Spanish Citizenship by Descent for Americans: Parents and Grandparents

Spanish citizenship by descent is still open to many Americans with a Spanish parent or grandparent, but new applicants now go through the Civil Code. The Democratic Memory Law of 2022, Ley de Memoria Democrática, stopped taking new appointment requests on October 22, 2025. Under the Code, a child of a Spanish parent is Spanish from birth and needs the birth recorded. A child of a Spain-born, originally Spanish parent can opt at any age, and a grandchild can apply after 1 year of legal residence in Spain. This article is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice; verify current requirements with the relevant Spanish authority or a licensed professional.

What can cost you Spanish nationality by descent?

Five routes remain open in 2026, and five traps lie in your family’s dates and your own age.

• A parent who naturalized first. You are Spanish of origin, español de origen, a status the Constitution protects from deprivation, only if your parent was still Spanish at your birth; if not, you fall back on the option, when that parent was born in Spain, or on the 1-year route.
• The clock after 18. Dual since childhood and living abroad, you have 3 years from 18 to declare that you keep Spanish nationality (Washington, Civil Code, article 24).
• The renunciation. The option and the residence route make anyone 14 or older declare the renunciation of their previous nationality, and the United States is not exempt (Civil Code, article 23, Washington).
• A Spanish mother before August 19, 1982. Before Law 51/1982, a child of a Spanish mother and a foreign father was Spanish only in some cases, set out below.
• A student year. A student holds a stay, estancia, not the legal residence the grandchild’s 1-year route needs.

The descent routes side by side

A Spanish parent: record the birth, then keep the nationality

A child of a Spanish father or mother is Spanish of origin wherever born, under article 17.1.a. The consulate for the place of birth records a U.S. birth in the Spanish Civil Registry for free, and an adult can register their own birth by signing the declaration before a U.S. notary (Washington). Washington takes files by mail, with the state’s long-form birth certificate, not the hospital’s, and the Spanish parent’s literal birth certificate, the certificado literal or full copy of the Spanish birth entry. Other consulates differ:

• New York wants the parent in its Registro de Matrícula, the register of resident Spaniards, and takes about 10 to 12 weeks, as a guide only.
• Boston also wants the parent registered.
• Chicago works only by mail.
• San Francisco needs no appointment.

No official page read sets a deadline; the practical limit is the declaration due by 21.

A parent who became a U.S. citizen before your birth

If your Spanish parent naturalized in the United States, Washington wants the parent’s Spanish birth certificate with a note that they kept Spanish nationality, or the U.S. naturalization certificate. The loss rules depend on the date:

• From August 5, 1954: loss by voluntarily acquiring another nationality, at 21 or at 18 if emancipated, after 3 years abroad (1954 law).
• From August 19, 1982: the same loss, except for someone who showed the registry that the new nationality came from emigration (Law 51/1982).
• From January 7, 1991: loss 3 years after voluntarily acquiring another nationality while living abroad (Law 18/1990).
• Since January 9, 2003: the same 3 years, unless the person declares within them that they want to stay Spanish (article 24.1).

Born before August 19, 1982 to a Spanish mother

The 1954 wording made a child of a Spanish mother and a foreign father Spanish only if the child did not follow the father’s nationality, and the 1983 instruction says the 1982 change is not retroactive. No official page applies that test to a child born a U.S. citizen. Today, any originally Spanish mother gives you the 1-year route, and one born in Spain also the article 20.1.b option.

Dual since childhood: the declaration by 21

Two rules of article 24 start a clock at 18 for a Spaniard living abroad who has held U.S. nationality since childhood.

• Article 24.3: if your Spanish parent was also born abroad and the country where you live gives you its nationality, you must declare before the Civil Registry, within 3 years of turning 18 or of emancipation, that you keep Spanish nationality. This reaches those who came of age after January 9, 2003 (Law 36/2002).
• Article 24.1: even with a Spain-born parent, you lose Spanish nationality by using only the foreign one for the 3 years after 18 or emancipation. This loss dates from 1991, and the declaration that avoids it from January 9, 2003.

