Spain’s immigration landscape is changing at a historic pace in 2026. If you’ve been searching for the latest news on immigration in Spain (whether about the mass regularization process, new border controls, or updates to residence permits) you’re in the right place.
In this article, we cover all the major developments happening right now, including the extraordinary regularization that opened on April 16, the fully operational EU Entry/Exit System (EES), and the sweeping changes introduced by Spain’s latest immigration regulation reform.
Use the table of contents below to jump directly to what matters most to you.
All changes, updates and new immigration regulations for foreigners in Spain here!
Spain Immigration 2026: What’s Happening Right Now
Spain is at the center of Europe’s immigration debate in 2026, and for good reason. Three major developments are reshaping how foreign nationals live, work, and enter the country:
- The 2026 Extraordinary Regularization is now open. Approved on April 14 by the Council of Ministers and published in the BOE on April 15, Royal Decree 316/2026 opened the application window on April 16 (online) and April 20 (in person). Undocumented migrants who were in Spain before December 31, 2025 have until June 30, 2026 to apply. In just the first three days, over 42,000 people had already submitted applications online. Read the full guide to the 2026 regularization here
- The EU Entry/Exit System (EES) is fully operational. Since April 10, 2026, all non-EU travelers crossing any Schengen border (of course including Spain) are registered biometrically, which means that Passport stamps are gone. The 90-day overstay rule is now digitally enforced with no exceptions. Learn how EES affects you here
- Spain’s new immigration regulation is in force. In effect since May 2025, the reform created new arraigo categories, improved the student visa, and simplified family reunification. You can find all details and exact measures below.
- The Spanish Golden Visa is gone permanently. Spain’s investor residency program officially closed on April 3, 2025. Buying property in Spain no longer grants residency rights, regardless of the amount invested. Existing holders retain full renewal rights, but no new applications are accepted. The main alternatives now are the Non-Lucrative Visa and the Digital Nomad Visa, both fully active in 2026.
- Non-Lucrative Visa: updated financial thresholds for 2026. The income thresholds have been updated for 2026: €2,400/month for the main applicant, plus €600/month per dependent, tied to the updated IPREM index. Factor this in from the start if you’re considering this route. You can access the rest of the NLV requirements here.
2026 Mass Regularization in Spain: The Process Is Now Open
Spain’s extraordinary regularization is no longer a proposal: it is law. Royal Decree 316/2026 was approved by the Council of Ministers on April 14, 2026, published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE) on April 15, and the application window opened on April 16, 2026 (online) and April 20 (in person at post offices).
The deadline to submit your application is June 30, 2026, and there will be no extensions for this date, so you must hurry up to prepare and submit your application now.
Who can apply?
Foreign nationals who can prove they were in Spain before December 31, 2025, with at least five months of continuous stay, and who have no criminal record. The measure covers people in an irregular administrative situation, asylum seekers, minor children, and certain family members.
What rights do you get from day one?
From the moment your application is admitted for processing (not after approval), you receive: provisional work authorization, access to public healthcare, and suspension of any pending expulsion procedure.
What permit will you receive if approved?
An initial one-year residence and work authorization (designed as a bridge to ordinary immigration routes). Time under this permit counts toward long-term residency and Spanish nationality requirements.
The government estimates around 500,000 people will ultimately qualify, with some analyses suggesting the figure could be higher.
EU Entry/Exit System (EES): Spain’s Borders Have Changed
If you travel to Spain or any Schengen country as a non-EU national, the border experience has fundamentally changed since April 10, 2026.
The EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) is now fully operational across all 29 Schengen countries, replacing physical passport stamps with a digital biometric record. Every time you cross a Schengen border, your facial image, fingerprints, and travel document data are registered electronically.
What this means for immigration compliance: The 90-day rule is now digitally enforced. There is no longer any way to reset the clock by renewing a passport or crossing borders informally. All entry and exit records, including refusals of entry, are stored permanently in the EU’s central database. Since operations began in October 2025, over 45 million crossings have been registered, and more than 24,000 people have been refused entry.
The linked ETIAS travel authorization (required for visa-exempt travelers) has been delayed and is expected to launch in the last quarter of 2026, with mandatory enforcement unlikely before early 2027.
No ETIAS is required for travel to Spain in 2026.
Spain’s New Immigration Law 2026
The different reforms in the immigration regulations that we have had in recent years have undoubtedly been highly positive.
New advantages, new procedures, and greater opportunities to move to Spanish territory.
For example, we can look back 3 years ago, when there was also a reform in immigration regulations.
This led to improvements in arraigo procedures, student visa, and work permit. For example, the introduction of a new arraigo option, more working hours for foreign students, and an easier work permit modification process.
