From no papers to a Spanish passport

Read this first

The immigration regulation was replaced by Real Decreto 1155/2024, in force 20 May 2025, and amended again by Real Decreto 316/2026, in force 16 April 2026. Anything written before those dates may describe rules that no longer exist. The biggest change: the time you must have been in Spain dropped from three years to two.

The five arraigo routes, side by side

Arraigo means roots. It is a temporary residence permit granted for exceptional circumstances, to someone already in Spain, because of the ties they have built here. There are five kinds. They share one set of general conditions and then differ in what else you must show.

These cards are here so you can find the route that looks like your life, and then ask about it by name. It is not an assessment. Whether you qualify depends on facts no web page can see — including facts about your own file at the immigration office. Take the route name to one of the free services listed at the bottom.

The conditions all five share

• You are in Spain when you apply, and you are not an asylum applicant with a case still open.
• You have been in Spain continuously for at least the two years before you apply. Arraigo familiar has no minimum. Time spent waiting on an asylum claim does not count towards the two years.
• No criminal record — in Spain, and in every country you lived in during the five years before you entered Spain — for offences that exist in Spanish law. Both limbs apply, and the five years are counted back from your entry, not back from today. A police report showing something is not, by itself, an automatic refusal: the regulation requires the office to assess case by case whether you are actually a threat.
• You are not a threat to public order, security or public health, and are not flagged as inadmissible by a country Spain has an agreement with.
• You do not currently hold a stay or residence permit, and you are not already a party to another application for one. (Added 16 April 2026.)
• You have paid the fee: €38.28 for any of the five arraigo permits.

The integration report, in Catalonia

Two routes can need it: arraigo social, if you cannot show the family ties, and arraigo socioformativo, always.

Which report you need

Informe d’esforç d’integració social ↗ for arraigo. There is a second one, the informe d’adequació de l’habitatge ↗, used for family reunification, not for arraigo.

Who issues it

The Generalitat: Departament de Drets Socials i Inclusió, through the Direcció General de Migracions i Refugi. Barcelona City Council’s own page still names the wrong department — if you are sent to Igualtat i Feminismes, that is out of date.

Where you apply

In person, preferably at the Ajuntament where you are registered on the padró. In Barcelona that is a citizen-service office (OAC). Any time — there is no window.

What it costs

Nothing. Both reports are free. The housing report used to carry a fee and it was abolished on 18 November 2025, including for applications already in progress on that date — and anyone who was charged it is entitled to be refunded. A council could in principle charge its own separate fee; Barcelona’s pages say nothing either way, so ask before paying anyone anything.

What it assesses

Your effort to integrate: how long you have lived at your habitual address, your means, and your participation in social, work-related and cultural programmes. You must show participation in training on constitutional, statutory and EU values, human rights, democracy, tolerance and equality between women and men — and learning of Catalan and Spanish.

Key document

Proof of two years’ continuous, uninterrupted residence. The Generalitat names the volant d’empadronament històric — your padró history — or other legally valid evidence.

Minimum age

16.

Who is exempt from the training and language part

People who hold ESO, Batxillerat, or a Cicle Formatiu de Grau Mitjà o Superior; people who already obtained a favourable integration report before; and people in a situation of extreme personal vulnerability that prevents them taking part. Nationals of countries where Spanish is an official language do not have to prove Spanish — the Philippines is not one of them.

If the report is unfavourable

You cannot appeal the report on its own — the Generalitat classes it as a procedural act, an acte de tràmit. What you challenge is the immigration office’s final decision on your application.

Proving you were here when you had no papers

This is the practical heart of arraigo. The permit turns on two years of continuous presence, and someone without papers has no residence card to show for it. What you have instead is the padró.

Registering is a legal duty, and it does not depend on your status

Spanish law is explicit: everyone living in Spain is obliged to register on the padrón of the municipality where they habitually live. Not every resident with papers — everyone. The immigration law repeats it from the other side: councils shall enter foreigners with a habitual address in the municipality on the padrón. There is no immigration condition attached to either sentence.

