Hello!!!

First, some background:

I’m a US citizen living in Spain, studying in a PhD program. I’ve been living in Spain for over 2 years continuously and in good standing (renewing my lovely NIE and only mildly complaining about the process). I plan on being here for several more years to complete my program and so…...

Several years ago my family started the process in the US to get my grandmother her Spanish citizenship. She is the daughter of Spaniards who moved to Cuba many many moons ago. Recently (like last week) the resolution finally came back that she was approved for her Spanish citizenship DESPITE my mother dropping the ball and not getting some of the paperwork that several years ago the consulate asked her to retrieve. (The US death certificate of my grandmother’s mother said that her nationality was Cuban, so the consulate wanted to verify if the mother had ever become a Cuban citizen; this letter from Cuba was never sought because of the difficulty in obtaining the Carta de Nacionalidad. Interestingly the consulate never cared about any of the documents we had about her father even though we had them available - they wanted to do this all through the mother.) Thus my grandmother’s Spanish birth certificate leaves the nationality of her parents empty. I believe that as a consequence her birth certificate states that the nationality is by option, although it states in the margin in the explanation of the certificate that the “origen” was opted for - it leaves out why the “option” was issued, but my guess has to do with what I’ve written. The last thing left to do is pay the 35$ for her passport and inscribe her in the consulate for census purposes.

The Q:

Anyways, now my question is: Being that I am now the grandchild of a Spaniard and having had over 2 years of residency, do I know qualify to apply for Spanish nationality?

Anyone with any experience with this?

I’m in quite a similar situation to you, so I can tell you the vague pieces of information that I have been passed by my grandmother (currently going through the process at the consulate in Miami). The main difference is that I have not yet lived in Spain - though I may look into a non-lucrative visa if I can get a definitive answer as to whether or not these count towards fulfilling the residency requirements.

My grandmother was born in Cuba to a Spanish father, and he never became a Cuban citizen so she is eligible (by birth) to be considered a Spanish citizen, and is almost finished with the process of gaining citizenship. Specifically because my life would be so much easier with an EU passport - I’m living in the UK right now -  she enquired about whether or not I would be permitted to become a citizen automatically as well. The answer she got was kind of vague, but, at best, can be interpreted as “not right now”. It does sound like it may have been possible in the past.

From everything I have researched about this, I have come to understand that because my grandmother did not make my dad a Spanish citizen while he was still under 20, it can’t be passed on to me. If he had been a recognised citizen all along, I would still be eligible because I am on the cusp of being 20. 

As far as I know with respect to your situation and naturalisation, if you are a grandchild of someone who is Spanish “de origen” and have lived in Spain for 1 year, you are theoretically eligible to be naturalised (though I’m not sure if student visas qualify towards this one year requirement - student visas don’t count towards settlement/citizenship in the UK so I get the feeling it may be the same in Spain). As far as I can tell, people born abroad to Spanish parents are considered to be Spanish by origin even if they did not exercise this right for much of their lives. I have no idea how you go about becoming a citizen this way, but hope that someone else might be able to clarify this for me. I’m seriously considering heading to Spain after I finish at uni. 

On a side note, I’d love to be a citizen not just because of the legal benefits, but because I still have a strong familiar connection to Spain. It would be nice if the Spanish government recognised that many people feel deep personal attachment to the country even if they have never lived there. I hope that one day Spain permits the automatic passage of citizenship to grandchildren of citizens like many other EU countries do - Ireland, Italy, etc.

That’s all the insight I can provide - not much, I know - but I certainly would love more information if anyone else has it!