Morocco Leads Foreign Nationalities Gaining Spanish Citizenship in 2018

According to figures just published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), 25,372 Moroccans obtained Spanish nationality in 2018, far ahead of Bolivians (8,157), Ecuadorians (7,996) and Colombians (6,846). There were 90,828 foreign residents naturalized as Spaniards last year.

The majority of the newly naturalized are children under 10 years old, who represent 86.4% of the "new Spaniards". Among those born abroad, the most frequent country of birth is once again Morocco, with 15,049 acquisitions.

Note that it is the region of Catalonia that granted the most naturalizations with 20,036, followed by Madrid 17,787, while Extremadura only naturalized 686 people and La Rioja only 718.

As for the Spanish enclaves in northern Morocco, they show 187 for Ceuta and 227 for Melilla. On the other hand, the exact breakdown by nationality is unknown, but given the share of Moroccans on site, we can venture without risking being wrong that they are indeed the first.