The concept of ‘arraigo’ appeared for the first time in the Spanish legal system with Organic Law 4/2000, of January 11, on the rights and freedoms of foreigners in Spain and their social integration. Since then it has been evolving, until its last update in the Immigration Regulations in force since May 2025. Currently, the arraigo pathway establishes requirements different from those of the extraordinary regularization approved in January by the Government of Spain.
According to the Permanent Immigration Observatory (OPI), 214,085 people aged 16 or over with residence authorization by roots were working and contributing to Social Security in our country as of December 31, 2025. The growth compared to the previous year is 39%.
The 46% of these contributors via roots had a full-time permanent contract and the predominant activity sectors were hospitality (17%; 37,036 people), administrative activities (14%; 29,680), construction (13%; 27,734) and trade (13%; 27,182).
Types and requirements for settlement
The temporary residence authorizations for reasons of roots can be of the following types:
- Second chance.
- Socio-labor.
- Social.
- Socio-formative.
- Family.
And the main requirements, as established by the regulations, are:
- To be in Spain and not have the status of applicant for international protection at the time of submitting the application or during its processing. For this purpose, an applicant for international protection shall be understood as a foreign person who has submitted an application for international protection on which a final resolution has not been adopted at the administrative level, and, where applicable, judicial level.
- To have remained in national territory continuously for at least two years prior to the submission of said application. For these purposes, when the foreign person has been an applicant for international protection, the time of stay in Spain during the processing of the international protection application until its final resolution at the administrative level, and, where applicable, judicial level, will not be computable. Family roots will not require any minimum stay.
- Not to pose a threat to public order, security, or public health.
- To lack a criminal record in Spain and in the countries where they have resided during the last five years prior to the date of entry into Spain, for crimes provided for in the Spanish legal system.
- Not to appear as inadmissible in the territorial area of countries with which Spain has signed an agreement to that effect.
- Where applicable, not to be within the period of commitment not to return to Spain.
- To have paid the fee for the processing of the procedure.
Differences with the extraordinary regularization
To qualify for the extraordinary regularization which the Government is preparing, a continuous stay of, at least, five months at the time of the application will be required and having resided in Spain before December 31, 2025. Another of the essential requirements is to have no criminal record.
From the Government of Spain, they point out that, although it does not coincide with the conditions of the rootedness pathway, regularization is “fully compatible and complementary with the Immigration Regulations”. The 2025 reform of this, they add, “establishes a structural and prospective framework for migration management, but cannot, by its very nature, automatically resolve situations of irregularity accumulated over more than a decade. The extraordinary regularization acts on that inherited stock, allowing “to set the counter to zero” and ensuring that the new framework functions effectively, with legal certainty and without reproducing dynamics of exclusion”
They assure that “the results endorse the model: in little more than six months, the Immigration Regulation increased resolved cases by 11.6%, with 90,000 more than in 2024, of which 54% were already processed with the new regulation. Furthermore, more than 95,000 authorizations for rootedness were granted and applications for studies tripled, reflecting a more predictable, humane, and useful migratory policy.”