Spain Citizenship By Descent

What changed in October 2025, and what it means for your claim

The Democratic Memory Law (Ley 20/2022), known everywhere as the grandchildren law, opened on 21 October 2022 and gave the children and grandchildren of Spaniards who lost or renounced their nationality through exile a direct route to citizenship, with no residence in Spain required. It ran for two years, was extended once, and expired on 22 October 2025. The Spanish government has confirmed there will be no further extension: applications lodged before the cut-off are still being processed through 2026, but nothing new can be started under it.

The Sephardic route closed earlier. Law 12/2015 gave descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled in 1492 a route to citizenship without residence; its window shut on 1 October 2019, with a grace period only for files already opened. Any page still presenting either of these as a way in is describing a door that is shut.

What survives is the ordinary law of Spanish nationality, and it is narrower but permanent. Three articles of the Civil Code carry almost every live claim: Article 17, which makes you Spanish from birth; Article 20, the right of option; and Article 22, naturalisation with a shortened residence period. Which one is yours depends on a single fact — where your Spanish ancestor was born, and whether they were Spanish at the moment you were born.

Who qualifies for Spanish citizenship by descent in 2026

Your mother or father is Spanish: Article 17, citizenship from birth

If either parent held Spanish nationality when you were born, you are Spanish of origin. This is not an application in the ordinary sense and there is no residence requirement, no exam and no age limit: you are registering a status you already have, at the Spanish consulate for your district, in the Civil Registry. It does not matter where you were born or how long ago. What matters is that the parent was Spanish on the date of your birth — a parent who naturalised elsewhere and lost Spanish nationality before you were born breaks the chain.

Your Spanish parent was born in Spain: the right of option, Article 20

If your father or mother was originally Spanish and born in Spain, you hold a right of option with no age limit. It is the most valuable route still open, because it produces citizenship without residence in Spain and without the integration exams. Both conditions are strict and both are tested against documents: originally Spanish, meaning Spanish from birth rather than naturalised, and born inside Spanish territory.

The right of option also covers people whose parentage or birth in Spain is legally established after they turn eighteen, and people adopted by a Spaniard after that age. In those cases the clock is short: two years from the moment the fact is established.

Your grandparent was originally Spanish: one year of residence, Article 22.2

This is where most of the people the grandchildren law used to serve now land. Article 22.2.f) of the Civil Code shortens the standard ten-year residence requirement to one year for anyone born outside Spain whose father, mother, grandfather or grandmother was originally Spanish. The ancestor has to have been Spanish from birth, not naturalised.

The catch is the word residence. That one year has to be legal, continuous and immediately before the application, which means holding a Spanish residence permit and living in Spain for it — a non-lucrative visa, a digital nomad visa, a work or study permit, family reunification. Time spent in Spain as a tourist does not count towards it. This route also carries the integration exams, which the descent routes above do not.

You hold Latin American, Andorran, Filipino, Equatorial Guinean or Portuguese nationality: two years

Article 22.1 shortens the residence requirement to two years for nationals of the Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea and Portugal, and for Sephardim of Spanish origin. It has nothing to do with ancestry: it is your current passport that qualifies you. For clients across Latin America this is frequently the shortest real path to an EU passport, and it stacks with the one-year rule above — a Mexican or Argentine national with an originally Spanish grandparent uses the one-year period, not the two-year one.

You were adopted by a Spanish national before you turned eighteen

Adoption by a Spaniard while you were still a minor makes you Spanish of origin, on the same footing as a biological child under Article 17. Adoption after eighteen is a right of option instead, exercisable within two years of the adoption.

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Can I get a Spanish passport if my grandmother is Spanish?

Since 23 October 2025, not directly from abroad. While the grandchildren law was open, a Spanish grandmother could be enough on its own. Now the grandparent line runs through Article 22.2: one year of legal residence in Spain, then naturalisation, provided she was Spanish from birth rather than naturalised.

There is one exception worth checking before you accept that answer. If your grandmother was born in Spain and your own parent was Spanish at any point — including a parent who acquired and later lost it — the claim may run through your parent under Article 17 or Article 20 rather than through her, and those routes need no residence at all. Whether that is your case is a documentary question, not a matter of opinion: it is decided by what the Civil Registry entries say about each generation.

How many generations back can you claim Spanish citizenship?

