We are a Spanish law firm. Our lawyers are qualified in Spain and act before the Spanish registries and consulates directly, and they run Spanish citizenship files from the first eligibility check through to the oath and the passport. If you have a claim through a Spanish parent or grandparent, or you are building up residence in Spain towards nationality, this is the work we do.
Before anything else, one correction. If you have been told that the Law of Democratic Memory lets grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Spaniards claim nationality, that is no longer true. The window closed on 22 October 2025 and the Government confirmed there would be no further extension. We still see this route recommended on competitor websites and repeated in AI-generated search summaries almost a year later. Descendants are not out of options, but the options are different ones, and any firm still selling you the Democratic Memory route is working from stale law.
What our Spanish citizenship lawyers actually do
1. We work out which route is yours before you spend anything
Most of the value in a citizenship case is decided in the first conversation, because the five routes in articles 17 to 26 of the Civil Code carry wildly different timelines. Being Spanish by origin under article 17 means registering a nationality you already hold. Option under article 20 is claimed from abroad with no age limit. Article 22.2.f needs a year of legal residence in Spain. The general residence route needs ten. Clients regularly arrive convinced they face the ten year route and turn out to be in one of the first two.
What decides it is your ancestor’s exact status: were they Spanish by origin, were they born in Spain, when did they lose Spanish nationality and how. We establish that first, in writing, and then tell you which route applies. If nothing applies yet, we say so and set out what would have to change.
2. We reconstruct the paper trail
Descent cases are won and lost on documents. You need an unbroken chain of birth, marriage and death records linking you to your Spanish ancestor, and records from before the civil war are often held in parish archives rather than the Civil Registry, sometimes in provinces the family stopped talking about two generations ago. Our team does that research in Spain, requests the certificates from the registries that hold them, and deals with the gaps and the misspelled surnames that turn up in nearly every file.
3. We prepare and legalise the documents
Every foreign document in the file has to be apostilled and translated by a sworn translator registered with the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A translation from an ordinary agency is rejected. We arrange the sworn translations and the legalisations in-house as part of the file. On a residence application the list we work through typically includes:
- Your passport and your Spanish residence card.
- Criminal record certificates from Spain and from the United States, apostilled.
- Your birth certificate, apostilled and sworn translated.
- Current and historical padrón certificates, which are what prove continuity of residence.
- Marriage, divorce and death certificates where they bear on the application.
- DELE A2 and CCSE results, or the authorisation that lets the Ministry verify them directly with the Instituto Cervantes.
A descent claim filed at the consulate is a shorter and different list, because there is no residence card, no padrón and no Spanish criminal record certificate in it:
- Your birth certificate and your ancestor’s Spanish civil registry records.
- The marriage, divorce and death certificates that complete the chain between you and that ancestor.
4. We file it and we chase it
We file electronically with the Ministry of Justice, which starts the clock cleanly and avoids registry appointment queues. For applications based on residence, Royal Decree 1004/2015 gives the administration one year from entry at the competent body to decide and notify, and if that year passes with no express decision the application is deemed refused by administrative silence. That is a procedural position, not a verdict on your case, and it is often the moment a stalled file becomes actionable. We monitor the deadline, we act on it when it passes, and we take the matter to the administrative courts where that is the right call.
5. We get you to the oath
Grants by residence and by carta de naturaleza lapse if you do not appear within one hundred and eighty days of notification to complete the requirements in article 23 (article 21.4): the oath or promise of loyalty to the King and obedience to the Constitution, the renunciation declaration where it applies, and registration in the Civil Registry. Claims by origin and by option are registrations rather than grants, so that clock does not run on them. We book the appointment, prepare you for it, and confirm the registration, because until that entry exists the nationality does not.
Why a Spanish firm rather than a US immigration attorney
There is a real market in the United States of firms that market Spanish citizenship by descent and then subcontract the Spanish work. Sometimes that is disclosed and sometimes it is not. The practical problems it creates are consistent.