Washington lists both cases and takes the declaration in person, for free, by appointment requested by email. Like Chicago, it also accepts tacit conservation: an act as a Spaniard within the period, which the consulate assesses case by case.

Recovering nationality you lost

Under article 26, anyone who lost Spanish nationality can recover it through legal residence in Spain, a declaration before the Civil Registry and registration; emigrants and their children are spared the residence condition and can apply from abroad (Washington). The Justice Ministry requires Government authorization only for Spaniards not of origin who lost it under article 25. No official page read says whether a loss under article 24.3 makes you a child of emigrants.

The option: a Spain-born parent or a Spaniard’s parental authority

Article 20.1 gives a right of option, opción, a declaration that makes you Spanish, to two groups:

• people who are or were under the patria potestad, the parental authority, of a Spaniard, such as the minor child of a parent who became Spanish, until age 20 or 2 years after a late emancipation;
• people whose father or mother was originally Spanish and born in Spain, at any age since Law 36/2002.

A legal representative declares for a child under 14, a child from 14 declares with that help, and an adult alone. Washington records the option for free.

The option gives nationality that is not of origin: the DGSJFP, the Justice Ministry’s directorate for legal certainty and public faith, calls it a derivative acquisition in its instruction of October 25, 2022. Under article 25, a Spaniard not of origin loses the nationality after 3 years of using only the renounced one.

The renunciation: plan on declaring it

Article 23.b makes anyone 14 or older who opts declare that they renounce their previous nationality, exempting natives of Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea and Portugal, and Sephardim; Washington and Chicago add France and leave out the United States. The 2022 instruction wavers: its list of differences makes the absence of renunciation specific to the Democratic Memory option, but a later passage on rules common to that option and article 20.1.b says adults meet articles 20 and 23 “salvo la renuncia”, save the renunciation.

Keeping U.S. citizenship next to Spanish nationality

A Spaniard of origin makes no renunciation declaration and cannot be deprived of nationality, though the loss rules of article 24 apply. The State Department’s legal page on dual nationality says U.S. law does not require a citizen to choose, and that a U.S. citizen may naturalize in a foreign state without any risk to that citizenship. Under 7 FAM 1211, loss needs an act done voluntarily and with intent to give up U.S. citizenship, and 7 FAM 080 presumes that a citizen who naturalizes abroad or takes a routine oath means to keep it. No State Department page read addresses the Spanish declaration. See the dual citizenship guide.

The Democratic Memory option after the October 2025 close

Additional provision 8 of Law 20/2022 let people born abroad to an originally Spanish parent or grandparent who lost or renounced Spanish nationality through exile opt for it. The DGSJFP read it as covering such descendants with or without exile. It also covered children of Spanish women who lost their nationality by marrying a foreigner before the 1978 Constitution, and adult children of people recognized as Spaniards of origin. The window opened on October 21, 2022 for 2 years. The Council of Ministers added 1 year on July 9, 2024, according to the summary from La Moncloa, the prime minister’s office.

• Filing after the close: under the November 5, 2024 instruction, someone who requested an appointment online in time files in person later, with the receipt; New York accepts only the CSV, the verification code emailed before 23:59 local time on October 22, 2025.
• Credentials: Washington validated all requests on October 29, 2025; New York warns that credentials can take several months. Los Angeles refuses CSV holders whose credentials were rejected.
• Missing proof: 30 calendar days from the registrar’s request, under the 2022 instruction.
• Decisions: no official page gives a time, and Los Angeles warns of delays. By May 31, 2026, Spain’s consulates worldwide had received 1,225,188 applications, approved 571,761 files and made 333,696 registrations, the Foreign Ministry says.
• Children: Miami’s FAQ of March 21, 2024 had parents opt for minor children under article 20.1.a once granted, and took an adult child’s Anexo III form with the parent’s receipt, which it said Chicago refused; no page read since the close covers adult children who did not file.

