Arraigo Social Spain 2026: 2-Year Rule & Fees

What arraigo social is, and who it fits

Arraigo social is one of five arraigo routes to residency in Spain, all grouped under “exceptional circumstances” and all filed from inside the country rather than at a consulate abroad. It exists for people who are already living in Spain, often without an active visa, and who want to regularise their status based on how long they have been here and how integrated they are, rather than on a job offer, a study place, or an investment.

It is the route we see most often from people who came on a tourist stay and never left, from former students whose visas lapsed, and from family members who joined someone in Spain informally. If that describes your situation, arraigo social is very likely your fastest legal way back to a valid permit.

Arraigo social sits alongside arraigo sociolaboral (job-contract based), arraigo socioformativo (training based), arraigo familiar (specific minor and dependent cases), and the brand new arraigo de segunda oportunidad for people who previously held residency and lost it. See our Arraigo Spain overview for how all five compare side by side.

What the May 2025 reform actually changed

Royal Decree 1155/2024, the new Reglamento de Extranjeria, came into force on 20 May 2025 and reshaped arraigo social in two ways that matter enormously to applicants. First, the required period of continuous stay dropped from three years to two. Second, the old requirement to document a history of informal, undeclared work, which used to trip up applicants who could not produce that kind of paper trail, was removed entirely.

In its place, the current rule asks for either a favourable social integration report from your regional government, or documented family links to a Spanish citizen or legal resident. This is a meaningfully easier bar for many applicants, particularly those who have simply been living quietly in Spain without formal employment.

	Before 20 May 2025	Since 20 May 2025
Stay required	3 years continuous	2 years continuous
Work history proof	Often required, informal work accepted	Not required
Qualifying route	Integration report only, in most cases	Integration report OR family links

The integration report (informe de arraigo) at the Junta

If you do not have qualifying family links, your route to arraigo social runs through the informe de arraigo, an integration report issued by the regional government covering your address. In Andalucia, that means the Junta de Andalucia through its territorial delegations. The report assesses your degree of social integration in Spain: how long you have been here, your ties to the local community, your grasp of Spanish, and in some cases stability of housing and means.

Getting this report is its own small process with its own appointment system, separate from the Extranjeria file itself, and its own waiting times that vary by province. We manage the Junta appointment and the supporting documentation for that report as part of our arraigo social fee, since a poorly prepared integration-report file is one of the most common reasons applicants lose months waiting for a result they then have to appeal.

The family-links alternative

If you have a spouse, parent, or child who is Spanish or already a legal resident of Spain, you can qualify for arraigo social through family links instead of waiting on an integration report. This route usually moves faster in practice, since it relies on civil registry documents such as marriage or birth certificates and residency proof for the relevant relative, rather than a municipal or regional assessment that runs on its own calendar.

We see this route most often used by unmarried partners with a child together where one parent already holds residency, and by people whose spouse became a Spanish citizen or resident before their own status was resolved. If this applies to you, tell us on the free call, since it can meaningfully shorten your timeline.

Documents and building your stay-evidence file

The two years of continuous stay do not need to have been legal residence; what matters is proving you were physically present in Spain. This is usually the single hardest part of the file to get right, and the part most worth getting professional help with.

• Valid passport, plus photocopy of relevant pages
• Empadronamiento history showing your registered address over time
• Medical appointment records, school enrolment for any children, and similar dated documents
• Criminal record certificate from Spain and from every country of residence in the last five years, apostilled and officially translated
• Integration report from the Junta, or family-link documents (marriage or birth certificate, relative’s residency proof)
• Two recent passport-style photographs for the eventual TIE card

Absences from Spain during the two years are allowed within limits, but large or frequent gaps need a clear explanation, since the reviewing officer is specifically checking for continuity. See our Empadronamiento Spain guide for how to build the address-registration history that anchors most stay-evidence files.

Realistic timeline, start to finish

Once filed, the legal maximum for a decision is three months, and silence after that period legally counts as a refusal (silencio negativo), though in practice Malaga files commonly resolve within two to four months. The bigger variable is usually the preparation stage before filing: gathering apostilled criminal record certificates from abroad, waiting for a Junta integration-report appointment if you need one, and assembling continuous stay evidence can easily take four to twelve weeks on its own.

Refusals and how to fix them

Most arraigo social refusals we review come down to thin or inconsistent stay evidence, an expired criminal record certificate, or a weak integration report rather than genuine ineligibility. That makes many refusals winnable on appeal once the underlying file is strengthened. You have one month from notification to file a recurso de reposicion, an administrative reconsideration, or two months to go straight to a contencioso-administrativo court appeal, which only a colegiada can represent you in.

If your application was refused with a different lawyer or filed without one, we review the resolution and the file before deciding which appeal route gives you the better odds, rather than defaulting to the cheapest option.