And a padrón certificate is not just a piece of paper the council chooses to give you. The law says padrón data constitute proof of residence in the municipality and of habitual domicile there, and that certificates of that data are public and authoritative documents for all administrative purposes. That is precisely why it works as evidence for arraigo.

Registering on day one is the single most useful thing

The two-year count runs backwards from the day you apply. Whatever you do about papers, the padrón entry you make this month is the evidence you will need in two years. It is also what opens a health card, school places and nursery fees. Nothing else you can do without papers builds as much.

Building the record backwards

If you did not register early, the padrón history will not cover the whole period, and you will be filling gaps. The regulation does not list the evidence that counts, which cuts both ways: nothing is guaranteed, and nothing is excluded. Things people gather, and which an adviser can tell you the weight of:

• Medical records — CAP appointments, hospital visits, prescriptions, vaccination records.
• School enrolment and attendance for children, and nursery records.
• Letters and decisions from any public body addressed to you at a Spanish address.
• Bank records, money-transfer receipts, phone-contract records, transport-card records.
• Course certificates, library membership, association membership.
• Dated, signed reports from a social worker or an NGO that has been seeing you.

A note on being careful: gather originals, keep them in date order, and do not pay anyone who offers to produce documents for you. Fabricated evidence is a criminal-record problem on top of a status problem, and it can void a nationality grant years later.

What arraigo gives you, and renewing it

How long

One year for four of the five routes. Five years for arraigo familiar.

Does it include work

Yes. Every arraigo permit carries the right to work, employed or self-employed, anywhere in Spain and in any occupation — with two exceptions: people below the minimum working age, and arraigo socioformativo, capped at 30 hours a week.

First thing after the grant

Apply in person for the TIE card within one month of being notified.

Renewing

Apply in the two months before the permit expires. Filing in that window keeps the old permit valid until a decision is made.

If you are late

You are still covered if you file within three months after expiry — the old permit stays valid until the decision. But being late is an infringement in its own right and a penalty procedure can be opened. Do not treat the three months as a second deadline.

What renewal asks

For second chance, sociolaboral and social: proof you are actively looking for work and registered with the public employment service. That requirement is waived where something prevents you working — illness, disability, or reaching pension age. For socioformativo: a report from your centre confirming you moved up a year, or the qualification if you finished.

The better move at one year

Rather than renewing arraigo, most people change to a full residence-and-work permit. If you have been resident for at least a year and your permit already allowed work — which arraigo does — that change gives you four years, not one. The fee for the change is €10.94.

The ladder — where the two-year clock starts

One route, from no papers to a Spanish passport, with the point marked where the nationality clock begins. Years spent here without papers count towards arraigo. They do not count towards nationality.

The same route in words

1. No papersRegister on the padró at your council, whatever your status. This is the first day of the record you will need.
2. Two years in Spain, continuouslyThe padrón history is the main proof. Arraigo familiar needs no minimum time.
3. Arraigo permit granted — the clock starts at zeroOne year, with the right to work. Five years for arraigo familiar. Legal residence begins here, and so does the count for nationality.
4. One year later, change to residence and workFour years, rather than renewing arraigo for another one.
5. Two years of legal residenceA Filipino national may apply for Spanish nationality by residence. The residence must be legal, continuous and immediately before the application.
6. Spanish nationalityAfter the Ministry’s decision you have 180 days to swear or promise the oath before the Civil Registry and ask for the entry to be made. Alternatively, at five years of legal residence you can take long-term residence and stay a permanent resident instead.

Nationality after two years

Why two years, and where it is written

Article 22.1 of the Civil Code: nationality by residence normally requires ten years, five for refugees, and two years for nationals by origin of Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea or Portugal, or Sephardic Jews. The Philippines is named in the text. The words that matter are by origin: the two-year rule is for someone who is Filipino by origin, not someone who naturalised as a Filipino.

What “two years” actually requires

Article 22.3: in all cases, the residence must be legal, continuous and immediately prior to the application. Three separate conditions, and each one can fail on its own.