- Nobody in the room is admitted in Spain. Spanish nationality is decided by Spanish registries applying the Spanish Civil Code. A firm that cannot appear before them is coordinating your case, not conducting it.
- The law moves and the marketing does not. The Democratic Memory window closed in October 2025 and pages selling it are still live. So are pages still offering the Golden Visa, which was repealed in April 2025. Firms working from Spain notice these changes because their files stop moving.
- Registry practice is local. What a particular Civil Registry accepts as proof of a 1930s birth is not written in any statute. It is knowledge you get from filing there.
- Genealogy firms are not law firms. Several of the best-known operators in this niche are ancestry researchers with legal support attached. Research matters, but the file is a legal file.
We are on the other side of that. Our lawyers are qualified in Spain and act before the Spanish registries and consulates directly, and when a case touches something outside immigration law, such as the tax position you will have once you are resident, we bring in our own tax advisers rather than telling you to go and find one.
Spanish citizenship by descent: what we can still do for you
This is the largest part of our citizenship practice and the part most affected by the October 2025 closure, so here is the honest position on each situation. The legal detail behind each row, with the articles and the documents, is in our guide to Spanish citizenship by descent.
| Your situation | Where you stand now |
|---|---|
| A parent was Spanish when you were born | You are already Spanish under article 17. We register it at the consulate. No residence, no exams, no renunciation. |
| A parent was originally Spanish and born in Spain | Option under article 20.1.b, claimed from abroad, no age limit, no need to move to Spain. |
| A grandparent was originally Spanish | The Democratic Memory route is closed. Article 22.2.f still applies: one year of legal residence in Spain, then apply. We plan the visa and the year with you. |
| You filed under Democratic Memory before the deadline | Your file stands. The 25 October 2022 instruction confirms a declaration lodged in time can still be authenticated after the window closed. We take over stalled files and answer the registry’s requests for missing evidence, which carry a thirty calendar day deadline, and we appeal a refusal to the Directorate General. |
| Your ancestor lost Spanish nationality | Recovery under article 26 may be open to them, which can change your position entirely. We check this first. |
| No Spanish ancestry | The residence route. Ten years as a rule, one year if you marry a Spaniard. We handle the visa and the renewals so the clock never resets. |
If you want the underlying rules in full, our guide to Spanish citizenship sets out all five routes, the qualifying periods and the dual nationality position with the article references.
The dual nationality conversation we have with every American
Spain does not have a dual nationality agreement with the United States. Article 23.b of the Civil Code exempts nationals of Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea and Portugal, plus Sephardim originating from Spain, from the requirement to renounce their previous nationality. Americans are not on that list, so an American acquiring Spanish nationality by option, by carta de naturaleza or by residence does have to make that declaration before the Spanish Civil Registry.
One exemption does exist outside the Civil Code, and we correct this one constantly. The instruction of 25 October 2022 from the Directorate General for Legal Certainty and Public Attestation lifted the renunciation requirement for the Democratic Memory option under the eighth additional provision of Law 20/2022, and the same instruction lists that as one of the differences between that route and the ordinary option in article 20.1.b, which does require the declaration. The window closed on 22 October 2025, so the exemption now only reaches files lodged inside it. On a claim filed today through a parent who was originally Spanish and born in Spain, you take the oath, you make the renunciation declaration and you register.
Under United States law, nationality is lost only by voluntarily performing one of the acts in 8 U.S.C. 1481 with the intention of relinquishing it, and a formal renunciation must be made before a United States consular officer abroad in the prescribed form. A declaration to a Spanish registrar is not that act. The oath of allegiance you take in Spain does appear in the same statute, at 1481(a)(2), which lists taking an oath or making a formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state among the potentially expatriating acts, and that is why the intention requirement is decisive and why we go through it with you before you swear rather than after.
