Spain grandchildren law: what the Supreme Court decided

163,020 people received Spanish passports under the grandchildren law, yet cannot vote in the November 29, 2026 election. On October 12 Spain's Supreme Court kept the ban in place. Will citizenship be taken away, what happens to pending applications, and which ancestry routes to an EU passport still work.

In detail

For three years Spain handed out passports to emigrants' grandchildren more generously than any other EU country. Now its Supreme Court is checking whether that generosity went beyond the law. On October 12, 2026 the court refused to lift a ban: 163,020 people who became Spanish under the so-called grandchildren law and live abroad will not vote in the November 29 general election.

It sounds like domestic politics, but it matters to everyone who got a passport under this law, is waiting for a decision, or is considering EU citizenship by descent. Below is what happened, what it means for passports and what options exist for those who missed the window.

What Spain's grandchildren law is

The grandchildren law is the popular name for the eighth additional provision of Law 20/2022 on Democratic Memory (Ley de Memoria Democrática), passed in October 2022. It opened Spanish citizenship to several groups:

• children and grandchildren born abroad to Spaniards who lost or gave up citizenship because of exile for political, ideological or religious reasons or sexual orientation;
• children born abroad to Spanish women who lost citizenship by marrying a foreigner before the 1978 Constitution;
• adult children of people who acquired citizenship under this law or the 2007 Historical Memory Law.

The big advantage: no residence in Spain, no exams and no need to renounce your existing passport. The deadline was extended, and filing finally closed in October 2025. Most applicants came from Latin America, especially Argentina, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela.

The scale is huge. By August 31, 2026 consulates had received 1,317,108 applications, about 600,700 had been approved, about 370,000 people had been entered in the civil register as citizens, and 716,424 applications were awaiting a decision. The paperwork is so vast that Spanish diplomats themselves admit some applicants will not live to see an answer.

What Spain's Supreme Court decided

The dispute began with complaints from the Vox party and the legal association Iustitia Europa. They challenged the registration of new citizens on the roll of Spanish voters abroad (CERA, Censo Electoral de Residentes Ausentes - the register of voters living outside Spain).

• On September 8, 2026 the Supreme Court's administrative chamber provisionally suspended the electoral effects of those entries.
• The government, through the State Attorney, and the prosecution service asked for the people to be allowed to vote, arguing that checking every file before the election is physically impossible.
• On October 12, 2026 the court refused and kept the ban for the November 29 election. Judge Alicia Millán dissented: people cannot be stripped of the vote without each file being examined.

The Foreign Ministry admits more than 140,000 files cannot be reviewed before the election. The government is considering an appeal to the Constitutional Court. After the ruling was published in the BOE official gazette, interested parties had five working days to join the case and submit documents.

Why the court questioned grandchildren-law passports

The law requires that the ancestor left Spain specifically because of exile. Proving a motive for departure 80 years later is hard: a grandfather rarely left a certificate saying he fled the regime rather than went to Buenos Aires for work.

The problem was solved by an instruction. On October 25, 2022 the Directorate General for Legal Certainty and Public Faith, which runs the civil registers, allowed any Spaniard who left the country between July 18, 1936 and December 31, 1955 to be treated as an exile. Applicants only had to prove the departure in those years, not its reason.

The court doubts that an administrative instruction can widen requirements set by parliament in this way, since people also left in those years for economic or family reasons. If the court rules the instruction unlawful on the merits, some passports already issued will rest on a ground the law does not contain.

Will Spanish citizenship be taken away

Right now only the vote is at stake. The court has not declared that all grandchildren-law passports were obtained unlawfully and is not revoking citizenship. The passport is valid: it lets you live and work anywhere in the EU, enter the US under the visa waiver programme after an ESTA electronic authorisation, and open bank accounts.

What to understand soberly:

• There is no final ruling on the merits. A judgment on the merits is ahead, and the government is weighing a Constitutional Court appeal.
• Consulates are already reviewing files. The court ordered them to separate those who proved an ancestor's exile from those who qualified on departure dates alone.
• Documents decide everything. If you have evidence of political motives behind your ancestor's departure, gather it now: archives, letters, records of lost rights, party and trade union membership.
• Residents of Spain are not affected by the ban. New citizens who moved and are registered as residents vote as normal.

What to do if you are still waiting

Many of the 716,424 pending applicants filed precisely on the presumption of exile. They should prepare for stricter scrutiny:

• gather evidence of why the ancestor left, not just when;
• complete the chain of birth and marriage certificates with apostilles and translations;
• watch for consulate messages: when documents are requested, the deadlines to respond are short.

In parallel it makes sense to have a backup route that does not depend on the fate of the 2022 instruction.

Which routes to a Spanish passport work now

A separate workable scenario for those without Spanish roots: first a Latin American passport, then two years in Spain. For example, Argentine citizenship by naturalisation gives visa-free Schengen access, and children born in Argentina become Ibero-Americans by birth with the right to the two-year route; more on our birth in Argentina page. Every detail of Spanish naturalisation is in our article on Spanish citizenship.

If your roots lie elsewhere, look at the neighbours: Italian citizenship, also based on bloodline, or the country list in citizenship by descent. Combining passports is covered in dual citizenship in 2026.

What it means for moving to Spain

For legal residence routes such as the digital nomad visa, the ruling changes nothing. The political background to the November 29 vote is in our article on Spain's 2026 election. Those who became Spanish under the grandchildren law and plan to move should model their taxes in advance: the special regime for new residents is described on our Spanish taxes page.

Our Spain services

We help both those who already hold a passport and those who need a route into Spain that does not rely on a disputed instruction.

Plus the formalities that turn a passport into a life in Spain: the NIE foreigner number, municipal registration, a bank account, document exchange. If you are weighing up a city, start with our guide to Madrid.

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