• Legal — held under a valid permit. Time in Spain without papers does not count, however long and however settled.
• Continuous — unbroken. The Civil Code does not define how long an absence can be before it breaks the count, and no regulation fills the gap. Long trips home are the point to ask a lawyer about before you book them, not afterwards.
• Immediately prior — running up to the day you apply. A gap between permits, even a short one, can reset the count.

Two other things the law asks

Article 22.4 requires buena conducta cívica — good civic conduct — and a sufficient degree of integration in Spanish society. Integration is proved by the two Instituto Cervantes exams below. Good civic conduct is assessed on your record; the Interior Ministry must report on it, and the requirement continues to apply right up until the entry is made in the register.

Other routes that need only one year

Some people are on a shorter path than the two-year one and do not know it. Article 22.2 sets one year of legal residence for, among others: a person born in Spanish territory; a person who has been married to a Spaniard for a year and is not separated; the widow or widower of a Spaniard; and a person born outside Spain with a Spanish parent or grandparent. A child born here to Filipino parents is on the one-year rule, not the two-year one. And once a parent becomes Spanish, a child under their parental authority has a right to opción — a different and faster route than residence.

How the application works

Where

Entirely electronic, at the Ministry of Justice. There is a standard form; the file is an electronic expediente. Public offices must make the means available if you have none.

Fee

€100 is the figure set in the statute. Check the exact amount on the payment form before you pay — fees are uprated.

Core documents

The form; your birth certificate from the Philippines, legalised and translated; your passport; proof of the two exams; the fee receipt. Adults must also produce a criminal-record certificate from the country of origin, legalised and translated.

Legal deadline

The Ministry must decide and notify within one year of the file reaching it. If that year passes with no answer, the law treats the application as refused — silence is a no, not a yes. In practice waits are commonly longer than a year; that is what the refusal-by-silence rule exists to let you challenge.

If something is missing

You get a request to fix it. Three months to respond, or you are treated as having withdrawn.

If it is refused

You can lodge a recurso de reposición, and the Civil Code preserves the route to the administrative courts.

After a grant — the deadline that catches people

180 days from the day after you are notified. Within that time you must appear before the Civil Registry, swear or promise loyalty to the King and obedience to the Constitution and the laws, and ask for the entries to be made. Miss it and the grant expires.

The last step

The registrar enters the acquisition within five days of the oath. That entry — not the decision letter — is the moment you are Spanish.

One warning that is worth stating plainly: a final court judgment finding falsehood, concealment or fraud in the acquisition makes it void, and that action can be brought for fifteen years. Do not let anyone submit something on your behalf that you have not read.

The exam trap

The Philippines does appear in one place in the exam-and-oath rules — the paragraph that spares Filipinos from renouncing their Philippine nationality at the oath. That is a different article of a different rule, and it says nothing about exams. Two lists, two articles, opposite answers.

What the two exams are

CCSE

Conocimientos Constitucionales y Socioculturales de España. 25 multiple-choice or true/false questions in 45 minutes; 15 correct to pass. Five tasks, split 60% on government, law and citizen participation and 40% on Spanish culture, history and society. Wrong answers are not penalised, so never leave one blank. You are told only APTO or NO APTO — never your score. Results about 20 days later.

DELE A2

A Spanish-language diploma. All four skills: reading (60 min), listening (40 min), writing (45 min) and speaking (12 min, with 12 minutes’ preparation). The speaking paper may be on the day before or after the others. Marked in two groups — reading + writing, and listening + speaking — and you need 30 out of 50 in each group. A strong group cannot rescue a weak one. Results take about two months.

Cost

CCSE €85. DELE A2 €138. €223 for both. The DELE price is the standard A2 price — there is no cheaper “DELE for nationality”. Both are flat prices worldwide.

When they run, and where in Barcelona

The durable pattern, which is worth learning rather than memorising dates:

• CCSE runs on the last Thursday of every month except August and December — ten sittings a year. Registration normally closes about three weeks before, but not always: one 2026 sitting closed five weeks ahead. Always read the published table, never the pattern.
• DELE A2 runs only five times a year. Registration closes roughly six weeks before. Missing a sitting can mean waiting months, so this is the one to plan around.
• Barcelona has 22 registered CCSE centres and only 11 for DELE A2 — universities, language schools and academies across the city. There is no Instituto Cervantes building in Barcelona; in Spain the exams run through its network of examination centres. Not every centre runs every sitting, so confirm with the centre, and book early for DELE.

