Spain’s Supreme Court has removed the requirement that foreign nationals applying for certain residence permits as relatives of Spanish citizens and other residents must have a clean criminal record.
The ruling places Spain alongside a line of European courts that have found long residence and family ties can outweigh a criminal record.
The judgment annuls provisions in Spain’s immigration regulations that allowed authorities to automatically reject applications for temporary residence and regularisation because the applicant had a criminal conviction.
According to the court, such blanket exclusions are incompatible with European Union law where refusing a permit could compromise a Spanish citizen’s rights and force them to leave the Union.
The ruling affects a broad category of applicants, including spouses, registered or stable partners, children and first-degree ascendants of Spanish nationals.
Until now, applicants generally had to demonstrate the absence of criminal convictions both in Spain and in countries where they had previously resided.
Rather than permitting automatic refusals, the court held that authorities must instead conduct an individual assessment of each case.
Immigration officials will now be required to weigh factors such as the nature and seriousness of any offence, the time that has elapsed since it was committed, the applicant’s personal circumstances and the right to family life protected under both Spanish and EU law.
Legal experts expect the judgment to make it easier for some applicants with previous criminal convictions to obtain residence permits, particularly where refusal would disproportionately interfere with family unity.
The decision brings Spain’s immigration rules more closely into line with the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which has repeatedly emphasised that restrictions on family reunification and free movement must be proportionate rather than automatic.
The ruling comes amid a broader debate over Spain’s immigration policy.
The country continues to face high levels of irregular migration while also seeking to address labour shortages and demographic pressures.
Spain has also advanced plans to regularise more than 1.3 million undocumented migrants, a move that generated considerable political controversy.
Critics of the Supreme Court’s decision argue that removing the clean criminal record requirement could make it more difficult for authorities to exclude individuals who may pose a risk to public safety.
They contend that a criminal history should remain an important consideration when assessing applications for long-term residence and, potentially, future access to Spanish citizenship.
European courts have repeatedly held that even foreign nationals convicted of serious crimes cannot automatically be denied residence or deported where doing so would disproportionately interfere with family life.
In the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights blocked the deportation of heroin importer A.W. Khan chiefly because of his long residence since early childhood.
In Sweden, the Supreme Court halted the expulsion of a man convicted of aggravated firearms offences, serious threats and witness tampering in 2025, despite earlier convictions of the same kind, after concluding that his lifelong residence outweighed the state’s interest in removal.
Likewise, Dutch and Austrian cases before the European Court of Human Rights have established that even individuals convicted of manslaughter, violent assault or persistent property crime are entitled to an individualised balancing of public safety against their right to family life.
Spain’s controversial migrant regularisation programme has attracted close to 1.3 million applications, far exceeding the government’s initial prediction of around 500,000.https://t.co/9C23t7tZ0O
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) June 30, 2026