The exposure that does exist runs the other way. Article 25.1.a provides that Spaniards who are not Spanish by origin lose Spanish nationality if for three years they use exclusively the nationality they declared they were renouncing. That is a live planning issue for anyone who naturalises and then continues to live entirely as a United States citizen, and it is one of the first things we go through with clients on the residence route. If you are already Spanish by origin there is no acquisition at all and article 25.1.a does not reach you. Option under article 20.1.b is the opposite case: what you acquire is not nationality de origen, so the same three year rule applies to you, and it is one of the first things we plan for. Establishing your route first is what tells you which of the two you are in.
Working with us
Everything is handled in English by lawyers who work in Spanish. You do not need to travel to Spain to start, and for most descent claims you do not need to travel at all until the oath. We tell you at the outset whether you have a case, which route it runs through, and what the file will involve, and we do not open a file we do not think will succeed.
Book a consultation and tell us what you know about your Spanish ancestor, even if it is only a name and a province. That is usually enough for us to tell you which of the five routes you are on.
How much does it cost to hire a lawyer for citizenship?
It depends on the route, because the work involved is not comparable. Registering a nationality you already hold under article 17 is a short file. A descent claim that needs archive research in Spain, certificates from several registries, apostilles and sworn translations is a much longer one, and a residence application that has to be pursued after administrative silence is longer still. We quote a fixed fee for your case once we have established which route applies, so you know the figure before you commit. Government and third party costs such as the application fee, the Instituto Cervantes exams, apostilles and sworn translations are separate and we set them out for you in the same document.
How much does it cost to get a Spanish citizenship?
Beyond legal fees there is a set of official costs you pay regardless of who handles your file: the Ministry of Justice application fee for nationality by residence, the Instituto Cervantes fees for the DELE A2 and CCSE exams, apostilles on your foreign documents, sworn translations of each of them, and the fees charged by the registries that issue your certificates. These are set by the bodies that charge them and change from year to year, so we give you the current figures for your specific document list at the outset rather than a headline number that will be wrong by the time you file.
What is the fastest way to get Spanish citizenship?
The fastest cases are the ones where you do not need to acquire anything. If a parent was Spanish when you were born you are already Spanish under article 17 and the work is registration at the consulate. Option under article 20.1.b, where a parent was originally Spanish and born in Spain, is next and is claimed from abroad with no age limit. Among routes that require living in Spain, article 22.2 sets the shortest period at one year, which covers people born in Spain, people married to a Spaniard for a year, and people with a parent or grandparent who was originally Spanish. The single biggest cause of delay we see is people starting on a slower route because nobody checked whether a faster one applied.
Can a US citizen get Spanish citizenship?
Yes, and we do this for American clients regularly. There is no restriction on United States citizens acquiring Spanish nationality. What differs is that Spain has no dual nationality agreement with the United States, so article 23.b requires an American acquiring nationality by option, carta de naturaleza or residence to declare renunciation of their prior nationality before the Spanish Civil Registry, and that includes the option route under article 20.1.b. Americans who are Spanish by origin through a Spanish parent register a nationality they already hold and are in a different position, because there is no acquisition and no declaration. We walk you through the consequences on both sides before you file, not after.
Can you still help if I missed the Democratic Memory deadline?
Yes, and it is a large part of what we do now. The window closed on 22 October 2025, but article 22.2.f of the Civil Code still gives anyone born outside Spain to a parent or grandparent who was originally Spanish the right to apply after one year of legal residence in Spain, instead of the usual ten. We plan the visa, the year of residence and the application together as one route. If your ancestor lost Spanish nationality rather than never holding it, recovery under article 26 may also be open to them, which can change your position entirely.
Do I need to travel to Spain?
For most descent claims, not until the end. Option under article 20 is claimed at the Spanish consulate covering where you live, and the research and document preparation happen in Spain without you. Routes based on residence obviously require you to be living in Spain, and any grant of nationality ends with an appearance to swear the oath and register it, which has to be done in person. We tell you at the start exactly which appointments require you and when.