📄 Criminal Record Certificate

Criminal Record Certificate — required for most residence, work and citizenship applications. We book the appointment and guide you through legalisation/apostille if you need the foreign version.

Criminal record certificates: the piece that delays most files

Almost every immigration file asks for one or two criminal record certificates, and they are the documents that most often stop a case: not because of what they say, but because of how they arrive.

Two different certificates

• From your country of origin — issued by the authority in the country or countries where you have lived in the last five years. It needs an apostille or consular legalisation, plus a sworn translation into Spanish.
• From Spain — issued by the Ministry of Justice, requested online with Cl@ve or a digital certificate, or in person. No apostille and no translation.

Apostille or consular legalisation

• If your country is party to the Hague Convention, a single apostille stamp is enough.
• If it is not, the document needs consular legalisation: a chain of stamps in the country and then at the Spanish consulate. It takes considerably longer.
• A few countries joined the Convention recently and with objections from European states. In those cases confirm with the Spanish consulate which route will be accepted.
• The apostille must be on the document you actually submit, not on an earlier copy.

The sworn translation

The translation has to be done by a translator recognised by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A translation by a bilingual friend, or by an agency without that recognition, is rejected. The apostille validates the document; it does not solve the language.

Validity: the trap

Certificates are expected to be recent. A document issued a year before filing is normally refused, and this is where people lose time twice: they obtain the certificate early, wait months for the other pieces, and by the time they file it is stale. Order it when the rest of the file is nearly ready, not first.

Where it is required

• Arraigo and other routes on exceptional grounds.
• Spanish citizenship by residence — both the foreign and the Spanish certificate.
• Student visas for courses over 180 days.
• Some initial work and residence authorisations.
• Certain family routes, depending on the case.

The practical order of steps

• Work out which countries you need it from: those where you have lived in the last five years.
• Request the certificate, then the apostille or legalisation, then the sworn translation — in that order.
• Request the Spanish certificate last: it is the fastest of the three.
• Keep the originals; offices normally take a copy but want to see the original.