In Spain, many foreigners find love and decide to wed. That certainly has numerous advantages, including making it simple to apply for residency. Is it actually feasible to obtain Spanish citizenship by marriage, though? Learn how in this article, along with the entire checklist of criteria!
Can you truly get Spanish citizenship through marriage?
In a nutshell, yes, but not directly. Marriage can lead to Spanish citizenship. Let’s go over its operation.
Spain’s previous situation was different. You immediately acquired Spanish nationality after marrying a Spanish citizen between the 1950s and the 1980s.
However, significant changes were made to the Spanish civil code in 1975, one of which removed this possibility.
Consequently, currently, getting married to a Spaniard does not automatically grant you Spanish citizenship. This is no longer an option.
But not every news is negative. And the reason for this is because getting married to a Spanish citizen might have a positive impact on your citizenship application because it will accelerate the process.
How can getting married to a Spanish national help a foreigner become a citizen?
This legal union will be advantageous to you as a foreigner residing in Spain, among other things (which you can find out here), particularly because it drastically decreases the number of residency years necessary to get it.
The basic rule is that foreigners may seek Spanish nationality after ten years of legal residency in the nation. Except for nationals like Ibero-American countries, Filipinos, etc, who can apply earlier.
However, if you married a Spanish national, those 10 years are decreased to 1.
Therefore, you must still apply for Spanish citizenship as any other foreigner would in order to obtain residency, but you will benefit from a significant time saving as a consequence of your family connection.
Exactly how does this operate? The procedure can then be broken down into the following phases.
Detailed procedure for obtaining citizenship by marriage
Getting married to the Spanish citizen will be the first phase in the procedure.
You can enter Spain as a tourist and get married or marry in your home country.
But take caution, as Spain must first validate any marriages that are registered outside of Spain.
In the event that a Spanish citizen marries abroad, for their marriage to be valid in Spain, it is necessary to proceed with the registration of that marriage in the Spanish Civil Registry (foreign certification transcript). This procedure is carried out either in the consular civil registry or in the civil registry of the domicile of one of the contracting parties.
You need to apply for your Spanish residency after the marriage is officially recorded.
Then, it is important to differentiate between a marriage with a Spanish spouse or a European community citizen spouse:
- A Spanish spouse will need to process a Family Roots or Arraigo Familiar (After the reform of the Immigration Regulations in 2022) residence application.
- A Spouse of a EU community citizen will need to process a Community Card residence application.
Following the issuance of this residence, you must stay in Spain for a full year before submitting an application for citizenship.
You will now encounter one of the hard realities of the Spanish immigration system: acquiring citizenship is a lengthy process.
Despite the fact that the usual norm requires you to get your resolve within a year, delays of one or even two years are not uncommon.
However, because you will have a 5-year residency card, your situation as a legal citizen won’t change because you will receive your decision before your card needs to be renewed.
Remember that, while registering your relationship as a civil partnership will enable you to apply for an Arraigo Familiar residency or Family Roots, it does not provide the same time-saving advantage for citizenship.
What are the primary criteria?
You must ensure that your citizenship by marriage application complies with the following requirements:
- You must complete the Cervantes Institute’s DELE A2 language examination in case you are not from a Spanish speaking country and CCSE culture exam.
- Include both your full passport—which should not be expired by the time of application—and your spouse’s birth certificate.
- Criminal background check
- When registering at city hall, also known as “padrón” in Spanish, you and your spouse must both indicate that you have shared the same address for the previous year.
- Certificate of marriage, which Spain requires to be properly recorded demonstrating that you have the resources to support yourself in the nation—in this example, 150% of the IPREM index.
- Residence permit
- Remember that you must pay an application cost, which is approximately 100 euros.
Get also our Four tips to speed up the process of obtaining Spanish nationality, also read about the Reasons for denial of Spanish nationality.
In conclusion, while getting married to a Spanish citizen does not directly grant Spanish citizenship, it can significantly expedite the process. According to Spanish law, foreigners may apply for Spanish citizenship after ten years of legal residency in the country. However, if the foreigner is married to a Spanish citizen, the required residency period is reduced to just one year. Despite the expedited process, obtaining Spanish citizenship through marriage still requires a lengthy application process and compliance with various criteria such as language and cultural exams, criminal background check and proof of shared residence with the Spanish spouse. It’s important to note that registering as a civil partnership does not provide the same time-saving advantage for citizenship as compared to a marriage.
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