Despite the improvements brought about by it, there are still many unaddressed issues from the 2022 reform. The new 2024 reform aims to tie the loose ends together and make a simpler, more concrete foundation for immigration in Spain.
Below, we will see exactly what this year’s changes imply in terms of migration.
But before that, we must clarify an important point.
The new reform will affect the immigration regulations, not the immigration law.
Therefore, what is being modified is not the law itself, but rather the immigration rules or guidelines that develop the principles of immigration law. However, the changes will be noticeable and will undoubtedly affect how many foreigners settle in Spain.
The two main objectives of this reform
The Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration has set two main goals with this immigration update:
- The first is to further improve, increase, and protect the rights of foreigners in the country
- Th e second is to simplify and make the entire immigration process more efficient by reducing unnecessary processes.
Let’s look at them in more detail.
Simplifying Procedures
Currently, there are many Spanish residence permits to choose from.
Some of these have very similar requirements or processes, resulting in overlaps, redundancies, and inefficiencies.
This leads to longer waiting periods and more difficulty obtaining one’s residence permit. Thus, authorities worked on the simplification and reduction of the types of residence authorizations to make things easier for everyone.
This reform intends to create better ways or options to move to Spain with ease and to make the requirements more flexible so that fewer people fall into irregular situations.
This is in line with the European Directive for the creation of a single permit, which aims to unify the process of obtaining residence permits by eliminating bureaucratic obstacles and redundancies.
Protecting the rights of foreigners
With this reform, not only is the situation of foreigners in Spain improved, but it also modifies the different rules that regulate long-term residence.
How?
Improving the rights of long-term residents and their families. And that is something that see, for example, with the new card for family members of Spaniards (which we now take a closer look at).
When will the new immigration regulations enter into force?
The new immigration regulation entered into force on May 20, 2025. All the changes described below — new arraigo categories, student visa updates, family reunification improvements — have been in effect since that date.
Building on this foundation, the Spanish government went further in April 2026 with the extraordinary regularization Royal Decree (316/2026), which added a new temporary route for undocumented migrants on top of the existing framework. You can access the official BOE text here.
All the changes in the latest immigration update
Below, we analyze one by one, all the major changes that the regulation will undergo once this immigration update comes into force:
Creation of the sociolabor arraigo
The first big news is the creation of a new type of “arraigo”, the socio-labor one.
This arraigo meets the same conditions as the traditional social arraigo, with the difference that it reduces the number of years required in an irregular situation from 3 to 2.
The main requirement will be to have one (or several) employment contracts, which must pay at least the Minimum Interprofessional Wage.
The main advantage?
The dreaded social integration report is not required (as in the case of social arraigo), something that makes the procedure much more flexible.
But there is a disadvantage.
To apply for this labor social arraigo, we can only do so in those cases in which there is a job offer with a company in between.
This means that if we want to submit the application through our own economic means or to start working as a freelancer, we will have to continue using the traditional figure of social arraigo.
However, for foreigners in an irregular situation who have been in the country for 2 years and have not been able to find a job offer, we will have a solution. The new “arraigo socioformativo”.
Student visa changes
With the aim of training and retaining foreign talent in Spain through education, as a means to improve their employability, the student visa will undergo major changes.
First of all, people who come to Spain to study higher education will not have to renew their stay for studies every year (as was the case until now). The authorization will directly cover the total duration of their studies.
Although this is a great novelty, as it makes this procedure much more flexible, it will still be necessary to communicate to the Immigration Office that the initial requirements are maintained every year. This can be done through the official enrollment document of the course.
If we continue talking about the renewal of this visa, we also find that language courses (and volunteering periods) can only be renewed for one more year.
But that’s not all: another big change comes from the application and waiting period.
Once this reform comes into force, it will be understood that if after one month of applying for this visa, no response is received, the application will be deemed accepted by positive administrative silence.
Another area wherein we find differences is related to family members.
Applications by family members to accompany the student will be accepted in the country’s Spanish consulate and from in Spain. Additionally, children born to students will automatically acquire the stay authorization for students’ family members.
Finally, this new student visa improves the possibility of obtaining a work permit at the end of the studies.
How can this be done?
Through the implementation of a fast-track system, they can work from the very beginning.
That is, students will be allowed to continue working as employees or self-employed if they already have a contract or were registered as self-employed individuals. And if they are not, they will acquire temporary authorization so that they can continue to work until they receive the work permit resolution.
This means that, in all cases, students will not need to worry about stopping work and earning once they complete their studies and wait for a positive resolution.
Additionally, if the studies were less than one year, students who apply for a work permit will be given one for one year. However, if the studies were more than one year, the work permit would be for four years.
