Spain to Legalize 300,000 Illegal Immigrants Every Year Under New Reforms

Migrants disembark from the Aquarius rescue ship after arriving to port in Valencia, Spain, on June 17, 2018. Kenny Karpov/SOS Mediterranee/Handout via Reuters

Spain will grant legal status to 300,000 illegal immigrants every year under new migration reform legislation passed on Nov. 19 aimed at bolstering the country’s labor force and sustaining economic growth.

The policy approved by the country’s leftist minority coalition government will begin the legalization process in May 2025, and it will continue through 2027.

Elsewhere under the reforms, administrative procedures for short- and long-term visas will be streamlined and simplified, and migrants will be allowed to register as either self-employed or salaried workers and will be provided with additional labor protections and rights.

Additionally, the legislation extends a visa offered previously to job-seekers for three months to one year, and migrants with a study visa could be allowed to work up to 30 hours per week.

The reforms come at a time when other European countries, including Germany, Italy, and Sweden, are moving to tighten border controls following an influx of migrants that some critics argue has led to increased crime and security threats.

Speaking to reporters on Nov. 20, Spanish Migration Minister Elma Saiz said the new measures will bolster human rights and help combat mafias, fraud, and the violation of rights while simultaneously helping Spain achieve “cultural wealth.”

However, Saiz also acknowledged that the new policy is largely aimed at expanding Spain’s labor force, as it has an aging native-born population.

Spain’s economy is among the fastest-growing in the European Union this year, bolstered in large part by immigration and a strong rebound in tourism following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aging Population Poses Challenges

Still, the country needs about 250,000 to 300,000 registered tax-paying foreign workers a year to maintain its welfare state, Saiz told reporters on Nov. 20.

“Spain has to opt between being an open, prosperous country or being a closed and poor one, and we have chosen the former,” Saiz said.

It comes as Spain’s birth rate dropped to its lowest level since records started in 1941 according to data published in February. Just 322,075 babies were born in the country, which has a population of 48.6 million in 2023, provisional data from its National Statistics Institute showed.

Meanwhile, data published in August showed that the number of people older than 65 living in Spain has increased by 17.38 percent since 2013, and the number of people at least 85 years old in Spain has increased by 35 percent in the past decade alone.

Spain’s aging population poses serious challenges to economic growth as the country continues to struggle with ongoing labor shortages, particularly across the services sector, in the wake of the pandemic.

The situation has already caused the country to open its doors to a wave of skilled immigrants—mainly from Latin America—in order to plug the gaps, with immigration accounting for 64 percent of new jobs created and half of Spain’s economic growth in 2023, according to Raymond Torres, chief economist at Funcas, a Madrid-based think tank.

According to government estimates, there are about 600,000 undocumented immigrants in Spain, which comes out to one of the highest rates in the European Union, although the exact number of foreigners living in Spain without documentation is unclear.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.