When an immigration procedure drags on, it’s almost never because the person didn’t meet the substantive requirements. It’s because one specific document arrived in the wrong format or at the wrong time. These are the four patterns that repeat over and over, across procedures that are otherwise very different from each other.
1. Paying the fee too early
Modelo 790 fee receipts expire after 3 months. If you pay before your appointment is confirmed and the appointment takes longer than that to come through, your receipt is no longer valid and you have to pay again. This applies equally to arraigo, the NIE, family reunification, and permit renewal — different procedures, but the same three-month rule shows up in all four.
2. Foreign documents without a Hague Apostille or certified translation
A birth certificate, a criminal record certificate, or a power of attorney issued outside Spain almost always needs two things: the Hague Apostille (confirming the document is genuine for Spanish authorities) and a certified/sworn translation if the original isn’t in Spanish. Miss either one and the document gets rejected, even if its content is perfectly valid. This comes up consistently in arraigo, the initial work-and-residence permit, nationality, the NIE (when acting through a representative), and family reunification.
3. Certificates issued too long ago
A residence registration certificate (empadronamiento) from six months back, when the procedure asks for one from the last three months, gets rejected exactly as if you hadn’t submitted it — even though you still live at the same address. This is the most frustrating rejection reason, because nothing about your situation changed: the paper is just too old for the date you submit it.
4. Filing a renewal more than 90 days after the permit expired
Spanish immigration law gives you a window: you can renew your permit up to 90 days after it expires and you’re still considered a legal resident while it’s being processed, thanks to the automatic extension that covers you during that period. But go past those 90 days and it’s no longer a normal renewal — it moves to a different procedure (out-of-term), with its own documents and, potentially, a minor sanction case for having been undocumented during that time.
Verified through independent cross-consistency across the arraigo, NIE, family reunification, renewal, initial permit, nationality, long-term residence, and health card casuística trees (lib/casuistica/*.ts) — the 3-month expiry rule for Modelo 790 fee receipts and the Hague Apostille (1961 Hague Convention) plus certified translation requirement appear identically in each independently-built tree. The automatic 90-day extension after expiry is set out in Spain’s immigration law, as cited in the app’s renewal logic.