Applications for Spanish citizenship through the Grandchildren’s Law are nearing one million as the deadline approaches this month, with experts suggesting the bureaucratic process could take years to finally finish.
With the final deadline fast approaching, almost 900,000 people around the world have already applied for Spanish citizenship through the Grandchildren’s Law.
The scheme for citizenship applications via the Law of Democratic Memory (referred to as La Ley de Nietos or Grandchildren’s Law) has been in force since October 2022 and offers a route for millions around the world who qualify via descendants of Spaniards who fled Spain during the Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship.
October 22nd 2025 is the final deadline for applying for nationality through this route. However, the Spanish consul general in Buenos Aires, José María Ridao Domínguez, has said that the figures are not definitive and may end up being higher because the administrative process could last until 2029.
“The Spanish Ministry of Justice approved a service instruction so that all those who had requested an appointment to submit their documentation before the deadline, but who have not yet been able to do so due to the very high demand, are assured of their right to do so beyond the expiry of the deadline,” Domínguez said.
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According to the latest data from Spain’s Foreign Ministry, 876,321 people have already applied for Spanish citizenship around the world. Of these, 414,652 have already been recognised and of those 237,145 have already registered as Spaniards and received their passports.
A further 423,048 applications are being processed. The countries with the highest number of applications are Argentina, Cuba and Brazil.
The citizenship route proved so popular that the system became bureaucratically backlogged and the application window was extended. In March 2024 the Spanish government extended the deadline to apply for citizenship through the Grandchildren’s Law. It was initially scheduled to be October 2024 but was pushed back to allow for bureaucratic processes to run their course amid the surge in applications.
Argentinians have made the highest number of applications, with 366,579, which represents around 40 percent.
Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, recently highlighted that law has allowed 174,277 descendants of Spanish exiles in Argentina to acquire Spanish nationality. Of these, 174,277 have already been approved and 61,499 are already registered.
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Torres was speaking at an annual ceremony in the gardens of the Spanish Embassy in Argentina at a monument to the Spanish victims of the Argentine dictatorship. According to a statement via La Moncloa, the Minister said of the citizenship scheme: “It was and is about repairing, in part, the consequences of exile for political, social, ideological, ideological, belief or sexual orientation and identity reasons.”
“It was only fair that there should be a law to respond to all those who had to leave Spain due to the arrival of totalitarianism,” he added.
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