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BREXIT

Reader question: How long are Britons waiting for their residency in Spain to be processed?

Several British readers have written in to ask us if there is an average waiting time for residency applications to be processed and for them to get an answer about whether they've been approved or not. 

Reader question: How long are Britons waiting for their residency in Spain to be processed?
The first screen you see when applying for an appointment at Spain's immigration office, the start of a long, nervewracking wait for many Britons in Spain, but not all. Photo: Pexels/Pixabay, Spanish government

Around 22,000 UK nationals registered as residents in Spain in 2020 before Brexit officially came into force, Spain’s Ministry of Inclusion reported in April. 

That’s not to say that there weren’t and still aren’t potentially thousands more who began the process before the end of the Transition Period and have either gained residency in 2021 or are still waiting. 

“How long is the wait?” is therefore one of most pressing questions for UK nationals who want the peace of mind of knowing that their status and life in Spain are secured.

Needless to say, this isn’t an easy question to answer because there is no average processing or waiting time, for either getting an appointment to present the documents, waiting for an answer from Spanish immigration services, going to the police station for fingerprints or finally picking up the TIE card.

“There is no average waiting time as there is no consistency between the autonomous communities,” Anne Hernández, the head of Brexpats in Spain, an action group which supports UK nationals in Spain with residency and more, told The Local Spain. 

“I’ve just been to the police station in Málaga province to help a gentleman who’s processing his TIE and he has to return in three weeks to pick up his card. 

“Others are saying 45 days, other 8 weeks, there is no norm I’d say.” 

One of the readers who emailed The Local Spain said “we are in Murcia, it’s one week away from 6 months since we made our application”.

Britons who have applied for residency in Spain can check the status of their applications here, where they should see the screen below.

The page where Britons and other foreigners in Spain can check the status of their residency application. 

Alicia Gárate, the International Organisation for Migration’s coordinator for the UK Nationals Support Fund Project in Spain, also mentioned in a British Embassy Q&A last December that “we are aware that there are delays and that Murcia has been a particularly challenging region in terms of residency”.

However, this is not to suggest that all immigration offices and police stations in the Murcia region are suffering delays, as there are many factors at play that can affect residency waiting times for Britons in any town or city in Spain, and it can also be down to their own application and circumstances. 

“There is no average time because every case needs to be considered on an individual basis,” Gárate also concluded.

“Regions or provinces with a higher population of Britons are generally more likely to have longer waits because of the sheer amount of applications,” Hernández explained. 

“I helped a UK national with their residency in La Coruña in Galicia, a part of Spain with far fewer Brits, and we got the carta de resolución (residency results letter) within a matter of days.”

“Whereas in the Valencia region and the Canary Islands I’ve heard waiting times are far longer.”

READ ALSO: 

In Catalonia, which is home to around 22,000 Britons, there are comments by Britons on forums saying that their application took “two weeks”, others saying more than three months. 

“It really comes down to where exactly in Spain you live,” Hernández concluded.

The queue outside an extranjería (foreigners’ office) in Spain in pre-pandemic times. Photo: AFP

Alicante province, which is home to more Britons than any other part of Spain with at least 69,700 UK nationals (newest 2021 figures not in yet), is one of the places where there have been hold ups since the new TIE biometric card started to be issued in July 2020. 

However, according to the Vice President of Brexpats in Spain Richard Hill, waiting times have been shortened “as they’ve opened several satellite offices to process Britons’ residencies”. 

“So the waiting times are better now, they’re not too bad currently. Maybe from start to finish four to five weeks. I can’t say that’s an average figure but that’s my most recent experience, whereas it was two or three months previously,” Hill told The Local Spain.

“In terms of the wait for an appointment, it’s two or three weeks at the moment.

“But it depends who you’re talking about: you have the people who are applying for the TIE under the Withdrawal Agreement, those who are exchanging an existing residency document for a TIE and now you also have those who are applying for the non-lucrative visa and the golden visa.”

