Spanish nationality law
laws of nationality in Spain
The primary law governing nationality of Spain is Articles 17 to 28 of the Civil Code of Spain, which came into force on 24 July 1889. Spain is a member state of the European Union (EU), and all Spanish nationals are EU citizens. They are entitled to free movement rights in EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, and may vote in elections to the European Parliament for the Spain constituency.
Spanish citizenship by origin is defined in the Civil Code on the principle of jus sanguinis (with some limited jus soli provisions) and it can be voluntarily renounced but not forcefully removed. The most common mode of acquisition of derivative citizenship is legal and continuous residence in the country. The Spanish legal framework is considered to be one of the most restrictive in Europe in terms of citizenship acquisition. A preferential treatment in this regard is granted to former colonies, whose citizens also enjoy the privilege of not needing to renounce their original citizenship to acquire the Spanish one.
History
Traditionally, considerations about the Spanish nationality had been (successively) regulated by constitutional articles: the 5th article of the 1812 Cádiz Constitution, 1st article of the 1837 Constitution, 1st Article of the 1845 Constitution, 2nd article of the unpromulgated 1856 Constitution, 1st article of the 1869 Constitution and 1st article of the 1876 Constitution.
The original text of the 1889 Civil Code was partially or wholly amended by the 23rd and 24th articles of the 1931 Constitution (which opened a way for exploring double citizenship agreements with Ibero–American countries), and the 1954, 1975, 1982, 1990, and 2002 laws.
The current Constitution of 1978 is the first that does not define Spanish nationality.
“Spanish nationality law” enters the record as laws of nationality in Spain. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Spanish, nationality and laws can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1800230. The Library of Congress control number is sh2009119863. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1812, 1837 and 1845.
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This entry incorporates text from “Spanish nationality law” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.