Mama MálagaPostsSpanish documentsRegistering the Spanish Nationality is tough

Registering the Spanish Nationality is tough

July 23, 2025

Last modified on: October 20, 2025

Table of Contents

This is the continuation of the post about getting Spanish nationality; specifically, it deals with the final part, the registration of the nationality after it has been conceded. To see the initial part of the process, as well as the documents and procedures, check Spanish Nationality by Residence 😉

When I started dealing with the process to obtain my Spanish nationality, about a year ago, the registration part of it seemed very distant and sort of blurry. I did find enough information to know that it was a mandatory part of the process, I knew where to do it (or so I thought), and back then, that seemed enough. Getting the documents right and booking and doing the tests seemed much more pressuring and closer; compared to those, the registration seemed a breeze.

But now, Tadaaa!… it’s time for me to deal with my own Spanish Nationality Registration! Yes, I’ve been approved, meaning, I got a positive resolution for my request to become a Spanish citizen! Hurray!!! I’m quite happy, of course; and, if it depended only on me, I would have already registered it, but, as usual, there is a lot more involved, and the thing is more complex than I suspected. So much so, I decided to make this part two of the nationality post, just for the registration. Here we go:

What is the Spanish nationality registration?

Registration is the last step before becoming a Spanish national. We have explained what the law says about it in the post about Spanish Nationality by Residence, and here we’ll see it in practice.

Once you get the resolution of the Spanish nationality request – meaning, after you get your original documents apostilled and translated, do the tests, pass, pay the fee, upload everything into the Ministry of Justice system, wait a few months and get their approval notice – you also need to register yourself as a Spanish citizen. This last part is the registration.

Where is the Spanish nationality registration done?

It is done in the Civil Registry office of the city or town where you have the Padrón. You can find a list of such registries in the page of the Ministry of Justice. Not all towns have their own registry; some towns share one, and that is the case of the town where I live – Benalmadena – whose register is, according to the afore mentioned page, in Torremolinos.

Once you find the Registry that correspond to your place, you’ll need to book an appointment at that place. And that is not something that can be done from the Ministry of Justice page, which gives you address, phone and e-mail – but no link to the registry or to appointments. Tricky! So where to book the registration appointment? Well, for people that live in Andalusia, the place is the page of the Junta de Andalucía; I suppose for those that live in other Autonomous Communities, it would be the page of their respective Community.

Checking on the Junta page, I found out that Torremolinos doesn’t like to do the registration for those that live in Benalmadena (understandable; it is extra work for the city, without compensation) and I saw that Fuengirola has a similar issue with Mijas. At least Torremolinos informed that those from Benalmadena can register in a Civil Register in Benalmadena Pueblo (in Avenida Juan Luis Peralta, 39, Benalmadena Pueblo. Tel: 952568112. No page to link!)

Page of the Junta de Andalucia to book the appoitment for registering the Spanish Nationality

If, like me, you live in a city whose Civil Registry is neither on the list of the Ministry nor on the Junta’s, I hope the town that was supposed to register you gives you a clue, like Torremolinos did to me; if not, call your Town Hall and ask them – they should be able to inform.

Above: the Civil Registry of Benalmadena. It is that door on the back, under the word Juzgado (a local court).

In my case, I called the number Torremolinos provided. And then I called again, more than 20 times – no one picked the call. So, I went there… to book an appointment to go there. :/ It wasn’t a wasted trip, though; people were nice, I managed to book my time – for September, two months later! – and they gave me an interesting list of things I have to bring with me on my appointment day, which I translated below. 😉

What documents are needed for the Spanish nationality registration?

