If you would like to live in Spain for a long period of time, you would need either Spanish residency or Spanish citizenship. However, they are not the same. You would definitely need the first one for staying for many years in Spain, but you can stay your whole life without applying for the second one. But, it is true that the citizenship has more benefits and the differences are significant.
What is permanent residency in Spain?
We will start for the beginning and that is the permanent residency in Spain. Because, if you are reading this, you will probably start the process of moving to Spain with a short-term visa (not needed from several countries, check them out). After those 90 days in the country, you will be able to apply for a Spanish residency permit. First of all, it will be temporary, allowing you to stay in Spain while you continue upholding the same conditions you had when you applied.
Once you have been a temporary Spanish resident for five years (having to renew it three times) you can apply to be permanent Spanish resident. This permit will be valid for five years. You can keep renewing it every five years. Or you can apply for Spanish citizenship.
What is Spanish tax residency?
When you work in Spain for more than half of the year, you will be consider as a Spanish tax resident. You will pay all the taxes any person would pay in Spain.
What is Spanish citizenship?
The citizenship entitles you with more benefits than the permanent residency does. For example, when you are a Spanish citizen you are allow to vote, thing that you cannot do when you are just a resident.However, this comes with a price: if you apply for the Spanish citizenship, you may be asked to abandon your previous nationality. So, it is important you check if this is something you are willing to do. Or even if you are interested to do, because if not, you can keep renewing your permanent residency every five years. You will not be ask to refuse your prior nationality if it is from former Spanish colonies, France and also if you are a descendant from a Sephardic Jew. In these cases, you will be having dual citizenship.
Getting a Spanish citizenship is know as “naturalisation”. This means you have been in the country for a long time, getting used to the language, customs, laws and life in general, so you can become Spanish. You will have to pass an exam to prove it.
Once you do it, you will be a Spanish citizen and you will have the right to own a Spanish passport. You will also, automatically, become part of the European Union.
How can you become a Spanish citizen?
As we already explained, you can become a citizen by naturalisation after living 10 years in the country, meeting some criteria and passing an exam. You will also need to meet some criteria, such as being financially stable and law-abiding resident, proving you have integrated into the life and you are contributing to the society you are willing to keep being part of.Nevertheless, this is not the only way of becoming a Spanish citizen. You can also get the Spanish nationality though the listed ways below:
- By origin. If you have a Spanish-born parent or a Spanish parent, you can claim the citizenship though the “right of blood”.
- By descent. As we already explained, the former Spanish colonies and descendants of Sephardic Jews have some benefits and they can apply after living in Spain for just two years.
- By marriage. If a person marries a Spanish citizen and lives in Spain for at least one year, is entitled to apply for citizenship.
Apart from all the ways explained above, there are still some more procedures to get the citizenship, such as being a refugee.
To sum up, a permanent resident is someone who lives in the country for more than five years but keeps the previous nationality, not having the Spanish one. This person has almost the same rights as a citizen, but not all of them. Whereas, a Spanish citizen has all the rights in the country and can also work and live in any European Union country. It does not matter you are a citizen from birth or naturalised: every citizen is the same with the same rights.
If you are going through this procedure of becoming a permanent resident in Spain or even a citizen, it is really important you are well informed about everything. That is why you should be having personalised council and from GM Lawyers we will be glad to help you as experts to make the experience of becoming part of our country easier.
