UK Government Extends Support For Britons In Spain Residency Applications

April 15, 2021April 16, 2021 Madrid Metropolitan brexit residency spain, expat spain, living in spain, spain news

The British Embassy in Madrid has announced that the Foreign Office is allocation an additional £1 million of funding for charities and voluntary organisations across Europe to support vulnerable UK Nationals applying for residency, bringing the total to £4 million.

Since March 2020, the three organisations who have been providing assistance to individuals using the UK Nationals Support Fund across Spain are Age In Spain, Babelia and IOM whose work is distributed along regional lines.

All provided helplines and advice for the application process in English.

According to figures provided by the Spanish government´s by the Observatorio Permanente de la Inmigracion there were 381,448 British nationals holding valid residency certificates or cards in Spain.

The figure represents a 6% rise on 2019 and does not include residency applications that had not been processed by the end of the year or post January 1st applications which have a different set of criteria for Spanish residency.

Many Britons who have homes or live part of the year in Spain are not included as officially resident in the country and are obliged to leave after 90 days due to their post Brexit non EU citizen status.

The British Ambassador to Spain, Hugh Elliott, said: “I am delighted that more funding has been provided to Age in Spain, Babelia and IOM through the UK Nationals Support Fund. These organisations provide vital support to UK Nationals who need additional help with their residency application in Spain, so I urge any UK Nationals who are struggling with the process to contact them for help.”

Out of Spain´s 47 million population, 5.8 million are foreign residents in Spain with Britons being the third most numerous after Romanians (1,079,726) and Moroccans (811,530).

The overall increase is 2% more than a year ago and represents a a cumulative growth over the last ten years of 19%.

Some 15 nationalities account for almost 75% of all foreign residents in Spain.

Eight of them are European, representing some 61% of the total led by citizens from Romania, the United Kingdom and Italy.

The most numerous groups of countries from outside Europe are from Morocco, China, Venezuela and Ecuador.