If you applied for the 2026 extraordinary regularization in Spain and haven’t yet received a decision, you’re probably asking yourself the same question as thousands of others: Why is my application still being processed while other people who applied later have already received a response?
The first thing you should know is that not all applications are processed strictly in the order in which they are submitted, and the fact that another applicant received a decision before you does not necessarily mean there is a problem with your application.
The special application period, which ran from April 16 to June 30, 2026, ultimately received no fewer than 1,174,978 applications. As of June 30, 609,737 had been processed, but the number of final decisions was still much lower. The government had initially estimated around 500,000 potential beneficiaries, so the actual demand far exceeded projections.
This discrepancy helps explain much of the delays we are seeing.
But it is not the only reason.
Below, we analyze, one by one, the main reasons why an extraordinary regularization case may remain unresolved and what options are available in each situation.
Royal Decree 316/2026 establishes a maximum period of three months to process and notify the applicant of the decision.
Generally speaking, the time limit begins the day after the application is entered into the registry of the agency responsible for processing it.
However, there is a crucial detail that many people are unaware of:
The three-month period may be suspended in certain circumstances provided for by law.
Therefore, simply calculating “I submitted the application 90 days ago” does not always indicate whether the deadline has legally expired.
This is probably the main reason overall.
The government initially expected around 500,000 potential beneficiaries, but ultimately received 1,174,978 applications.
That is, more than double the expected number.
By the end of July, the backlog of applications had led the Ministry of Migration to request assistance from the Immigration Offices to speed up the process. According to El País, nearly 1,300 employees volunteered to work outside their regular hours on tasks related to these applications.
The Official State Gazette (BOE) itself confirmed this reinforcement through an administrative directive allowing the Immigration Offices to assist with technical tasks such as:
If an application has been pending for weeks or even more than three months without a decision, it may simply be because it is still awaiting completion of some internal processing step.
It does not automatically mean that it will be denied.
Submitting an application and having it registered does not necessarily mean that it has passed through all administrative stages.
A particularly important aspect of this regularization process is the notification that the procedure has begun.
It is this notification that grants provisional authorization to reside and work in Spain while the case is being processed.
During the first few months of the process, various associations and professionals reported delays even at this initial stage. APDHA, for example, warned in late July of significant delays in accepting applications for processing and a lack of human and material resources.
Therefore, there may be individuals who:
A) have already received the notice of case initiation and are awaiting a decision;
or
B) have submitted their application correctly but have not yet received the notice of initiation.
These are different legal situations.
This circumstance may be particularly relevant for applications that were submitted in person.
16.8% of the applications—nearly 200,000 files—were submitted in person at designated offices of the Post Office, Social Security, and the Immigration Service.
This type of documentation subsequently requires certain administrative steps to be correctly entered into the system.
Specifically, the administrative directive published in July expressly addresses tasks such as registering the application in the Central Registry of Foreign Nationals and verifying the data entered into the system.
That is why two people who submitted their applications on the same day may currently be at completely different stages in the process.
This is one of the most technically important points.
To process the regularization, the Administration must carry out certain verifications.
The Royal Decree establishes that the Processing Unit must, on its own initiative, obtain:
The regulation stipulates that these reports must be issued within a certain time frame, but in practice, the case remains pending until the necessary information is properly included before a decision can be made.
Therefore, a case that appears to be complete may remain pending simply because these verifications are still being conducted or incorporated.
It is important to distinguish between a criminal record and police records or incidents.
The Royal Decree expressly states that the existence of a record in a police report should not, in and of itself, result in an automatic denial.
In such cases, the Administration must conduct a case-by-case and detailed assessment to determine whether the person truly poses a threat to public order, public safety, or public health.
This means that certain cases cannot be resolved through a virtually automatic screening process and require a more in-depth analysis.
If you know you have a history of arrests, police proceedings, expunged criminal records, or similar situations, it may be advisable to have an attorney review your file before you receive a potential denial.
Here is another specific situation.
The regulation stipulates that criminal records eligible for expungement in Spain will not be taken into consideration, but adds that, if such records exist, the person concerned must request their expungement before the decision is notified.
Therefore, if you find yourself in this situation, it is not advisable to simply wait.
You may need to verify:
This is one of the situations that can significantly prolong the process.
Many people have had difficulty obtaining criminal record certificates from their countries of origin, especially when they must be obtained abroad, legalized, apostilled, or translated.
In fact, civil society organizations have reported difficulties obtaining documents from certain countries, and recently there have been renewed reports of problems in obtaining official documents from countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.
The Royal Decree even established a specific procedure for cases in which a person had requested a criminal record certificate from their home country and had not received it within one month.
In such cases, under certain conditions, the Spanish government may attempt to obtain it through diplomatic channels. When this happens, the proceedings may be suspended for up to three months.
