How to answer a requerimiento without losing your place

A requerimientorequerimientoA notice from the consulate saying something is missing from your expediente or needs correcting. It is not a rejection — it is a request to keep going, usually with a deadline to respond.Close is not a rejection. It is the consulate telling you that your expedienteexpedienteThe folder of documents and records a consulate opens when you file an application. It is your official file: while it stays open, the process is still moving.Close is missing something it needs to decide, and giving you the chance to complete it. Many applications get one. What matters is answering correctly and on time.

How long you have

For nationality under the Democratic Memory Law, the official instruction sets 30 días naturalesdías naturalesCalendar days: every day counts, including Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. This differs from working days (días hábiles), which leave out weekends and holidays.Close from the day you receive the requerimiento. Calendar days means every day counts, including Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Write the deadline down the day the notice arrives.

If you do not answer within the plazoplazoThe time window you have to complete a step or answer a notice. Miss it and some steps must be repeated or may lose validity.Close, the consulate can treat your application as withdrawn: closed as if you had abandoned it. The Miami consulate says so plainly in its instructions.

How it reaches you

Almost always by email. Consulates ask applicants to keep the address they gave active for the whole process. Check your spam folder too, especially if you know your file has been under review for a while.

Be wary of messages asking you to pay to "unblock" or "speed up" your file, or that come from any address other than your consulate's. The consulate does not charge you for asking for a document, and it does not send agents to find you.

How to get your answer right the first time

1. Read exactly what is being asked for. The requerimiento says which document is missing or what needs correcting. Provide that, nothing else.
2. Follow the delivery method your consulate gives. Each consulate has its own. In Miami, for example, you send a new email with all your documents in a single PDF, not just the missing page.
3. Check legalisation and translation. Foreign documents must be legalised or carry an apostillaapostillaAn official stamp certifying that a foreign public document is authentic, under the Hague Convention. The authority of the country that issued the document adds it, not the Spanish consulate.Close, and any not in Spanish need an official translation. The Miami consulate, for example, makes clear it does not apostille or legalise documents: the authority that issued them does.
4. Check how old each certificate is. Each consulate sets its own limit. Caracas accepts documents up to 5 years after issue; according to the Miami consulate, Buenos Aires asks for Spanish birth records under 2 years old and Mexico for local records under 12 months old.
5. Keep proof of delivery. A copy of the sent email, the receipt, or the stamp on your copy: whatever shows the date.

The documents most often requested

According to the official instruction, these are the ones usually missing:

• The full-text birth certificate (partida literal) for you, your mother or father and, if you are a grandchild, your Spanish grandmother or grandfather.
• If your grandparent's birth record does not exist, you can file their baptism record together with a negative certificate of registration, or request a late birth registration.
• Proof of exile, when your case depends on it. If the departure from Spain was between 18 July 1936 and 31 December 1955, exile is presumed. If it was between 1 January 1956 and 28 December 1978, it has to be proven.
• For children of Spanish women married to foreigners, the mother's birth certificate and her marriage certificate, dated before 29 December 1978.

If you cannot get a document in time

Write to the consulate before the deadline. Explain which document you requested, from whom and when, and attach proof of that request. Whether they give you more time is up to the consulate, but a timely notice with proof is always better than silence.

• I wrote down the deadline (30 calendar days)
• I listed exactly what is being asked for
• My foreign documents are legalised or apostilled, and translated where needed
• I followed my consulate's delivery method
• I kept proof of delivery with its date

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