There is no fixed generational cut-off in Spanish law, and the frequently repeated answer of two generations is a description of the practical outcome rather than a rule. Spanish nationality of origin passes down indefinitely by blood, so a family that has kept its registrations current can be four or five generations outside Spain and still transmit it.

What ends a claim is a break, not a distance. The chain stops at the first ancestor who was no longer Spanish when the next generation was born — typically the one who naturalised abroad in a country that did not permit dual nationality, or who lost it under Article 24 by using another nationality exclusively for three years without declaring an intention to keep it. Everyone born after that break is outside the line of descent, however recent it is. Tracing where the break sits is the first thing any competent assessment does.

Spanish citizenship by descent requirements: the document chain

Every route above is decided on documents, and files fail on the paperwork far more often than on eligibility. What Spain wants is an unbroken civil-registry chain from your Spanish ancestor to you.

• Your own full birth certificate, in the long form that names both parents.
• Full birth certificate of the Spanish ancestor, ideally the Spanish Civil Registry entry itself (certificado literal de nacimiento).
• Marriage and, where relevant, death certificates for every generation in between, to close the chain.
• Proof that the ancestor held Spanish nationality — the registry entry, an old Spanish passport, the consular registration, or a certificate of nationality.
• Valid passport or national ID for the applicant.
• Criminal record certificates from your country of residence, for the residence-based routes.
• The completed application form for the route you are using, plus the fee receipt where one applies.

Two formalities catch people out. Foreign documents need the Hague Apostille from the issuing country, and anything not in Spanish needs a sworn translation by a translator recognised by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs — a certified translation from elsewhere is routinely rejected. Both take weeks, and both should start before you book a consular appointment rather than after.

Spanish citizenship by descent processing time

Spain does not publish a single processing time, and any page quoting one figure for all routes is inventing it. What can be said honestly is how the routes differ.

Article 17 registration and Article 20 option are handled by consulates, and the binding constraint is usually the appointment, not the decision: waiting lists at the busiest consulates in Latin America and the United States have run to many months, while the decision itself is comparatively quick once the file is complete and the chain is documented.

Naturalisation by residence under Article 22 is the slower one. The regulation sets a maximum of one year for the administration to resolve, and in practice files have moved faster since the process moved online, but the year of residence has to be completed first, and after approval there is a swearing-in and registration step before the passport exists.

How much Spanish citizenship by descent costs

The state fee is the small part. Naturalisation by residence carries the 790-026 fee, which sits around 105 euros — published figures for 2026 differ slightly between sources, so pay from the official Tax Agency form rather than from a quoted number. The CCSE exam is around 85 euros and the DELE A2 around 130 euros where it is required.

The real cost is the document chain: apostilles, sworn translations and certificate retrieval from registries in two or three countries, each priced per document, and each repeated for every generation you have to prove. On the residence routes there is also the cost of the year or two in Spain itself, which dwarfs everything else. Consular registration under Articles 17 and 20 carries no state fee at all — for those routes the entire budget is paperwork.

The CCSE and DELE A2 exams, and who is exempt

The integration exams apply to naturalisation by residence only. They are not part of Article 17 registration or the Article 20 right of option, which is one of the reasons those routes are worth ruling out carefully before settling for the residence path.

The CCSE tests constitutional and sociocultural knowledge of Spain and is required of essentially every applicant by residence. The DELE A2 tests Spanish at elementary level and is waived for nationals of countries where Spanish is the official language — which exempts applicants from across Latin America. Both exams are run by the Instituto Cervantes. Minors and applicants with a recognised incapacity are exempt from both.

Does Spain allow dual citizenship?

It depends on how you become Spanish, and on which passport you already hold. If you are Spanish from birth under Article 17, nothing is being acquired and nothing is renounced: you are registering a status you already had, and you keep everything else.

Every other route is an acquisition, the Article 20 option included, and that surprises people. Article 23 of the Civil Code asks anyone acquiring Spanish nationality by option, by residence or by letter of naturalisation to declare that they renounce their previous nationality when they swear in. The exemption runs by passport, not by route: nationals of the Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea and Portugal, and Sephardim of Spanish origin, keep both openly under the dual-nationality treaties.

