Spain migration reform: New ‘fast-track’ regularisation brings relief and red tape

With the approval of the extraordinary regularisation for migrants in Spain, many potential beneficiaries are feeling like a burden has fallen off their shoulders, while others are wondering how it will affect their situation. The measure benefits asylum seekers who have started the process before 31 December 2025 and immigrants who can prove that they had been living in Spain for at least five months by that date.

There are numerous different cases and statuses of the migrants who have been living in Spain prior to 31 December 2025. To depict just a fraction of migrants' diverse living and working situations, SUR speaks to four people: Julieth from Colombia and Fahde el Bakkali, Mohamed and Bilal from Morocco.

Julieth, 37, came to Spain in 2022. She left her country of origin, Colombia, to seek asylum. Julieth's sexual orientation doesn't allow her to feel safe in Colombia due to prevailing homophobia. In addition, she saw a lot of violence and widespread corruption in her native country.

In the four years she has spent in Spain so far, Julieth has been tangled up in bureaucracy, paperwork and regulatory changes. The newly approved royal decree is the latest addition to this list.

Julieth currently has a regularised situation in Spain: she is the beneficiary of a temporary residence permit for exceptional circumstances due to socio-training roots. It expires on 30 June and she does not know what to do: whether to give it up and apply for the government's new extraordinary regularisation scheme, which is expected to open in early April, or continue along her current route. Both options carry risks.

In principle, anyone already following an integration pathway cannot apply for the extraordinary regularisation. But Julieth says that to improve her situation when her permit expires and to gain the right to work, she must submit not only her course certificate but also proof that she is registered as a jobseeker. The problem is that her residence card clearly states that she is not authorised to work, so the Andalusian employment service may refuse to process the registration. Her lawyer says there is no clear protocol and that the outcome often depends on the individual official handling the case.

This was not Julieth's initial plan when she arrived in Spain, but the authorities never gave a response to her asylum claim. Under the asylum process, applicants can work after six months if their case is accepted for processing. Julieth reached that stage and found a job in a cleaning products factory in Seville.

Later, a change in the law meant that asylum seekers whose applications were rejected before 20 May 2025 could regularise their status after just six months without papers. Those rejected after that date would have to wait two years and time spent as an asylum seeker would no longer count. Fearing a rejection, Julieth withdrew her asylum application and chose what she thought would be a faster route: a residence permit for training. That decision cost her her job, her right to work legally and left her dependent on NGO support.

Now, she finds herself facing another difficult choice and feeling unfairly treated by the system.

Fahde el Bakkali's case perhaps reflects what Julieth's life would have been like had she not given up her status as an asylum seeker. The 35-year-old man left Morroco and came to Spain in 2023.

He obtained the white piece of paper that accredited him as a person awaiting international protection. Six months later, he got the red card that recognised his right to work and which also makes life easier in other aspects, such as being able to open a bank account or enjoy the most basic rights of citizenship.

The answer to his refugee recognition status has not come, but he hasn't withdraw his application, despite fearing that the answer could be 'no'.

Today, three years later, there is still no ruling on his case, so he is going to benefit from the new extraordinary regularisation. "This is a golden opportunity for us," Fahde el Bakkali says. "All asylum seekers will be able to benefit from mass regularisation while keeping our jobs. When I heard about it, I was very happy and all my worries were lifted."

For 25-year-old Mohamed Amine, this mass regularisation will not be necessary. His life will go through the ordinary regularisation path. In two or three months' time, he plans to present the documentation proving that he has been residing in Spain for two years.

Not Spain but France was Mohamed's first destination. He then moved to Barcelona, where he has family. He was able to register in the municipal census ('padrón') without any problems. Some other migrants say that they have had issues registering on the census. There is a loophole in the alternative real estate market, which allows people to register as living in a flat in exchange for 300 to 400 euros. Mohamed later registered in Malaga thanks to the resources of the Moroccan association for the integration of immigrants.

Mohamed has suffered the consequences of the ordinary regularisation process, which forces migrants to live almost two years in clandestinity. During this time, Mohamed has trained as a cook. He also has experience as a construction worker and a delivery man, although always in the grey sector.

Due to his status, Mohamed has spent three years living with worries. It is difficult to find a job in Spain without a regularised status. Mohamed at least had the peace of knowing that "nothing bad happens as long as you don't do anything bad".

Mohamed welcomes the extraordinary measure and says that he would have been able to work legally, with a contract and its corresponding rights, if he had been obliged to prove only a six-month residence in Spain. He would have been able to travel and visit his family in Morocco.

The fourth testimony in this kaleidoscope of migrant experiences in Malaga comes from Bilal, 19, who arrived in Spain two years ago "by swimming" "Swimming? You swam across the Strait?" we ask him. He laughs. "No. I swam from Morocco to Ceuta. Ceuta is already Spain."

Bilal spent time in a children's centre and benefited from the new legal framework introduced in 2021, which aims to help unaccompanied minors integrate into the labour market from the age of 16 and secure legal residence once they turn 18.

"You have to learn Spanish and behave properly at the centre,"Bilal says. He now lives in a house run by the Moroccan association and works as a warehouse assistant.