One other factor that could be influencing waiting times according to Hill is that “officials are getting very picky with the documents being provided for applications, asking for more and more proof that Brits were living in Spain before December 31st”.

The process and waiting times for those exchanging the old green residency documents for the new TIE card are reportedly more straightforward and faster, as long as the right accompanying documentation (such as an updated padrón) is provided. 

“The important thing is to be patient and even if three months have passed make sure that your case is still en trámite which means “in progress”, therefore it is still being considered and an outcome is coming,” Gárate advised. 

“So wait a little bit longer and you will get an answer, I’m sure.”

So is there anything else that can be done to speed up the process? The following two links should help you with your Spanish residency application. 

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GIBRALTAR

UK soldiers expelled from Spain after crossing from Gibraltar posing as tourists

Spain has expelled four Royal Navy servicemen who crossed the Spain-Gibraltar border on foot three times in a single day while dressed in civilian clothing, with Spanish media claiming they were checking the porosity of the border.

UK soldiers expelled from Spain after crossing from Gibraltar posing as tourists

Spanish police expelled four British soldiers from Spain on Monday night, removing them from the country and sending them back to Gibraltar after it emerged that the four Royal Navy personnel had entered Spain illegally while “posing as tourists”, as the Spanish press has reported.

The incident comes a week after the British Navy carried out military drills in the waters surrounding Gibraltar, the British overseas territory that Spain still claims sovereignty of, and amid the seemingly never-ending negotiations between Spain and the UK to finally settle a post-Brexit deal.

READ ALSO: Gibraltar Brexit deal ‘close’ as Brits crossing into Spain use fake bookings

The expulsions, now reported in the Spanish press by Europa Sur and confirmed to El Periódico de España by official sources, occurred after the four soldiers arrived in Gibraltar on a civilian flight and entered into Spain. They also had return tickets via Gibraltar.

They then reportedly passed themselves off as tourists and entered Spain on foot, staying at a four-star hotel in La Línea de la Concepción, the town in the Cádiz province of Andalusia that borders Gibraltar.

Stranger yet is that they crossed the border at La Línea on up to three occasions in the space of a few hours.

READ ALSO: What Brits need to know before crossing the border from Gibraltar to Spain

Spanish authorities detected their presence because two of the soldiers tried to return to Gibraltar at night.

At the border, Spanish police officers enquired as to the reason for their entry, to which the soldiers replied that they were on their way to work and brandished British military documentation.

The police decided that their entry into Spain had been irregular because they did not meet the Schengen Borders Code requirements demanded of non-EU citizens entering EU territory.

According to Europa Sur, Spanish police then asked the two soldiers to call their colleagues in the hotel in order to collect their luggage and return to Gibraltar, which took place at midnight on Monday 18th March.

The Spanish press has stated that it is common for soldiers to try to stay in Spanish territory by concealing their military status and entering while posing as tourists.

The motive for the soldiers’ presence, particularly their repeated trips across the border, remains unknown.

The military drills in the area seem to suggest that the soldiers may have taken part in or be due to take part in further exercises and wanted to enter as tourists.

Spanish media also suggests that they could have been testing the porosity of the border, though these claims remain unsubstantiated.

Gibraltar’s post-Brexit status still remains unresolved. The EU and UK government are now onto their 18th round of treaty negotiations after the framework agreement between London and Madrid made on New Year’s Eve 2020 essentially ‘fudged’ the border issue, leaving Gibraltar’s status within the Schengen area undefined.

Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said in late-2023 that “we are very, very close” to finalising a Brexit agreement.

“I would sign a deal with Britain over Gibraltar tomorrow,” Albares told journalists at the time. Yet no agreement was made, despite the Minister’s positivity, nor the appointment of former UK Prime Minister David Cameron as Foreign Secretary.

Albares’ comments came at a time when it was reported in the Spanish press that many UK nationals have been using fake hotel bookings in order to try and bypass the Schengen rules and trick their way through border checks.

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