Here is the list I was given at the registry; it was pointed out that I need the ones that are highlighted. After the image, you’ll find the translation and further comments:

Spanish nationality registration - documents required

Printed Resolution of (Nationality) Concession;
Notification Slip;
* Both documents above are obtained from the e-mail you receive when the nationality request is approved. Just print them.
The interested part must be present, or, if under 14 years old, the parents must come, with valid NIE and passport; if between 14 and 18 years old, the interested part and the parents must come. If the parents do not speak Spanish, they must bring a translator.
Up-to-date Padron of the person who has obtained the Spanish nationality;
*I asked how up-to-date it has to be, and was told “about two weeks prior to the registration appointment”. This scared me, as my Padron is 3 years old, but I checked at home that I can print one dated from today, online, directly from the Town Hall page. Maybe your city provides it too!
Birth certificate of the mother of the person who has obtained the Spanish nationality, original, apostilled and sworn translated.
*WTF?!? I’m not kidding, it does say so. I read this part only after I left the office, but as the person told me I needed only the highlighted ones, I think I’ll not need this very-hard-to-get document. I think this request has something to do with the surnames; apparently, every Spaniard needs to have two surnames, at least. I think I’ll be relieved of this because I already have two; I’ll try to ask more about this the next time I go there – in September.
All the original documents used to obtain the nationality.
* Do I need to bring DELE and CCSE approval documents too? I don’t know, but I’ll bring.
Fill the attached form
* I was given a paper form to fill. I believe each registry has their own, so you’ll be given one too, hopefully to be filled online when you book the appointment.

How is the process going?

I thought I was going to go there, sign a paper and swear an oath, and that would be it. Boy, I was wrong. Here we go:

July 23, 2025: I went to the Civil Registry of Benalmadena to book my appointment, which they schedule for September. I was informed that there will be yet one more appointment, to make an oath promising allegiance to the King and obedience of the Spanish Constitution and laws – registration and oath are done on separate days, each with its own appointment. I’m saving the champagne for after the oath.

My main take at this stage is that we are given 180 days to register for a reason – it is because it does take time. So, start trying to book your registration as soon as you get approved, and good luck to us!

September 19, 2025: I had my appointment, as scheduled. The Civil Registry of Benalmadena is busy and there aren’t many people working there; there is some waiting time even with a scheduled appointment. Despite that, the person that was dealing with my case was super nice and helpful, as was everybody I interacted with while there. I forgot to bring my passport (facepalm) and they allowed me to go back home to take it; my appointment continued after I returned. That was exceptionally kind of them.

I asked about the need to have a separate appointment for the oath, fearing two more months of wait, but she (the person that was dealing with me; hereon called “she”) right away took a Spanish Constitution and a paper with a text for me to read out loud. I promised allegiance to the King and obedience of the Spanish Constitution and laws – and to pay taxes too! – in this very meeting.

The main issue here concerned my surnames. I have two surnames – one from my mother and one from my father – as is the rule in both Brazil and Spain; the catch is that in Spain the surnames order is the reverse of that of Brazil. So, during this appointment, I was informed that I was probably going to be registered with a different name from my original one – pretty much the same name, but with the surnames order reversed. That would be a nightmare, can you imagine? My name would be different from that in my marriage certificate (which is Estonian); from Kiddo’s birth certificate, from my apartment’s property deed… not to mention driver’s license, padrón and perhaps many more documents. Bank accounts and tax reports just came to mind. You see, the stuff of nightmares.

I asked to keep my name as is, and she was very helpful; she wasn’t sure if it would be possible, so she asked me to come back the following week, as in the meantime she would consult with other people (the judge, I suppose, as the register is actually a court). I totally agreed; the champagne would have to wait a bit more.

I confess I went home wondering if having the Spanish nationality was worth the nightmare of having a new name. I have worked in a Consulate in the past, and there I had a first hand glimpse of the amount of trouble name changes bring, not only to themselves but even for their kids – people whose mother name was different on the birth certificate and on the passport had to provide an extra document proving those names referred to the same person, and such a document is hard to get when one lives abroad. I strongly recommend you keep the same name for all of your life, if you can, and I hope to do the same.

September 23, 2025: I went back and… Drum roll… I was allowed to keep my name!!!! The process was concluded swiftly, with only one more signature. I asked if I’m already Spanish, and, hey, ¡Sí! I’m Spanish now. ¡Me gusta!

Spanish nationality registration success

But… I’m actually waiting for an e-mail, that I was informed I may receive today or tomorrow, with an attached document. This document is sort of my Spanish birth certificate, and with that, I gotta book an appointment in the police to do my DNI and, after that, the passport. I guess documents never end, but that is kind of to be expected when you just got a new nationality. ¡Olé!

