Civil partnership
Registering as a civil partnership can open the way to residence for your foreign partner. We help you with the registration and the paperwork that follows.
What it involves
A civil partnership (pareja de hecho) is a stable union between two people who live together without being married and who register in an official register, usually that of their autonomous community or their town hall. When one of the two is a foreign national, that registration can be used to apply for residence as a family member, just as with marriage. Each register has its own requirements.
Is this your case?
- Your partner is a foreign national, you live together in Spain and you want to formalise the relationship without getting married.
- You are an EU citizen and want your partner to get the EU family member card (tarjeta comunitaria).
- Your partner is Spanish and you have been told that registering would help you get your papers.
- The register has asked you for documents from your country of origin that you don't know how to obtain.
How we help
We check what the register in your autonomous community requires and help you both gather the documents, with their legalisations and translations. Once you are registered, we prepare your partner's residence application through the appropriate route and follow it through to the end. We can help you in Spanish, Arabic, Tamazight, French and English, at our offices in Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Málaga and Barcelona or online, wherever you are in Spain.
After registration, we help you with the EU family member card or with residence for family members of Spanish citizens.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between getting married and registering as a civil partnership?
- Both are ways of recognising the relationship, but a civil partnership (pareja de hecho) is entered in a register and does not change your marital status. For immigration purposes it can have effects similar to marriage if it is properly registered. We explain what suits you.
- Can my partner register if they don't have papers?
- In many cases, yes, but it depends on each autonomous community and on the documents its register asks for. We check the requirements of yours before you book an appointment so you are not turned away.
- Does being in a civil partnership give the right to the EU family member card?
- It can if your partner is a citizen of another EU country and the relationship is registered or can be proved to be stable. If your partner is Spanish, the route is usually residence as a family member of a Spanish citizen. We guide you according to your case.
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A first conversation — confidential and without obligation — to understand whether we can help, and how.
We speak Spanish, Arabic, Tamazight (Berber), French and English.