Spain is moving in the opposite direction to much of Europe on immigration, opening an extraordinary process to give legal status to large numbers of undocumented migrants already living in the country — even as other governments harden their stance.
What Spain is doing
Under a decree that took effect this spring, migrants who can show they were in Spain before the end of 2025, have lived there for a minimum period and have a clean criminal record can apply for a one-year residence and work permit, with applications open until the end of June, InfoMigrants reported. The government estimates around 500,000 people could benefit, though independent estimates of those potentially eligible range higher. Successful applicants gain the right to work legally, enroll in social security and access public healthcare; children receive longer permits.
The government's case
Officials frame the move in economic and moral terms. Spain's foreign-born population has grown rapidly, foreign workers make up a significant and rising share of the social-security system, and the country faces a low birth rate and an aging population that strain pensions and the labor market. Ministers argue regularizing workers already present expands the tax base, reduces exploitation in sectors such as agriculture, construction and care, and reflects a "reality that exists on our streets," as COMPAS at Oxford noted. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has also invoked Spain's own history as a country of emigrants.
It is not a one-off: Spain has carried out regularizations repeatedly since 1986, under both left- and right-leaning governments, the Real Instituto Elcano observed — a pattern it argues reflects a gap in long-term migration planning as much as a single political choice.
The criticism
The decree has drawn sharp opposition. The far-right Vox party called it "an invitation to illegal immigration," and the center-right Partido Popular criticized it as irresponsible — despite PP-led governments having joined earlier regularizations. Critics question the labor-shortage rationale given that Spain's unemployment rate remains around the highest in the EU, and warn of a "pull factor" that could encourage more irregular arrivals. Supporters and some migration scholars counter that arrivals are driven mainly by economic conditions and networks rather than after-the-fact amnesties. Analysts also note real integration challenges, including higher poverty and school drop-out rates among non-EU residents that a permit alone will not solve.
The European backdrop
Spain's approach stands out against a continent moving the other way: several governments are expanding deportations or pursuing offshore processing arrangements, and migration has powered the rise of the hard right in several countries. One practical limit tempers the contrast — newly regularized migrants in Spain cannot freely move to work elsewhere in the EU until they obtain permanent residency, a point of interest to other member states wary of onward migration.
For the hundreds of thousands who may gain papers before the deadline, the program offers a way out of legal limbo. Whether it closes the longer-term gap between Spain's migration reality and its policy framework, analysts say, is a separate and unresolved question.
