Barely 48 hours after the government unveiled details of its extraordinary migrant regularisation, Spain’s overseas consulates and domestic Foreigners’ Offices are reporting a surge in walk-in visits and phone calls. In Valencia, National Police have erected barriers around the Moroccan consulate to manage a queue that begins forming at 03:00 for the 400 daily service tickets. Similar scenes are playing out at Pakistani, Bolivian and Senegalese missions.
Civil-service union sources quoted by MundoAmérica on 5 February warn that many documentation centres are operating at “75 % of recommended staffing levels” after temporary hires lapsed in December. Appointment slots for residence-card renewals in Madrid are now six weeks out – double the legal limit – and officers fear a “collapse” when the regularisation window opens in April.
At this juncture, specialised visa facilitators can prove invaluable. VisaHQ, for instance, offers end-to-end assistance with Spanish entry visas and residence documentation, coordinating notarisation, apostille and courier services through its online platform (https://www.visahq.com/spain/). Their teams track appointment availability across consulates and can step in to file applications remotely, helping employers and individuals stay ahead of any bureaucratic bottlenecks.
![Consular bottlenecks and staff unrest threaten Spain’s mass-regularisation timetable]()
Unions are considering strike action that could freeze up to 50,000 pending cases in a single week unless the Ministry of Territorial Policy commits to emergency hiring and IT upgrades. They also demand extra National Police details for fingerprinting so that new residence cards (TIEs) can be issued within the statutory 40-day period.
For employers and mobility advisers the message is clear: gather legalised birth certificates, police clearances and apostilled passports now, and budget extra lead time for consular steps such as power-of-attorney notarisation. Companies relocating staff to Spain in Q2 should anticipate potential delays in obtaining dependent visas if consular staff walk out.
The Interior and Migration ministries say contingency plans – including weekend opening and a redeployment of staff from low-volume missions – will be announced “in the coming days”. Whether that will be enough to avert industrial action remains uncertain.
Civil-service union sources quoted by MundoAmérica on 5 February warn that many documentation centres are operating at “75 % of recommended staffing levels” after temporary hires lapsed in December. Appointment slots for residence-card renewals in Madrid are now six weeks out – double the legal limit – and officers fear a “collapse” when the regularisation window opens in April.
At this juncture, specialised visa facilitators can prove invaluable. VisaHQ, for instance, offers end-to-end assistance with Spanish entry visas and residence documentation, coordinating notarisation, apostille and courier services through its online platform (https://www.visahq.com/spain/). Their teams track appointment availability across consulates and can step in to file applications remotely, helping employers and individuals stay ahead of any bureaucratic bottlenecks.
Unions are considering strike action that could freeze up to 50,000 pending cases in a single week unless the Ministry of Territorial Policy commits to emergency hiring and IT upgrades. They also demand extra National Police details for fingerprinting so that new residence cards (TIEs) can be issued within the statutory 40-day period.
For employers and mobility advisers the message is clear: gather legalised birth certificates, police clearances and apostilled passports now, and budget extra lead time for consular steps such as power-of-attorney notarisation. Companies relocating staff to Spain in Q2 should anticipate potential delays in obtaining dependent visas if consular staff walk out.
The Interior and Migration ministries say contingency plans – including weekend opening and a redeployment of staff from low-volume missions – will be announced “in the coming days”. Whether that will be enough to avert industrial action remains uncertain.
