Where do I get free legal advice on immigration, arraigo or family reunification?

SAIER, at Carrer de Tarragona 141-147 in Sants-Montjuïc, and it is free, legal advice included. SAIER is the Servei d’Atenció a Immigrants, Emigrants i Refugiats, Barcelona City Council’s own service for migrants, emigrants and refugees, running since 1989 — “aquest servei públic i gratuït”, this public and free service, in the council’s words. It covers legal advice on immigration and international protection, social welcome, and guidance on training and work.

Does this apply to me

Yes, if you live in the city of Barcelona, whatever your immigration status. If you live in L’Hospitalet, Badalona, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Cornellà, Esplugues or another municipality, SAIER will send you to your own town’s service, so check which town your address is in before you book. There is also an interpreting service for people who have been in the country less than two years and cannot yet communicate comfortably in Catalan or Spanish.

What it costs

Free. Including the legal advice. Nobody at SAIER charges you for anything, and both of the estrangeria reports the council issues are free as well.

What to bring

• Your passport or identity document
• Your volant de residència (your proof of being on the padrón, the council’s register of residents)
• Every dated paper showing time spent in Spain: payslips, contracts, course certificates, medical appointment letters, travel tickets
• Any decision or letter from Extranjería, with the envelope and the date

Where to go, and how to book

Book first (where this guide writes “at”, type the at-sign).

Booked appointments are attended by telephone at those hours. Walk-in attention is only for urgent legal or social situations, weekdays from 9.00, first-come with a limited number of tickets each day, so go first thing. The council publishes the walk-in window as both 9.00 to 15.00 and 9.00 to 13.00, so treat the morning as the part that is certain.

How long it takes

The first contact is a short assessment that gives basic guidance and books the specialist appointments you actually need. Waiting times for the specialist slots are not published and vary.

What happens next

You leave with a route. For someone with no papers that route is usually arraigo (arrelament in Catalan, a residence permit based on time spent in Spain). The rules below are the Reglamento de Extranjería, Real Decreto 1155/2024, as amended by Real Decreto 316/2026 with effect from 16 Apr 2026. Take them to SAIER rather than acting on them alone: this is a summary of a law, not advice about your case.

The five arraigo routes

The five routes are named in article 125.1. All last one year, except arraigo familiar, which lasts five years (articles 125.2 and 132.1). All of them allow you to work except socioformatiu, which has its own limit of 30 hours a week (article 131).

What most routes require

• Two years’ continuous stay in Spain before you apply, proved by the padrón (article 126.b).
• You must be in Spain when you apply.
• A passport in force (article 130.1.a); the four months’ validity SAIER advised in Jun 2025 is its advice, not the law, so do not renew a passport in Manila on the strength of it without asking.

The law sets no maximum number of days you may be away, so there is no threshold to measure yourself against: the 90-day figure that circulates in community advice is not in the Reglamento — every “noventa días” in it is a Schengen or return-authorisation rule — and the leaflet it comes from confuses absence from the padrón with absence from Spain. Bring your real dates and dated papers for every gap.

The criminal-record rule, and the exemption that saves money

You must have no criminal record for offences that exist in Spanish law, in Spain and in any country you lived in during the five years before you entered Spain (article 126.d). Read that window carefully: it is the five years before your entry, not the last five years.

The exemption is worth real money:

• If you have been in Spain continuously for the last five years, you do not have to produce a home-country certificate at all.
• If you already proved it in an application within the last five years and have not left Spain since, you do not have to produce it again (article 130.2).

The immigration office pulls your Spanish record itself, and a hit on a police report is not automatically a refusal. Ask SAIER before you pay for an NBI clearance, an apostille and a courier.

A new bar, added in April 2026

You cannot apply for arraigo while you hold a stay or residence permit, or while you are an interested party in a pending application to grant, extend, renew or change one (article 126.h, added by Real Decreto 316/2026). Somebody with an application already in the system who files for arraigo will be refused.

