The Great “Regularización”: Over a Million Hopefuls Chasing the Spanish Dream!

If you’ve been following the local news while sipping your café con leche lately, you know that the immigrant community in Spain has been buzzing with anticipation. The Spanish government recently opened an extraordinary regularization process for immigrants, and the numbers that just came out are absolutely mind-blowing.

Shattering Expectations

When the government launched this initiative (originally sparked by a popular legislative initiative or ILP), they expected around half a million people to apply. Well, guess what? The actual numbers more than doubled that forecast!

A whopping 1,174,978 people have submitted their applications. It didn't quite hit the 1.2 million maximum scenario the government later braced for, but it is a massive turnout.

Where is Everyone Applying?

Spain is huge and diverse, and the applications reflect where expats are laying down their roots.

• Catalonia took the crown with the most applications at 257,602.
• Madrid followed closely with 202,424, along with the Valencian Community (167,286) and Andalusia (161,557).
• Castile and La Mancha (52,041) and the Basque Country (49,451) also saw significant numbers.

What about our home base, Asturias? Here in the Principality, exactly 14,161 applications were filed. To put that into perspective, that’s almost equal to the entire population of the beautiful cider-making town of Villaviciosa!

While Asturias sits near the bottom of the table (we are the fourth region with the fewest applicants if you don't count the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, which had 452 and 743 respectively), we still came in ahead of Extremadura (9,634), Cantabria (8,767), and La Rioja (6,448). For our neighbors next door in Galicia, they registered 38,747 applications.

How is the Processing Going?

Nationwide, things are moving. To date, the Ministry has processed 609,737 files.

It seems most applicants prefer the digital route, with 83.2% of applications submitted electronically. However, here in Asturias, we've noticed people still like that face-to-face reassurance—almost one in four applications here were filed in person at an office, and the Ministry has already assigned 4,104 appointments locally.

Who is the "Typical" Applicant?

Behind every single number is a story, a family, and a dream. But if we look at the data, the profile of the applicants is incredibly clear:

• Age: A massive 87% are of working age (between 16 and 64). The biggest age block is young adults between 25 and 34 years old (31.3%), followed by the 35-44 group (21.6%), and the 16-24 youth (17%).
• Gender: Men make up 57% of the applicants, while women make up 43%.

Where are they from? Two out of every three applicants come from Central and South America. Colombia leads the pack by a landslide, making up 25.9% of all applications. They are followed by Morocco (13.3%), Venezuela (11.8%), Peru (8.8%), and Honduras (4.9%). For our fellow Asians, we make up 8.3% of the total applicant pool, while our brothers and sisters of African origin represent 22.9%.

It is truly a historic moment for Spain and for the over one million people seeking to formalize their lives here. Whether you are aiming to build a career, bring your family over, or just find a peaceful life under the Spanish sun, we know the journey isn’t easy.

To everyone waiting for their files to be processed— paciencia y mucho ánimo! We are rooting for you.