Talk:Spanish nationality law

Loss of Spanish Nationality
I believe the loss of Spanish nationality by naturalizaion for serving in a foreign army or public office will only happen if the Spanish government has expressively laid down a prohibition against it, as it says in article 25 of the law

¨«Artículo 25.

1. Los españoles que no lo sean de origen perderán la nacionalidad:

a) Cuando durante un período de tres años utilicen exclusivamente la nacionalidad a la que hubieran declarado renunciar al adquirir la nacionalidad española.

b) Cuando entren voluntariamente al servicio de las armas o ejerzan cargo político en un Estado extranjero contra la prohibición expresa del Gobierno.¨ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.40.201.190 (talk) 07:26, 25 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I added a literal translation of the article. The wording is far from clear; it doesn't say "... si el gobierno lo prohibiere expresamente." (if the government expressively forbids it), but rather "...contra la prohibición expresa" (against the specific prohibition of the government), which could imply that the government already prohibits it, and not necessarily that it will or may prohibit it. -- dúnadan  :  let's talk   23:29, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Natural born citizens requirement for Ibero-American &c nationals
Regarding claims that "Though not specified in the Civil Code, in practice, nationals of Iberoamerica [... etc] must be natural born citizens of their respective countries." (One couldn't for example gain Argentine citizenship and then Spanish citizenship.), Article 22.1 states:
 * "Serán suficientes cinco años para los que hayan obtenido la condición de refugiado y dos años cuando se trate de nacionales de origen de países iberoamericanos, Andorra, Filipinas, Guinea Ecuatorial o Portugal o de sefardíes." [emphasis mine]

My Spanish isn't great, but wouldn't "nationales de origen de países iberoamericanos" roughly translate as "of Ibero-American national origin"? It would seem to me that that fairly explicitly excludes naturalized citizens of those countries, rather than being some arbitrary interpretation of the rules by cynical officials. Yes, no? —Quintucket (talk) 16:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. I guess the misconception arises in Latin American countries because the term nacional de origen is not used in their legislations, since these are mostly based on ius soli unlike Spain. -- dúnadan  :  let's talk   15:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)


 * “nacionales de origen” has been paraphrased by many as "natural-born" which they interpret as having been born in the country. But a Spanish lawyer (living and practicing in Spain) stated that neither term legally means "born there."  He provided a citation (SAN 03-02-2021 rec 637/2019), but I was not able to locate the document.  If I had found it, I would have added clarification and re-cited.  People have reported using Puerto Rican citizenship, acquired by merely living one year in Puerto Rico, to obtain Spanish citizenship, but I have no quality source to cite. 伟思礼 (talk) 22:14, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 3 one external links on Spanish nationality law. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://narros.congreso.es/constitucion/constitucion/indice/titulos/articulos.jsp?ini=11&tipo=2
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20091222053208/http://leymemoria.mjusticia.es/paginas/es/descendientes.html to http://leymemoria.mjusticia.es/paginas/es/descendientes.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20091222054753/http://leymemoria.mjusticia.es/paginas/es/voluntarios.html to http://leymemoria.mjusticia.es/paginas/es/voluntarios.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 13:49, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Nationality By …
I think it would be worthwhile to reorganize the "Nationality By" section to the four classification the Spanish government used in https://administracion.gob.es/pag_Home/en/Tu-espacio-europeo/derechos-obligaciones/ciudadanos/residencia/obtencion-nacionalidad.html, i.e., 伟思礼 (talk) 22:22, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
 * by option,
 * by discretionary conferral,
 * by residency, and
 * by possession of status

Nationality By option
I removed the italicized part in parentheses, relating to nationality by option for "those individuals whose father or mother had been originally Spanish and born in Spain (i.e. those individuals who were born after their parent(s) had lost Spanish nationality)."  The Spanish civil code article 20 paragraph 1b simply says "Aquellas cuyo padre o madre hubiera sido originariamente español y nacido en España.". Of the following cases,

* A) Parent born in Spain as a non-Spanish citizen --> parent became Spanish --> parent gave birth to individual  * B) Parent born in Spain as a Spanish citizen --> parent gave birth to individual * C) Parent born in Spain as a Spanish citizen --> parent lost Spanish citizenship --> parent gave birth to individual

...surely, the parents in B and C were both "originally" Spanish, ie parental loss of Spanish citizenship is not a necessary condition for the individual to exercise this option.

Also, this section fails to mention article 20 paragraph 3 "No obstante lo dispuesto en el apartado anterior, el ejercicio del derecho de opción previsto en el apartado 1.b) de este artículo no estará sujeto a límite alguno de edad." - ie "the exercise of the right of option provided in section 1.b) of this article will not be subject to any age limit."

The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 16:23, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
 * On second thoughts, not sure I have this correct, the first part at least, so have reverted.  The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 02:45, 24 December 2019 (UTC)