Arraigo sociolaboral

One or more job contracts totalling at least 20 hours a week, paying at least the SMI (salario mínimo interprofesional, the national minimum wage) or the collective-agreement rate in proportion to the hours (article 127.b). The SMI in 2026 is €1,221 a month. One thing here is in your favour and is easy to miss: once an arraigo sociolaboral application is admitted to processing you are provisionally authorised to reside and work as an employee until the decision comes, and the acknowledgement of filing has to say so (article 130.5, as amended).

Arraigo social, and the money test that usually decides it

Two ways in:

• With family ties: ties to another foreign national who holds a residence authorisation, and only a spouse, a registered partner or a first-degree direct-line relative counts — parent or child, not a cousin or an aunt — plus means of at least 100% of the IPREM.
• Without those ties: the social-integration report, now a single report called INF I (older council leaflets say INF I1), and the same means test.

The IPREM is the state’s income reference index, and in 2026 it is €600 a month. It has not moved since 2023, because only a state budget law can change it and the 2023 budget has now been carried over three years running.

Two things the Reglamento does not say, and which are worth knowing before someone tells you otherwise:

• It sets no higher figure for a couple or a family, so the “200% between the two of you” that circulates is not in article 127.c.
• It states the test as a percentage without saying over what period, so ask SAIER how the Barcelona office counts your case.

What it does say is that the money must be available in Spain, and that it may come from the relative you are relying on. For domestic workers and carers this money test, not the language hours, is usually what decides the application, so do not pay for courses before someone has looked at the money side with you.

Where the INF I report comes from

If it is not issued in time you may prove the requirement by any other evidence — worth knowing, because the wait is otherwise a dead end. It is not the integration-effort report, which is used at renewal and comes from the council’s PIA.

Arraigo familiar is narrower than its name

It is only for the parent or guardian of a minor who is a national of an EU, EEA or Swiss state, or for someone supporting a person with a disability who is a national of one of those states (article 127.e). You cannot use it as the family member of a Spanish national. The council’s own FAQ asks that exact question and answers it in one word: no.

Family reunification

Spanish immigration law gives the right to bring family to foreign nationals who are legally resident in Spain, so if you have no permit yet, reunification is not open to you and SAIER will look at your own route first. The decision is the Subdelegació del Govern a Barcelona’s, not the council’s. The council runs a free accompaniment programme, Noves Famílies, with a named contact in each district and separate services for the paperwork, for young people arriving and for women arriving. It will see anyone in Barcelona whatever documents they hold — DNI, NIE (Número de Identidad de Extranjero, the foreigner identification number) or passport — through the district you are registered in.

A second council door

The Punt d’Informació i Arrelament, the PIA, handles questions about arraigo, the integration-effort report and the document de veïnatge.

What goes wrong

• Paying a gestor (a private paid paperwork agent, not a public office) for advice SAIER gives free, and paying before anyone has looked at your dates — which are the first thing a free appointment checks, and the thing most often wrong.
• The Spanish government’s extraordinary regularisation closed on 30 Jun 2026, so anyone still charging you to “apply for the regularisation” is selling a closed process.
• Turning up at Carrer de Tarragona expecting to be seen. Without an appointment you are seen only if your situation is judged urgent, and the daily tickets run out early.

Useful words

Read next

• How do I register on the padrón? Do I need papers? — your dates are the evidence every arraigo route rests on.
• NIE or TIE: which one do I need, and how do I get it?
• What are my rights at work in Spain, and what if I clean or care for someone in their home? — the contract hours and pay that arraigo sociolaboral turns on.

Official source

Barcelona City Council, “Servei d’Atenció a Immigrants, Emigrants i Refugiats (SAIER)”, for the address, phone, booking link and hours. The arraigo rules are the Reglamento de Extranjería, Real Decreto 1155/2024 as amended by Real Decreto 316/2026, at boe.es; the council’s arraigo FAQ, updated Jun 2025, is guidance and predates that amendment.