Why Spain regularised five lakh migrants – and how it’s good for the economy

As governments around the world tighten migration controls, Spain has taken a strikingly different path. In January 2026, the Spanish cabinet approved a decree opening a pathway to legal residency for hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants who already live in the country. At a time when deportations, detentions and exclusion dominate migration debates elsewhere, Spain has chosen regularisation.

The measure allows migrants without legal status to apply for temporary residence permits, bringing them out of administrative invisibility. The contrast with other countries is sharp. While ICE intensifies its operations in the US and European governments – including the UK – move towards harsher immigration policies, Spain has signalled a willingness to integrate rather than exclude.

The decree is not the result of a sudden government initiative, but of a long political and social process. Its roots lie in a “popular legislative initiative”, a mechanism enshrined in the Spanish constitution that allows citizens to bring legislative proposals to parliament with at least 500,000 supporting signatures.

In this case, more than 700,000 people backed an initiative promoted by social organisations demanding the extraordinary regularisation of migrants living in Spain without papers. According to the organisers, around 500,000 people were affected, meaning they were residing and working in Spain without access to basic rights.

In April 2024, the Congress of Deputies voted overwhelmingly to consider the proposal. A total of 310 MPs supported it, with only 33 votes against; the far-right Vox was the sole party to oppose it. Despite this broad parliamentary backing, the initiative stalled later that year and remained blocked.

The decree adopted in January 2026 explicitly revives the citizen-led proposal, but it also draws on earlier experiences in Spain. The most notable precedent dates back to 2005, when the government led by the Socialist Party's José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero regularised more than 570,000 undocumented migrants.

This earlier process plays an important role in today's debate – academic research has found that it led to higher tax revenues and social security contributions, as well as improved labour market outcomes. Crucially, it did not trigger the large-scale “welfare magnet” effect often cited by critics of regularisation policies.

Under the new scheme, any foreign national who was already in Spain before 31 December 2025 may apply, provided they can demonstrate at least five months of continuous residence. Proof of residence can be established through public or private documents, or a combination of both. Applicants must have no criminal record and must not be considered a “threat to public order”.

In the case of asylum seekers, eligibility depends on having an application for international protection before 31 December 2025 and being able to document it.

Successful applicants will receive a residence permit valid for one year. After that period, they will be required to transition into one of the ordinary residence categories under Spain's immigration rules. The measure does not grant permanent status, citizenship, or voting rights (except for local elections, but on very demanding terms).

Its core objective is formalisation. Regularisation allows people who already live and work in Spain to enter the legal labour market, pay taxes and contribute to social security, rather than remaining trapped in the informal economy. The process applies equally regardless of nationality.

Family unity is another cornerstone of the decree. Underage children of applicants who are already in Spain can be regularised at the same time, receiving residence permits valid for five years. The government has also confirmed that minors in the care of undocumented migrants and eligible asylum seekers are covered by the measure.

Official estimates suggest that more than 500,000 people could benefit, but this could be an underestimate. According to a recent report by the economic think tank Funcas based on 2025 data, the number of people living in an irregular situation in Spain could be as high as 840,000.

Beyond its substance, the timing of the decree has generated intense political controversy. It comes at a moment of evident fragility for the governing coalition, particularly for the Socialist Party (PSOE).

The government has faced disappointing regional election results, increasingly strained relations with parliamentary allies, notably the Catalan nationalist party Junts. There is also a broader atmosphere of political unease linked to corruption allegations involving PSOE members, including the family of PM Pedro Sánchez. Two former party organisation secretaries and close associates of Sánchez, Santos Cerdán and José Luis Ábalos, are currently in prison, accused of corruption connected to public contracts.

Against this backdrop, opposition parties, namely the conservative People's Party (PP) and the far-right Vox, have accused the government of using migration policy as a distraction, pointing to the deadly train crash in Adamuz on 18 January, which claimed at least 46 lives, as well as to the broader crisis in the railway sector.

However, this “distraction” narrative overlooks the measure's long gestation. Signature collection for the popular legislative initiative began in 2021, and Congress formally endorsed the proposal in April 2024 – almost 21 months before the decree was finally approved in 2026.

Parliamentary arithmetic has played an important role in this decision too, as Spain's executive lacks a parliamentary majority. Since the 2023 elections, the combined votes of the PP, Vox and Junts (who backed Sánchez in 2023, but can no longer be considered a parliamentary ally) amount to a narrow right-wing majority, even though the government itself is led by the left.

This helps explain the decision to proceed via a royal decree, a regulatory instrument that does not require parliamentary ratification. This is not an isolated case: measures like defence spending have also been advanced in this way.

Ironically, in a parliamentary system such as Spain's, where the executive emerges from a vote of investiture, the very government that was formed with parliamentary backing in 2023 is now doing everything it can to avoid votes in parliament. Spain has not approved a new state budget since 2022, and the government did not even present a draft budget in 2025.

The reason is straightforward: assembling a majority has become extraordinarily complex. Any viable coalition must include not only the governing parties, PSOE and Sumar, but also regional nationalists and independentist parties, as well as forces on both the left and the right, all with their own agendas, rivalries and internal tensions.

None of this is unprecedented. Minority governments and fragmented parliaments are familiar features of Spanish politics. What is new, however, is the intensity of political polarisation, which creates the impression of an exceptional or entirely novel scenario.

From this perspective, the regularisation decree can be understood as an attempt by the government to regain the initiative without going through Congress, set the political agenda, and repair strained relations with its left-wing parliamentary partner Podemos.

Although Podemos holds just four of the 350 seats in the chamber, those seats are decisive: in a minority parliament, none can be taken for granted. This is how minority governments operate, by shaping the agenda and negotiating constantly with other political forces, and in that sense, there is nothing extraordinary here: it is simply a government governing.

Ultimately, the decree reflects a broader political choice. While many governments prioritise border closure and expulsion, Spain has opted to address the reality that hundreds of thousands of people were already living and working in the country without legal status.

Past experience shows that bringing them into the legal system strengthens public finances, improves social cohesion and, above all, restores rights to people who are already part of Spanish society.

Asbel Bohigues is Profesor de Ciencia Política, Universitat de València.

This article was first published on The Conversation.

Source: Scroll
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