In practice that renunciation is a declaration made before the Spanish Civil Registry, and a number of countries, the United States among them, do not treat a declaration made before a foreign authority as enough to end their own citizenship. Whether it does in your case is a question for a lawyer in that country, not something to assume in either direction.

One trap deserves its own line, because it costs families the citizenship they just secured. Article 24 has two edges. A Spaniard who is emancipated and living abroad loses the nationality after three years if they voluntarily take another one, or use exclusively a foreign nationality they already held; declaring to the Civil Registry that you intend to keep it stops that clock. The second edge is the one that catches families claiming by descent: if you were born abroad, are Spanish because a parent was Spanish and also born abroad, and the country you live in grants you its nationality, you lose the Spanish one unless you declare your intention to retain it within three years of turning eighteen. Renewing a Spanish passport or DNI inside that window counts as that declaration.

Spain citizenship by descent benefits

Visa-free travel

A Spanish passport gives visa-free or simplified access to more than 170 countries.

Freedom of movement in the EU

Spanish citizens can live, work and study anywhere in the Schengen Area and the wider EU.

Employment across the union

Spanish nationals take work in any member state without a permit.

Education

Access to Spanish and EU universities at domestic fee levels rather than international ones.

Healthcare and social services

Rights to public healthcare and social services in Spain and, through the EU framework, elsewhere in the union.

Citizenship for your children

Spanish nationality of origin passes to your descendants, which is what makes the claim worth making in the generation that can still make it.

Political rights

The vote in Spanish and European elections, and the right to stand.

Spanish citizenship by descent: the application process, step by step

Step 1: Establish which article your claim falls under

Before collecting anything, place your claim: Article 17, Article 20, or residence under Article 22. The answer turns on where your Spanish ancestor was born, whether they were Spanish from birth, and whether they were still Spanish when the next generation was born. Getting this wrong costs a year.

Step 2: Reconstruct the civil-registry chain

Order the long-form certificates for every generation from the relevant registries, including the Spanish literal certificate for the ancestor. This is the slowest step and the one to start first.

Step 3: Apostille and sworn translation

Apostille every foreign document in its country of origin, then have it translated by a sworn translator recognised by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Step 4: File with the right authority

Consular routes are filed at the Spanish consulate for your district; naturalisation by residence is filed electronically with the Ministry of Justice from Spain. Book the consular appointment as early as the calendar allows — it is usually the binding constraint.

Step 5: Swear in and register

Approval is not the end. Nationality exists once you have sworn or promised allegiance to the Constitution and the entry is made in the Civil Registry. The passport and DNI follow from that entry.

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Frequently asked questions

Is Spanish citizenship by descent still possible in 2026?

Yes, through Articles 17, 20 and 22 of the Civil Code. What is no longer possible is the Democratic Memory Law route for grandchildren, which closed on 22 October 2025.

Can I apply from outside Spain?

For Article 17 registration and the Article 20 right of option, yes — those are filed at the Spanish consulate for your district. The Article 22 routes require you to be living in Spain legally first.

Does my Spanish ancestor have to have been born in Spain?

For the Article 20 option, yes: the parent must have been originally Spanish and born in Spain. For Article 17 and for the one-year residence route, the requirement is that the ancestor was originally Spanish, whether or not they were born in Spanish territory.

My grandparent naturalised in another country. Does that end my claim?

Not necessarily. What matters is whether they were still Spanish when your parent was born. If they naturalised afterwards, the line reached your parent and may reach you.

Do I have to speak Spanish?

Only on the residence routes, and only where the DELE A2 applies. Nationals of Spanish-speaking countries are exempt from it. The descent routes carry no language test.

How long does it take?

Consular routes are usually governed by appointment availability rather than decision time; naturalisation by residence has a one-year statutory maximum for the decision, on top of the year of residence itself.

Once the application form and supporting documents are ready, submit them to the appropriate Spanish authority for review.

Lincoln Global Partners: Spanish Citizenship By Descent consultants! Apply with us today!

Lincoln Global Partners is a global immigration consultancy that focuses on residency and citizenship programs. Our specialists in Spanish citizenship by descent will guide you through every step of the process. You can initiate your journey with a free consultation. Our team operates internationally, providing localized support in various countries to help you achieve dual citizenship. We serve clients from the US, UK, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and Africa interested in investment migration and second citizenship opportunities. With our assistance, you can expect a smooth experience in applying for your second citizenship from your home country.