Madrid.- Spain granted citizenship by residency to 221,805 foreign nationals in 2024 (of which 8,012 were Dominican), a figure 8.9% lower than that of 2023 (243,481), but which is the third highest in the historical series, which began in 2009.
Data from the Permanent Observatory of Immigration (OPI) of the Spanish Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration confirms an upward trend in the granting of Spanish nationality, which reached its highest point last year, thanks to a technological improvement in the review of files.
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The largest figure reached since records began corresponds to 2013, when Spain recognized the legal link with the country for 261,295 people.
Venezuelan woman, 34 years old, the profile of the naturalized
57% of the nationality concessions by residence in 2024 corresponded to women and the average age of foreign people who obtained nationality by residence in 2024 is 34 years old.
By origin, most people are Ibero-Americans, a region to which almost all the countries among the 15 with the most naturalizations in 2024 belong, with Venezuela (33,021) at the head. The only exceptions are Morocco (29,033), in second place, and Romania, in number 12.
In third place is Colombia (27,946), followed by Honduras (13,915), Peru (10,799), Ecuador (9,925), Argentina (9,165), Dominican Republic (8,012) and Cuba (7,806).
The vast majority of people (61%) have obtained nationality after two years of regular residency in Spain, as is the case for Latin Americans, and 24% have achieved it after a reduced period of one year, such as those born in Spain (32,572), those married to a Spaniard (20,185) or the children or grandchildren of a person with original nationality (637).
13% have achieved it after 10 years of regular residency in Spain (99% of them, Moroccans) and only 17 people through the asylum residency mechanism, which requires a period of five years.
In addition to acquisition by residency, Spanish nationality can also be acquired by origin, by letter of naturalization, by option, or by possession of status, but no official statistics record the total.