Spain – Immigration Outlook 2023

Student and Working Holiday Visas

Beginning summer 2022, certain student visa holders can be hired to work in Spain, without the need for additional procedures.⁸ They will be allowed to combine work and studies, if the work hours are compatible with the studies carried out and do not exceed thirty hours a week. Once the studies are finished, it will be possible to modify the authorisation from studies to initial employment authorisation because the previous requirement of three continuous years of studies has been eliminated.

The crucial new UTEX or Immigration Files Processing Unit was created with the main intention of reducing administrative deadlines that currently lead to delays of several months and of simplifying criteria on the national level.

Another path for attracting young talent to work in Spain is through an international agreement with other countries. The latest is the agreement between Spain and Argentina regarding a youth mobility programme entering into force on 10 February 2023. This programme is better known as "working holidays visa." Currently Spain has agreements with the Republic of Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. 

New Highly Skilled Professional and Blue Card

The Start-ups Law introduces changes on work permits under Law 14/2013 (Ley 14/2013, de 27 de septiembre), the main one concerns the highly skilled professional (“PAC” in Spanish) that unifies all the possible paths to apply by eliminating the previous different channels (companies with more than 250 employees, SMEs in the strategic sector, etc.). Right now, the paths are based on the candidate and there are three options: 

1. Graduates or post-graduates from universities and business schools of recognised prestige;
2. Higher vocational training graduates;
3. Specialists with professional experience of a comparable level of at least three years.

However, there are to be new instructions that will be approved by 31 March 2023, at the latest, to complete the changes made with the Start-up Law. In this sense, other regulations are still pending approval which, according to the corresponding drafts or drafts, will also modify Law 14/2013 (Transposition of the Blue Card Directive) and the general regime (University Law (Ley Orgánica del Sistema Universitario) and the Scholarship Statute (Estatuto del Becario)). 

Other Measures That Impact Immigration to Spain

From 1 February, the Large Companies and Strategic Groups Unit (“UGE-CE” for Unidad de Grandes Empresas y Colectivos Estratégicos) started requiring companies to use the digital certificate for applications for highly skilled professional (“HSQ”) work permits (La Ley 39/2015, de 1 de octubre, del Procedimiento Administrativo Común de las Administraciones Públicas).

Therefore, representatives need to have a digital certificate for signed application forms, or (alternatively) grant a digital power of attorney (just authorisation, not notary) to the providers to sign the applications forms on their behalf. 

Spanish Nationality

As a remedial measure for people who were exiles from Spain, the Democratic Memory Law allows the acquisition of Spanish nationality for those born outside of Spain to fathers or mothers, grandmothers or grandfathers, exiled for political, ideological or belief reasons.⁹

Likewise, consistent with the objectives of this law, the new law allows the acquisition of Spanish nationality for:

• the sons and daughters born abroad of Spanish women who lost their nationality by marrying foreign nationals, before the entry into force of the 1978 Constitution;
• the sons and daughters of legal age of those Spaniards whose nationality of origin was recognised by virtue of the right of option in accordance with the provisions of this law or in the seventh additional provision of Law 52/2007¹⁰;
•  volunteers of the International Brigades (Las Brigadas Internacionales) who participated in the War from 1936 to 1939 for the acquisition of Spanish nationality by naturalisation letter;
  • it will be understood that the same circumstances exist for the descendants of brigade members who prove a continuous effort to disseminate the memory of their ancestors and the defence of democracy in Spain.