Arraigo: residence permits for people already living in Spain
If you have been living in Spain without a residence permit, arraigo is the ordinary route to regularise your situation. Since the 2025 Regulation there are five kinds, and choosing the right one depends on how long you have been here, what you can prove and what you want to do next.
The five routes
Social arraigo: two years in Spain plus proof of integration or family ties with legal residents; one-year permit with the right to work. Employment arraigo (sociolaboral): two years plus a genuine job offer of at least twenty hours a week. Training arraigo (socioformativo): two years plus enrolment in recognised training; you can work while you study. Family arraigo: no minimum time; for parents of Spanish minors and certain other family situations; five-year permit. Second-chance arraigo: for people who held a residence permit in recent years and lost it, so they do not have to start from zero.
What we check first
Proof of continuous presence in Spain (town-hall registration and other dated documents), criminal record certificates from your country, which must be requested early and apostilled, and the strength of the job offer or the training enrolment. Applying with an incomplete file leads to a request for documents and, if it is not answered, to the file being archived.
If your extraordinary regularisation was refused
Spain's 2026 extraordinary regularisation closed on 30 June 2026 and refusals are now being issued. Depending on the reason, an arraigo application under the ordinary Regulation may be a better option than an appeal. We decide this with the refusal in front of us and before the appeal deadline runs out.