As at 9 September 2026: the September CCSE has closed. The next CCSE sittings are 29 October (enrol by 8 October) and 26 November (enrol by 5 November). The October DELE A2 closed on 2 September, so the last DELE A2 of 2026 is Friday 13 November, with enrolment closing 30 September 2026. After that the next A2 is in February 2027. Dates go out of date — check the Instituto Cervantes calendar before relying on this paragraph.

Registration is online and needs a NIE. It can be paid by card or by a Correos prepaid card, which matters if you have no bank account. You have 14 days from registering to ask for a refund.

Preparation is free, and no course is required

The law says so in terms: preparation courses “no serán obligatorios en ningún caso”. Nobody needs to buy a class to sit these exams, and the Instituto Cervantes publishes everything needed at no cost — the CCSE manual, a sample paper, a multilingual glossary, every question in audio, and an official free app.

The free glossary is published in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish and Hebrew. Not Tagalog.

Three ways round the DELE fee

• A DELE you already hold. Any DELE at A2 or above satisfies the requirement, and it never expires — a diploma from decades ago still counts.
• An official Escola Oficial d’Idiomes Spanish certificate at A2 or above. The regulation expressly accepts certificates issued by an education authority or an EOI in place of the DELE, and passing EOI Spanish A2 exempts you from the exam entirely. In Barcelona only one EOI teaches Spanish. Enrolment for the year costs more than the DELE — so this is worth it only if you would take the course anyway, or if you are exempt from the enrolment fee, in which case it is free. Exemption covers, among others: people with a recognised disability of 33% or more, and their spouse and dependent children; households on renda garantida de ciutadania, RMI or RAI; long-term unemployed people on an equivalent subsidy; victims of gender violence; and people under 21 in or leaving care. Prove the exemption before you pay — a claim made afterwards is not refunded.
• Compulsory secondary education completed in Spain. Holding ESO can get you excused from both exams, by application to the Ministry. Barcelona’s free adult schools are where adults obtain that qualification, which makes this the cheapest route of all for a younger applicant.

Things that are not a substitute, however often they are suggested: a SICELE certificate (expressly excluded for nationality), an adult-school Spanish course on its own, a CPNL certificate, and the Servei de Primera Acollida certificate — that one is for immigration procedures, not for nationality.

Who does not have to sit them

The statute exempts people under eighteen and people whose legal capacity has been judicially modified from both exams. For a child, integration is evidenced instead by certificates from their school, residence or care centre — compulsory for a child of school age, and they must state when the child enrolled, whether they attend regularly, their level of Spanish for their school age, and the parents’ involvement in school life. There is no exemption based on age for adults: being over 65 does not remove the exams, whatever anyone tells you.

Beyond that there are real adjustments, and they are free:

• Disability. Up to 33% extra time on each paper, 50% with braille, enlarged papers, a scribe, or adapted access. Request it when you register, or at least two weeks before the exam, with a disability certificate or a signed and stamped medical report. Also covers people in prison, in hospital for more than two months, or in enclosed religious communities.
• If you cannot read or write. Both exams have an adapted version. CCSE is administered orally and recorded; DELE becomes an adapted oral only, and passing it produces a certificate valid for the nationality application, though not a DELE diploma. Both require the Ministry’s dispensation first, and enrolment only at centres registered for the adapted version.
• If you are deaf. With severe or profound hearing loss you are exempt from the DELE altogether — the Instituto Cervantes issues a letter confirming the exam cannot be adapted, which you file with the Ministry. Moderate hearing loss can excuse one paper, listening or speaking, but never two. You still sit CCSE, in a signed version.

Where to learn Spanish in Barcelona, free

Barcelona has 25 adult schools (centres de formació d’adults, CFA/AFA) for people aged 16 and over, in every district. Their courses are free, flexible and accredited, and their curriculum includes iniciació a la llengua castellana at three levels. Enrolment itself is free. These are also where adults study for the ESO qualification that can excuse both exams.

