Spain Launches Digital Tool to Accelerate Citizenship Applications

Spain has found a way to automate procedures to streamline the process of obtaining nationality. "This is excellent news," said Spanish Justice Minister Pilar Llop to EFE, stressing that the state has a duty to diligently process these hundreds of thousands of nationality applications.

The digitalization of certain procedures for the processing of nationality is not new. It just so happens that in 2021, failures had been recorded in the computer system used to make appointments in almost all the autonomous communities, leaving applicants for nationality with no possibility of requesting an appointment. The Ministry of Justice also announced the upcoming implementation of an emergency plan over nine months. During this period, ministry officials will work overtime to accelerate the process.

According to data from the National Institute of Statistics, 144,012 foreigners residing in Spain acquired Spanish nationality in 2021, including in particular Moroccans (about 42,000), Colombians, Ecuadorians and Bolivians (about 8,300 each), Dominicans and Venezuelans (more than 6,000 each), Cubans (about 5,000) and Peruvians (more than 4,000).