When Spain opened a mass migrant regularisation process in April 2026, lines formed outside public offices near Barcelona and in other cities. People needed documents, appointments or help filing applications. Reports recorded long queues in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Logroño, alongside confusion over digital certificates, office hours and system failures.
Online applications existed, but assembling the papers and digital access needed to become an applicant could not be completed entirely online. The street queue was not yet the wait for a residence decision; it was the preliminary wait to enter the process at all.