One caveat to be clear about: an adult-school Spanish course is not an EOI certificate and does not exempt anyone from the DELE. Only the EOI’s official A2-or-above certificate does that.

Keeping your Philippine citizenship

The Philippine side is governed by Republic Act 9225, which lets natural-born Filipinos retain or reacquire Philippine citizenship by taking an oath of allegiance at the Consulate. It is a separate procedure from anything Spain does, with its own documents and fee, and its consequences reach passports, land ownership in the Philippines and overseas voting. Take that half of the question to the Philippine Consulate General in Barcelona, which serves Catalonia, Aragón, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and Andorra.

What breaks the chain

Letting a permit lapse

The single commonest way people lose years. Renewal opens two months before expiry. Filing then keeps the old permit alive until a decision. There is a three-month grace period after expiry, but using it is an infringement in itself. A gap between permits attacks the “continuous and immediately prior” condition for nationality, and there is no rule that repairs it.

Long absences from Spain

The rules differ depending on what you are counting towards, and that trips people up.

• For long-term residence at five years, the law is precise: continuity survives absences of up to six months at a time, provided they total no more than ten months across the five years — eighteen months if the absences were for work. Absences caused by properly evidenced force majeure are assessed individually.
• For the two-year nationality count, no such tolerance is written anywhere. The Civil Code says only that residence must be continuous. That silence is the reason to ask before a long trip.
• For the two years before arraigo, the regulation says only continuously and sets no limit either.

A criminal record

For arraigo, a clean record is a stated condition — in Spain, and in countries you lived in during the five years before entering Spain. But a police report showing something is not automatically fatal: the regulation requires a case-by-case assessment of whether you are actually a threat. For nationality, the test is the broader buena conducta cívica, and it must still hold at the moment the entry is made in the register — not only on the day you applied.

Family reunification, briefly

Reagrupación familiar is a parallel route rather than a step on this ladder: it brings a family member to Spain from abroad, rather than regularising someone already here. The sponsor must have lived in Spain for at least a year and have applied to stay for at least another, must show income of 150% of the IPREM for themselves plus one relative and 50% more for each additional person, and must have adequate housing and health cover. A reunified spouse, partner or child may work without any further paperwork. If your question is about bringing someone here rather than about your own status, this is the route to ask about by name.

Documents to start gathering

None of these needs a permit to obtain, and the slow ones are slow because they come from the Philippines. Screenshot this and work down it.

Where to get free help

Everything above describes rules. None of it tells you whether you qualify, and no page can. These services look at your papers and your facts, for nothing.

Nobody can sell you a permit

The police say this themselves. The Mossos d’Esquadra publish a warning leaflet whose central line is: “Desconfia de les persones que ofereixen targetes de residència fora de les entitats oficials de forma ràpida a canvi d’una quantitat de diners.” Be wary of anyone offering residence cards outside official bodies, quickly, for money. The same leaflet adds the thing people most need to hear: “Has de denunciar encara que la teva situació administrativa sigui irregular.” You should report it even if your own status is irregular.

That leaflet is published in Catalan, Spanish, English, Arabic, French, Romanian, Swahili and Chinese. Not Tagalog. It also predates the 2025 regulation and still names a route that no longer exists, so use it for the warning and never for the procedure.

Three things that have actually happened here

• A man was arrested in Barcelona for charging €500 for fake empadronaments. Registering on the padró is free, and the council states it is available regardless of your administrative situation. Nobody should ever be paid for it.
• In September 2025, fifteen people were arrested over fraudulent stable-partnership registrations used for arraigo familiar. The people who bought them did not simply lose their money: unfavourable reports were issued and the authorities sought to extinguish their residence. Buying a document is how you lose the status you were trying to get.
• A job contract bought for cash does not work. What the immigration office checks for arraigo sociolaboral is the employer’s registration with Social Security within one month of the grant — not the piece of paper you were sold.

Related questions

• Where to get help with an immigration question→
• The padrón, and why the date matters→
• NIE and TIE: what is the difference?→
• Philippine Consulate General→