Spain’s Citizenship Surge: Sánchez Era Shatters Naturalization Records

Just in 2024, Spanish nationality was granted to 221,805 people out of 246,751 applications, a 89.92% acceptance rate. Over the past fifteen years, Moroccans are in the lead with 430,994 naturalizations, followed by Ecuadorians (260,188) and Colombians (240,188). But in 2024, Venezuelans took the top spot with 33,021 naturalizations, surpassing Moroccans (29,033), Colombians (27,946) and Ecuadorians (9,925). With an annual average of 187,895 naturalizations per year, the Sánchez government is posting unprecedented figures, according to El Mundo.

According to statistics, Latin American women more easily obtain nationality than men. Among Venezuelans, 19,510 women were naturalized against 13,511 men. The same trend applies to Colombia (16,881 women against 11,065 men), Honduras (10,982 women against 2,933 men) or Nicaragua (4,761 women against 1,524 men). On the other hand, among Moroccans, it is the men who dominate with 15,511 against 13,522 naturalized women.

According to Eurostat, Spain dominates the list of European countries in terms of naturalizations. The Iberian peninsula totaled 243,481 naturalizations, or 22.9% of all nationalities granted in the European Union in 2023, far ahead of Italy (214,000), Germany (200,000), France (97,000) and Sweden (68,000). In 2013, the figures were higher for Spain, reaching 261,295 naturalizations.

This policy of openness to migration by Pedro Sánchez is not unanimous. The opposition parties, the Popular Party (PP) and Vox, are rather calling for a tightening of the conditions for granting nationality, in particular by raising the required language level from A2 to B2. "Nationality is not given, it is earned," the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo (PP), said again this week during an intervention. More than 103,066 applications filed between 2015 and 2024 are still pending a decision, according to the Spanish Ministry of Justice.