This is very important because it means that:
you may have filed your application more than three months ago, and legally, the deadline for a decision may not have expired yet.
Another major reason why a case may remain pending is a request for additional information.
A request for additional information means that the government considers that documentation is missing, that a document is insufficient, or that clarification is needed before a decision can be made.
After the application deadline on June 30, 383 post offices remained open until September 30, 2026, specifically to address these requests for additional information.
Among the issues that can lead to requests for additional information are, for example:
A request for additional information is not a denial.
It means you still have the opportunity to complete or correct your application.
However, you must respond correctly and within the specified time frame.
To qualify for extraordinary ties to Spain, you must have resided in Spain continuously for the five months prior to the application, in addition to being present in Spain before January 1, 2026.
Residence can be proven by any legally valid means of evidence, provided that the documents allow the person to be identified.
The problem arises when the evidence:
In these cases, the Immigration Office may require additional documentation before making a decision.
Individuals who applied for extraordinary residency protection had to meet, in addition to the general requirements, at least one of the circumstances set forth in the Royal Decree.
These include:
Having worked in Spain or demonstrating the intention to work through a job offer or, for self-employment, the corresponding sworn statement.
Residing in Spain with a family unit that meets the criteria set forth in the regulation.
Provide proof of a situation of vulnerability through the corresponding certificate issued by authorized agencies or entities.
If the documentation provided to demonstrate any of these circumstances raises doubts, the case file may require further review.
The Royal Decree allows certain family members who are part of the same household to apply for authorization simultaneously.
However, there is one important detail: these applications must be processed simultaneously.
Therefore, if documentation is missing for one of the family members, there is a pending request, or a member of the household requires additional verification, this may affect the timing of the overall resolution.
This problem is arising particularly in some cases involving minors.
For example, organizations that work directly with migrant families have recently reported cases in which the regularization of minors is complicated by the need to obtain authorizations or documents from the other parent residing abroad.
There is a situation that causes a lot of confusion:
the case may be moving forward even though you personally have not received any communication.
Official information regarding the process indicates that subsequent communications are preferably sent via the same method used for the initial filing.
Furthermore, when legal representation is involved, notifications are sent to the representative.
That’s why it’s a good idea to check:
Failing to check notifications properly can lead a person to believe that “Immigration has not taken any action,” when in fact there is a request awaiting a response.
During the process itself, the Ministry already noted that the initial figures might contain duplicates or other factors that needed to be filtered out.
A duplication does not necessarily mean that it is the specific cause of a delay, but it can force the Administration to verify which case should proceed and what the person’s actual administrative status is.
Something similar can happen when there are previous immigration proceedings that interfere with the new application.
Therefore, when a case remains stalled for much longer than others filed around the same time, it’s worth checking the person’s complete immigration history.
The extraordinary regularization process was not designed for individuals who already held certain authorizations or who were in the midst of specific procedures for granting, renewing, extending, or modifying them.
The regulations expressly establish certain incompatibilities.
In addition, the Ministry itself explained that those who had already applied for authorization based on ties to the country or other exceptional circumstances did not need to file a new application: the previous case should continue to be processed.
If parallel applications were filed or there are doubts about which one should be processed, it may be necessary to review each case individually.
This point is particularly frustrating.
It is entirely possible that:
You submitted your application in April, but someone else who submitted theirs in May has already received a decision.
That alone does not prove that there is a problem with your file.
Each application may be awaiting a different review, a report, a correction, or an internal administrative action.
Furthermore, the processing of applications has been distributed among different units and Immigration Offices precisely to try to expedite the enormous volume of applications.
Therefore, comparing only the date of submission with that of another person can lead to mistaken conclusions.
This is probably the most important question in the entire article.
Legally, the Royal Decree stipulates that, once the maximum period of three months has elapsed without a decision being notified, the application may be deemed denied due to administrative silence.
But please note:
On July 22, 2026, the General Directorate of Migration Management had to issue a specific interpretive guideline to clarify precisely this issue.
The document explains that administrative silence is a legal fiction that allows the interested party to file an appeal in the absence of a response from the Administration.
It does not mean that an official has reviewed your file and decided to deny it.
The Administration remains obligated to issue an explicit decision.
If you have already received the notice initiating the procedure that provisionally authorizes you to reside and work, the answer is particularly important:
Yes, that authorization does not expire simply because three months have passed.
The official policy of the General Directorate of Migration Management states that the provisional authorization remains in effect until an explicit decision is issued.
The document clearly distinguishes between two situations.
You may continue to reside and work on a provisional basis even if there has been administrative silence.
Your authorization is revoked only upon an explicit denial decision, not simply after three months have elapsed.
Administrative silence allows you to file an appeal, but you do not yet have the provisional authorization granted by the notice.