October 14, 2025: I did get the e-mail they said they would send (actually, on that very same day). I then booked an appointment with the police and got both my DNI and Spanish passport today! 🙂 I also got an e-DNI, meaning I don’t even need to carry my DNI card with me; the one on the cell phone is enough. Honestly, I’ll take the card around anyways, because my cell is very prone to be out of battery (happens with people that take many pictures…)

But… this is still not the end. I really thought it would be, but the police informed that I need to do one more document, called “Certificado de Concordancia“, something like Agreement Certificate. If I understood it right, that certificate will state that the person that had that NIE number now has this DNI number; and I will need to carry this with me in case they ask for that in the hospital, in the bank, and so on. Here we go, I’ve booked this for the end of the month.

October 27 and 28, 2025: the time came and to the police I went again, to do the Certificado de Concordancia. I chose to do this document in Fuengirola, because the police in Benalmadena doesn’t do this one. You see, the main Document-related police in the province is in Malaga – they do all documents there – but there are a few polices in the towns around, that do a few of the documents, but not necessarily all. So, even though I could do the Passport and DNI in Benalmadena, for the certificate my options were either Malaga or Fuengirola; I picked this last one because the police there is much closer to a train station than the one in Malaga.

The document itself consists of just a simple and fragile piece of paper, very straightforwardly saying that I no longer have my previous NIE number, instead I now have this DNI number. But there was a small detour to this document: they couldn’t print it on the day of my appointment – lack of toner, maybe? – and so I was asked to go back on the following day to collect the paper document. It feels like having a paper-only NIE all over again.

I met a fellow new-Spanish person while doing this document. She went there on the same time as me on the 27th and, coincidentally, also on the 28th. The police in Fuengirola didn’t tell me about the need to do anything with this new paper, and in Benalmadena the police recommended that I carry this paper around with me to show it whenever needed; but my new friend was adamant that I have to start going to banks, social security, Ayuntamiento, healthcenter, tax agency, DGT (driver’s license) etc, to inform about the document change.

So far, I think I’ll do a mix: I’ll definitely inform my gestora and see what she says and what she can do, particularly about the tax institution and social security; for the others, I think I’ll do as told by the police in Benalmadena, and keep this paper with me when going to document related places. I wish it was a card, instead of a flimsy paper.

Conclusion

It was a lot of work, more than I anticipated at the start of the process. I didn’t have any help doing it – meaning, I could have hired a company that deals with nationality process – and I do not regret it. I think the company would not have saved me much stress anyway, because the hardest parts, of getting my documents from Brazil, notarizing and all, would most likely fall on me. This way I saved money and always knew what was going on.

About that: I asked the person I met while doing the certificate of agreement if she did the process herself or hired help. She said she hired a lawyer that failed to include one of the documents in the initial process, which made everything much slower; in total, it took her 3 years to get the nationality done. My own process took about one, so, again, I think doing it myself was the right choice.

If you are considering asking for professional help in this process, I would recommend checking if they collect the foreign documents for you, and who will be in charge of apostilles and sworn translations – if they do it, it may be worthy it; but if they will only guide you through what you have to do, I think it is not very good, as the law is clear and you can do it yourself. The same with booking the appointments – if they do schedule the appointments, this can be of help. The register appointment in my case was exceptionally hard.

Finally, check the question of the names, if possible. Would you be willing to change your name? I see it is not something we can know ahead for sure – even the person that worked in the registry needed to consult someone else in my case, so it’s not straightforward. I found this interesting post written by a lawyer (in Spanish) that may be a start if you want to know more about the name change rules. I guess the fact that in my case it was just a reordering, as I already had the two surnames a Spanish citizen is supposed to have, may have helped; I know they sometimes double the surname of those that have only one surname – so John Smith becomes John Smith Smith – and I think the name change risk is something to take in consideration before starting the nationality procedure.

All that being said, I’m glad it worked out, even if it never really ends. I do have the nationality now, as well as a Spanish passport and ID card, but also an “agreement certificate” and some uncertainty of what to do about it.

Thank you for following this adventure along with me, and I hope your process results in success as well, if you decide to go through it. Buena Suerte!