A total of 242,342 foreigners obtained Spanish nationality by residence in 2023, a figure that doubles that registered the previous year and which has considerably reduced the pool of applications pending study, although there are still more than 200,000.
The data, collected by the Ministry of Justice, shows the impact of the shock plans put in place by this department in the face of the backlog of hundreds of thousands of petitions awaiting processing.
In six years, since 2018, 875,757 people have obtained Spanish nationality by residence, which can be obtained after more than ten years of legal and continuous residence, although in the case of refugees five years is enough and for those originating from countries Ibero-Americans and others historically close to Spain are only required to have two years.
2023 was a particularly active year in the processing of this type of files: 256,817 requests were resolved, the highest number in recent years, and 94% of them positively, in line with previous years.
But the influx of requests does not stop and in 2023 the highest number in recent years was also recorded: 194,753. The year thus ended with 218,237 pending files, some of them presented eight years ago. Special route for Sephardim
Apart from residence, in Spain you can also obtain nationality by letter of nature, a discretionary decision of the Government that benefited 785 people in 2023.
Also by origin, if the father or mother is Spanish or born in Spain; for possession of state, if Spanish nationality has been used for ten years in good faith; and by option, for those who have been subject to the parental authority of a Spaniard or the father or mother had been Spanish and born in Spain.
In 2015, a special route was approved so that the descendants of the Jews expelled from Spain in the 15th century could apply for nationality, who could apply for it without ever having resided in Spain and without having to renounce their original one.
According to the balance sheet of the Ministry of Justice, more than 241,887 petitions have been registered and 78,889 have been resolved, almost 72,000 in the affirmative.
By country, the largest group of beneficiaries comes from Mexico (23,571), followed by Colombia (18,343), Venezuela (9,129), Argentina (5,137), Israel (3,935), United States (2,322), Panama (2,053), Ecuador (1,217), Brazil (1,099) and Turkey (1,014).
