Million Migrants Expected to Sign Up for Spain’s Amnesty

Spain’s migrant amnesty is set to attract more than one million people, which is double the expected number of undocumented workers seeking legal residency rights.

The migration ministry said it had received about 900,000 applications. The government initially thought only half a million illegal migrants would claim.

CEAR, a non-profit refugee aid organisation, said it expected applications to exceed one million by the time the programme ended in two weeks.

The amnesty was championed by Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s centre-Left leader, who argued that integrating paperless migrants was just and made economic sense.

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Spain has granted 360,000 temporary work ⁠permits since April 2026, representing about 40 per cent of all requests received, the ministry added.

People are allowed to begin working as soon as their applications are admitted for processing.

Pilar Cancela Rodríguez, secretary of state for migration, told Reuters the state ‌had the capacity to handle up to one million applications between April and June, noting that requests would outnumber permits granted.

Mr Sánchez made the amnesty law by decree. It offers a one-year renewable residence permit to those with a clean criminal record who can prove they have lived for five months in Spain.

Applicants have to demonstrate only one of three further conditions: that they have worked in Spain, have family there or are in a situation of proven vulnerability.

The People’s Party (PP) cited an estimate by the Spanish police’s immigration unit that 1.2 million people would use the amnesty while “Spaniards see how their public services are impoverished day by day”.

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Spain has long suffered from chronic delays ‌in its immigration system, with thousands ⁠of migrants from Colombia or Senegal waiting years for asylum, which is rejected in more than 90 per cent of cases.

These strict ⁠policies have left roughly 840,000 undocumented migrants waiting for years to obtain other forms of residency, while living in the country and working off the books as they go through ‌the process, according to think tank Funcas.

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