Arraigo para la formación becomes arraigo socioformativo
Its name is not the only thing changing.
After an introduction in the Spanish Immigration Law that has not fulfilled its objectives, the “arraigo para la formación” residency will now be transformed into “arraigo socioformativo” with great novelties (and advantages).
The essence of this authorization remains the same: to obtain authorization to start professional training in Spain as long as the foreigner has been in an irregular situation for 2 years.
But there are important differences.
With this new type of arraigo, you will be able to work up to 30 hours per week.
The range of possible courses is extended, now allowing training courses that are up to 50% online, and level 1 of vocational training is added to levels 2 and 3.
In addition, foreigners who are not only committed to enrolling in a course, but also those who are already enrolled, or even those who have already started the course, will be able to apply.
And, as if that were not enough, it may also be extended for a second year if the foreigner proves that he/she is actively seeking employment or if there are previous employment relationships (in addition to the previous reasons: having failed the course or enrolling in a course that is equal to two years).
And while this is all good news, the arraigo socioformativo brings with it an important disadvantage. It introduces the requirement to submit the social integration report, which can make the process much more tedious.
New residence card for family members of Spanish citizens
Another of the great updates has to do with the way in which the family members of Spanish citizens will be able to obtain their residence permits.
The process (previously divided into family arraigo and the family member of an EU citizen card) is unified into a single one with a new residence authorization, also for 5 years, for all these cases.
A huge advantage of this new residence permit is that the number of relatives who can benefit from this authorization is increased.
In addition, the age limits for which it is necessary to prove dependency have changed: 26 years for descendants, and 80 years for ascendants.
But that is not all.
This permit comes with two other great advantages.
One of them is that foreigners who obtain it will be entitled, in turn, to family reunification.
And on the other hand, at the very moment you submit the application, you will acquire the right to work on a temporary basis. That is to say, you will not have to wait the 3, 4, 5, or even 6 months that your resolution could take to start working.
Finally, thanks to this card, the way of accrediting the economic requirements will improve, making it easier to accredit the availability of resources to host the relative (the applicant). How? By including more criteria and accepted possibilities, such as having a stable patrimony.
New second chance arraigo
Many asylum seekers suffered from the changes that took place a few weeks ago, which prevented them from applying for arraigo laboral.
The reform of the Immigration Regulation brings with it a solution: the second chance arraigo (“arraigo de segunda oportunidad“).
Who will be able to apply for it?
All those foreigners who have been living in Spain for 2 years and have been contributing to Social Security with their work authorization as asylum seekers for at least 6 months (full-time or at least 30 hours per week).
In addition, all those foreigners who have been working for at least 6 months (with a different authorization than social arraigo), and who then entered into an irregular situation (and not because they have a criminal or police record) may also apply for it.
Although this minimum of 6 months will be the general case, it will also be possible to obtain this authorization by accrediting:
- 6 months of work with a working day of 20 hours per week if they have fewer dependents
- 9 months of work with a working week that, on average, has involved more than 20 hours, but less than 30 hours
- 1 year with a working week averaging more than 15 hours, but less than 20 hours per week
And, if we are talking about self-employment, this must have been for at least 6 months.
Modifications to the work permit
The work permit, one of the most sought-after paths by foreigners worldwide, is also undergoing important changes.
These improvements are linked to the protection of workers’ rights. Among them being the favoring of collective hiring.
In this sense, the creation of a visa for the search for employment (job-seeking visa) is foreseen, which could be requested from the country of origin with the foreigner will be able to come to Spain and, during 6 months, look for work to then move to a regular work permit.
Who will be able to benefit from this visa?
The children and grandchildren of Spaniards of origin.
In addition, the rest of the foreigners who meet certain occupations and fields that require workers (think of the shortage list and the hard-to-fill positions, which are adjusted according to the autonomous communities).
This catalog of difficult-to-fill positions will be regulated and adapted by Autonomous Communities (and not by provinces) to try to reflect and update the reality of the needs of workers in the Spanish territory.
Book a consultation with one of our lawyers and we’ll answer all your questions:
Related content of interest:
- Wealth tax in Spain
- Taxes in Spain for expats
- Residence visa for family reunification
- Types of arraigo in Spain
At Balcells Group we have been foreigners effortlessly moving to Spain for over 11 years. We help expats from all around the world with their immigration, business, tax and legal needs; ensuring a legally safe and enjoyable transition to the Spanish territory. Our multilingual team understands the importance of adapting to the cultural and legal specificities of our international clients. We offer a comprehensive service that combines the expertise of several generations of lawyers with the innovation needed to address today’s legal challenges, always striving to simplify processes and ensure reliable, effective results.