Bills in Congress are not law

SUMAR’s bill 122/000230 would delete the renunciation of article 23.b and count study stays (text); it has awaited a plenary vote since December 23, 2025. VOX’s 122/000054 was rejected on October 15, 2024. Law 20/2022 changed in March 2026 only to add a provision on compensation for victims.

One year of residence in Spain: the grandchild’s route

Article 22.2.f cuts the residence needed for nationality from 10 years to 1 for anyone born outside Spain to a parent or grandparent who was originally Spanish. The Justice Ministry’s application page is narrower, with a parent also born abroad and all of them originally Spanish; ask the ministry first if your parent was born in Spain or was never Spanish. The year must be legal, continuous and immediately before the application, so you first need a residence permit such as the non-lucrative visa. Students hold a stay, estancia, under article 33 of the immigration law, rather than residence under article 30 bis, and a 2025 bill’s preamble says their time does not count, while international telework is residence under article 74 bis of Law 14/2013. Relatives of Spanish citizens have their own permit, in the family reunification guide.

The file is the one in the citizenship by residence guide:

• the DELE A2, the Instituto Cervantes Spanish exam, from which the regulation does not exempt U.S. nationals, and the CCSE, its civics test;
• proof that you descend from a Spaniard;
• the fee on form 790 code 026, 104.05 euros, up from the 100 euros of Law 19/2015 since budget laws can revise it;
• a decision within 1 year, with silence meaning refusal;
• the renunciation at the oath.

The 2022 instruction cites a July 2022 ruling of the Audiencia Nacional, a national court, that a parent who became Spanish of origin under the 2007 Historical Memory Law is not originally Spanish, the term this route uses. It gives Democratic Memory grantees the same later-acquired origin, and no page read says whether they count here. The marriage and short routes guide sets this route beside the other 1-year cases.

Documents: the Spanish birth certificate comes first

Most files start with the certificado literal of the Spanish parent or grandparent; Democratic Memory grandchildren filed both the grandparent’s and that of the parent in the line (2022 instruction). The Justice Ministry’s e-office takes requests online; without Cl@ve, the government login, it always mails the certificate and warns of strike delays, while Washington says a digitized entry arrives at once and others later, by email or post. For a birth never registered, the 2022 instruction took a parish baptism record with a negative registry certificate, or a late-registration file.

• Age of Spanish certificates: 6 months at Washington and San Francisco for births and at Chicago for options; 12 months at Chicago for births and recovery; 1 year at New York for births.
• Apostille, the Hague Convention’s one-stamp certification: the 2022 instruction wants foreign registry certificates in Democratic Memory files legalized or apostilled, and officially translated when not in Spanish. New York exempted U.S. civil registry documents and Washington births in its area, while Miami wanted U.S. certificates apostilled. Chicago exempts the states it serves for options and recovery. To record a birth, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco want foreign documents apostilled, unlike Washington and New York.

States apostille their records, generally through the Secretary of State, for $3 to $20, and the State Department apostilles federal documents for $20 each, the Hague Conference records. Translators appointed by the Foreign Ministry make official translations; see the apostille guide. The Chicago consulate’s map shows which office serves your state.

Your next step: the birth certificate, then the consulate

Order the literal birth certificate of your Spanish parent, or of your grandparent and the parent in that line, from the Justice Ministry’s e-office; consulates want it issued within 6 or 12 months. With a Spanish parent, read your consulate’s page for your route and request the appointment. With only a Spanish grandparent, first get a residence permit in Spain, where the 1-year route is filed.

An adult with a Spanish parent can register their own birth alone, by mail where the consulate allows it, once sure the 3 years after 18 did not end their nationality; the article 20.1.b option and a recovery can also be filed without help. Get a licensed professional when a grandparent’s records are old or missing, when you were born before August 19, 1982 to a Spanish mother, when your parent naturalized before your birth, or when a Democratic Memory file sits without news.

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