The Administration itself has stated that it remains obligated to process the case and that it must subsequently issue both the corresponding notice and the decision.
There is no single answer. It depends on the exact status of the case.
The priority is usually to:
checking the status of the case, reviewing notifications, ensuring there are no pending requests, and verifying that the documentation has been properly submitted.
It doesn’t always make sense to take legal action simply because someone else received a response earlier.
You must carefully review exactly what the government is requesting and respond within the specified time frame.
It is not advisable to send documentation indiscriminately.
A poorly prepared response can create new problems or even prevent the Immigration Office from accepting that an essential requirement has been met.
Through September 30, 2026, Correos will maintain offices specifically designated for in-person corrections as part of the special process.
This does not mean that everyone should submit additional documentation “just in case.”
Before doing so, it’s a good idea to assess whether there is actually a deficiency that needs to be corrected.
Yes.
When there is a negative administrative decision by default, the option to file the corresponding appeal to a higher authority becomes available.
In fact, the official guidelines of the General Directorate of Migration Management expressly mention this possibility.
Law 39/2015 establishes that, when the decision is not explicit, an appeal to a higher authority may be filed at any time beginning on the day following the day on which the effects of administrative silence take effect.
But this does not mean that filing an appeal immediately is always the best strategy.
It depends, among other factors, on:
That is why it is advisable to review each case before deciding whether to wait or file an appeal.
Not necessarily.
The appeal allows one to take legal action in response to the administration’s failure to respond and to demand that the application be reviewed, but it does not guarantee an immediate decision.
Law 39/2015 itself also establishes a maximum time limit for resolving an appeal to a higher authority.
That is why the decision to file an appeal must be analyzed strategically based on each person’s specific circumstances.
No.
In 2026, judicial appeals were filed against Royal Decree 316/2026, but the Supreme Court refused to grant a preliminary injunction suspending the regularization process.
In July, it again rejected a request to halt the process.
Therefore, the fact that your case remains pending cannot be explained simply by saying that “a judge has halted the regularization process, ” because the procedure is currently still in effect.
Not necessarily.
At this point, there are thousands of applications that have gone through very different processing times.
The most revealing statistic is that the process received nearly 1.2 million applications, when it had initially been designed to handle an estimated 500,000. The government even had to bring in extra staff later on to help process the applications.
Therefore:
“Pending” does not mean “denied.”
But it’s also not a good idea to completely ignore the process.
The key is to understand why your specific application is still being processed.
There are certain situations in which we recommend paying special attention:
In any of these cases, a legal review of the case file can help identify issues before they result in an unfavorable outcome.
As of the date this article was updated, September 8, 2026, favorable rulings continue to be issued, but there are also requests for additional information and pending cases.
Organizations assisting applicants have reported, even during the first few days of September, that requests for additional information related to family documentation and documents from abroad continue to be issued.
As of the date of this update, we have not found any new official national tally published after the one released on July 2 that details how many of the 1,174,978 cases have already been definitively resolved.
Therefore, it is advisable to be skeptical of figures circulating on social media if their source is not clearly indicated.
Because cases aren’t necessarily processed strictly based on the date of submission. One case may require additional reports or verification, while another may be completely ready for a decision.
The mere passage of time does not constitute an explicit denial.
A negative administrative silence is deemed to have occurred, which allows for an appeal, but the Administration remains obligated to issue an explicit decision.
If you received the notice of initiation acknowledging your provisional authorization, you may continue working as long as there is no explicit denial. This was officially clarified by the General Directorate of Immigration Management on July 22.
The maximum processing time is three months from the day following the date the application is entered into the registry of the competent authority, although the count may be suspended in certain cases.
You must respond to the request correctly within the specified time frame. You will not necessarily receive a decision until the issue has been resolved.
The deadline for submitting new applications ended on June 30, but there is a subsequent phase for correcting errors in applications that have already been submitted. Correos is keeping specific offices open for this purpose until September 30, 2026.
Yes. Once administrative silence has occurred, you may consider filing an appeal to a higher authority. In cases of implied decision, Law 39/2015 allows you to file the appeal starting the day after the effects of administrative silence take effect.
Every case is different.
At Martínez Caballero Abogados, we can review the status of your 2026 extraordinary regularization application, check the status of the proceedings, analyze any potential requirements or issues , and assess whether it is best to wait, correct any documentation, or file an appeal against administrative silence.
If several months have passed since you submitted your regularization application and you don’t know why you still haven’t received a decision, you don’t have to just wait without knowing what’s happening with your case.
You can request a consultation with one of our immigration attorneys to review your case and determine the best course of action based on your situation.
Diana Caballero Aguirre
CEO – Founding Partner
Martínez Caballero Abogados
