Counting stay periods as residency: Time spent in Spain on a tourist or student visa does not count towards nationality requirements—only periods with a residence card are valid.
Leaving Spain for too long: Avoid exceeding the maximum absence limits—no more than 3 consecutive months for shorter residency requirements (1, 2, or 5 years) and no more than 6 months for the general 10-year case.
Having criminal or police records: Any legal infractions, even minor ones, can lead to rejection; records should be canceled before applying, though this may not always guarantee approval.
Lacking joint city hall registration (for marriage-based nationality): If applying through marriage, you and your spouse must be registered at the same address for at least one year, with additional proof if necessary.
Submitting incorrect documents: Ensure all documents are properly legalized, apostilled, translated, and up to date to avoid delays or rejection.
Ignoring requests from the Ministry: If asked to provide additional documents, respond promptly within the given timeframe, as failure to do so results in application denial.
It is entirely possible to travel and leave the Spanish territory once you have initiated the nationality process and are waiting for a response.
You can travel, go on vacation, or visit your family in your home country. Occasional and short-term trips will not affect you at all.
Even if you travel frequently due to working reasons, you may be able to justify that, and there will be no problem at all.
But you should be careful with these trips.
Because while you are in Spain waiting for your citizenship resolution, you are still a legal resident with your residence permit, and being the holder of your residence implies certain obligations that you must fulfill.
We have already seen in other articles how each type of residence card implies a set of requirements, for example:
Therefore, when deciding whether or not you can leave the country (and for how long), you should not worry about your citizenship application that much, but about your residence card and the requirements to renew and maintain it.
Thus, in order to be able to finally obtain your nationality successfully, the most important thing is to demonstrate continuous residence (without leaving the country for more than 3 months) before applying for it. But, once the application is already being processed, these departures would not directly affect the resolution (but your residency).
In addition, the supervening irregularity (becoming an irregular citizen once you have already applied for nationality and you are waiting for a response) does not currently influence the process either.
