If you live in Spain under an irregular situation and would like to legalize your status, then the Social Arraigo may be the best solution for you! However, obtaining a residence permit through this method can be a pretty difficult task.
There are many specific requirements to meet and it is a rather tedious process, but in this post, we will give you the main tips so that you can apply for the Social Arraigo successfully and quickly.
What is the social arraigo?
The Social Arraigo is the regularization procedure through which a foreigner who has lived continuously in Spain for 3 years can obtain a residence permit in Spanish territory.
This residence permit will allow you to reside and work in the country for 1 year, with the possibility of renewing it or replacing it later for another type of residence permit.
It is also called “residence authorization for exceptional circumstances“, and is regulated by the Organic Law 4/2000, of January 11.
Along with the Family Arraigo and Labor Arraigo, they make up the three types of temporary residence permits that any foreigner can obtain after having resided illegally in the country, without having a residence authorization or visa, for a period of more than 1 year.
Tips to get your Social Arraigo application approved
Below we show you what we consider to be the 8 essential keys that will ensure that your Social Arraigo request is successfully approved.
As you will see, all these recommendations are applicable during the 3 years prior to your application.
In other words, it will be crucial that you take them into account before the aforementioned period begins, because if you do not comply with any of them and you try to fix them just before applying for the Social Arraigo, it would likely be too late and your request will be denied.
Thus, to avoid problems, keep these tips in mind from the moment you enter Spain for the first time.
1. Register on the Padrón Municipal once you arrive in Spain
The “padrón” or “empadronamiento” is undoubtedly one of the documents that you will need the most during the application procedure.
The empadronamiento certificate is the document that gets you registered with your local City Council, leaving a record of where your house is located exactly and who lives in it.
We suggest that you request it once you arrive in Spain, since, as we will see in the next section, it will help you to a great extent when demonstrating your residence period in Spain.
Moreover, the Administration demands it to process your file because depending on where you have registered, one immigration office or another will correspond to you.
2. Keep an eye on your criminal records
This is one of the requirements that constantly repeats in any application for a residence permit.
And thus, in the case of Social Arraigo, it will be crucial that you do not have a criminal record in Spain.
But be careful. Not only in Spain. You cannot have a criminal record in any other country in which you have lived before arriving in Spani during the previous 5 years.
But meeting this requirement will not be enough, you must legally prove it.
How? Requesting the criminal record certificate from your country of residence before entering Spain (only, for those presided over in Spain, it will be the immigration office that checks it), and, if applicable, you will need to translate it into Spanish and duly legalize it.
If you have lived in more than one country during that 5-year period, you must request this certificate from all the countries in which you have lived.
3. Demonstrate your insertion in the Social Arraigo interview
If you have Spanish relatives or family members who have a residence permit in the country, this requirement is not for you. So, one less!
However, if, as in most cases, this is not your case, it is very important that you prove that you have integrated into Spanish culture and society during your 3 years of stay in the national territory.
This is, without a doubt, something that you can develop from minute 0.
We especially recommend that you speak Spanish and that you get to know and learn about the customs of the local population.
You will be able to prove all this knowledge through an interview with a City Council worker (a social integrator) in the province where you are registered (your “Padrón”).
This interview finally generates what is known as a social insertion report, which you must include in your application file.
4. Demonstrate that you have lived in Spain for 3 years
As you already know, one of the main requirements to apply for this type of Arraigo is proving that you have lived in Spanish territory during the 3 years prior to your application.
The question is, how to do it effectively so that my application is not rejected?
It is not that complicated because you can use any type of document that verifies this such as electricity and water bills, an invoice or receipt from a business (such as the purchase receipt for an appliance), a library card, etc.
As long as the document proves your stay in Spain, it will be useful to you.
Our recommendation is the more documents the better, and, if possible, attach public documents if you have them (such as powers of attorney or any notification from the administration or government).
As we have already mentioned, an empadronamiento certificate can be very useful in this regard. However, the law does not require that you have been registered for 3 years to grant you the Social Arraigo.
Starting with your entry stamp at the airport, you can begin collecting documents, invoices, tickets or any other paper verifying that you have been in the country chronologically during that time.
5. If you have to leave the country during the 3 years of living here, keep this in mind
The immigration law establishes that the required 3-year stay in the country to apply for the Social Arraigo must be uninterrupted and continuous.
In other words, it will be essential that you prove that your residence (albeit illegal) in Spain has been continuous.
However, in the case of having to leave the country for any reason, you cannot do so for more than 120 days. And, we are talking about 120 days in total during these 3 years, so they do not necessarily have to happen in a row.
Our advice, in this case, is that you think twice before traveling if you intend to apply for the Social Arraigo, as Immigration will check your passport, and through the entry and exit stamps, they can clearly see if you meet this requirement.
6. Carefully review your employment contract
Another requirement that you must meet to be granted the Social Arraigo is to have an employment contract. But unlike Labor Arraigo, you do not need to have already worked, you only need to start doing it.
Sadly, not all contracts work.
For the contract to be effective, it must meet the following requirements:
- It must be a contract of at least 1 year of duration (temporary contracts do not work).
- It requires you to work 40 hours per week (full-time).
- It should be issued by a company or employer that has no debts with the Treasury or Social Security.
With this, we want to make it clear that not only you must comply with what the law dictates, but the company from which you receive the job offer must also do so.
And this is, indeed, one of the main reasons why most of the requests for Social Arraigo are denied.
Not only because of the 3 requirements shown in this section. Also, if the company is not able to prove that it has sufficient economic solvency to effectively have you hired for 1 year, the application will be denied.
Finally, keep in mind that it is possible to complete the application by providing two different job offers (the sum of the hours of both offers must reach 30 per week), but the crucial fact is that both offers come from the same activity sector.
In the event that the offer is made to you by a self-employed worker, they must provide their last income tax return and a certificate of cohabitation in the application.
7. Don’t worry! There is another option if you can’t land a job
If you cannot find any job offer or the ones you find do not meet the requirements, do not give up!
Why? The immigration regulations contemplate two alternatives to this fact: you can get a residence permit by Social Arraigo even without having a job offer.
How?
First of all, if you have sufficient financial means or you live with a family member who does, you can use this in your application. In other words, you would point out that you do not need an employment contract since you have enough money to stay in the country without any state aid.
On the other hand, if the previous case is not your situation, you could submit the application for Social Arraigo by presenting your own business project. Here you would do it by setting up your own company and materializing the financial and economic projection through a detailed business plan.
These are two unusual alternative paths but if you meet, point by point, their requirements your application will still be approved.
8. Talk to an immigration lawyer
Although we put this tip at the end, it is certainly one of the tips that you will find most useful.
As an immigration lawyer has already presented hundreds of files like yours, they know exactly how to prepare the documentation in such a way that you can get your residence permit by Social Arraigo easily and successfully.
So, once you decide to apply for Social Arraigo, first speak with an immigration lawyer to advise you and review your file.
Where and how is the application submitted?
So far, applications for arraigo were submitted by scheduling an appointment at your nearest immigration office. However, we are seeing how after the COVID-19 health crisis, many procedures can be carried out online.
For this reason, ask a lawyer beforehand to verify if you can send all the documentation electronically at the time you are going to apply. It will save you a lot of time!
Rely on our expert immigration team!
If you want to do any immigration procedure, make sure it has an expert team in the field, that’s why in Entre Trámites we invite you to know our immigration services, which include helping you apply for Social Arraigo (and the other types of Arraigo as well).
Contact us! Fill in our contact form and we will call you to help you as soon as possible, schedule a free online consultation, or just text our WhatsApp.
