The massive regularization of immigrants approved this Tuesday by the Council of Ministers, following the pact reached between the Government and Podemos, is expected to legalize the status of up to half a million people who can prove that they have arrived in Spain before the end of 2025. The objective, as explained by the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Sizeis “guarantee rights and give legal certainty to an existing social reality”.
Spain uses this mechanism to regularize foreign workers in an irregular situation on several occasions since the establishment of democracy; The last time was in 2005, under the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Shoemaker. Other countries in Europe, such as Italy, have also used this type of massive legalization process, although it is not a recurring measure at all.
This is what happens in France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom:
Franceunlike Spain, is in a different context regarding the regularization of immigration. Currently, the policy established in the country is significantly reduce the entry of migrantsthrough the tightening of the conditions for obtaining a residence permitknown as ‘titre de séjour’. Between 2024 and 2025, permits fell by 42%, after raise the minimum stay requirement in the country from five to seven years, and add civic and language tests. Added to this is the tightening of expulsion measures for those in an irregular situation; In the last year alone, arrests increased by 30%.
While the French Government invests in applying more barriers migration, a recent INSEE study sheds light on the added value of the migrant population to the labor market in France; People born outside the European Union accounted for more than a quarter of job creation between 2019 and 2024, many in skilled professions, such as healthcare. According to the report, this is mainly due to the improvement in their integration in the workplace and the demographic change that the country has been experiencing for years. Likewise, during this period, 15% of the decrease in the unemployment rate was attributed to immigrants.
Due to aging of the population and the need to support its social system, according to research by Terra Nova Think Tank, France would need incorporate nearly 310,000 immigrant workers per year to balance a critical demographic situation, since for the first time since 1942, the country recorded more deaths (651,000) than births (645,000) this year.
The policy of the Government of Giorgia Meloni regarding the regularization of immigrants has until now been, to say the least, erratic. While leaders of the ruling coalition maintain openly hostile rhetoric towards immigration, the Italian Executive has in parallel approved successive work visa extensions intended for non-EU citizens.
The first of these regularizations was approved in 2023when the Meloni Government authorized the granting of 450,000 work permits until 2025. This was followed by a second measure, approved last year, which gave the green light to another half a million permits until 2028. These are figures much higher than those of previous years: 70,000 in 2021, when Meloni was not yet in power, and 75,700 in 2022, the year in which he won the elections in September.
On paper, the increase is significant. However, in practice, the bureaucratic obstacles have drastically reduced the impact of these measures. According to data from migrant defense organizations such as Ero Straniero (Foreign Era), only a small part of people actually submitted their application and an even smaller part was successful in having their procedure approved. Specifically, of the 127,707 and 119,890 applications submitted in 2023 and 2024 – the latest data available – only about 39,000 (12%) and 16,100 (7%) were approved, respectively.
In Germany there are no recent precedents for collective regularizations on the dimensions that have occurred in southern European countries. Immigrants who enter the country irregularly can obtain the residence permitinitially temporary, through very strict individual procedures, the resolution of which may take years.
The path to legality involves overcoming a period, which can also last several years, in which they live in Germany under a regime of ‘tolerance’. These are mainly people who, having entered as asylum seekershave seen that request rejected, but cannot be expelled to their countries of origin for humanitarian reasons or because their life or physical integrity is in danger, in the event of deportation.
In the great 2015 migration crisisGermany received nearly a million asylum seekers, who processed their request from the first reception centers to which they were assigned. Of them, between 150,000 and 400,000 stayed in the country even though their request was denied. Approximately a third later obtained a residence permit after that period in a situation of tolerance.
Ten years before there was a more or less general regularization. It affected some 50.000 personaswho obtained their residence permit after years in the country and after demonstrating that they met a series of criteria such as family roots and with perspectives of social and labor integration in Germany.
In 2023 A regulation was introduced that allowed obtaining a residence permit for 18 months after five years in the country’s tolerance regime. After that period of a year and a half, you could access an indefinite residence permit after passing the integration courses, demonstrating a certain level of the German language and the ability to live on your own. This clause was temporary in nature and expired in December 2025.
The United Kingdom has never implemented a mass immigration regularization programalthough there have been requests to carry it out. The most recent, supported by more than 100,000 signatureswas presented in the British Parliament in 2021 with the aim of improving access to basic services for undocumented people, one of the sectors of the population hardest hit by the pandemic. The then Conservative Government shot down the petition, arguing that it “unduly rewarded those who have not complied with the legislation” in this matter.
Since 2012 the United Kingdom has implemented a policy known as ‘hostile environment’ (hostile environment), destined to make it even more difficult to stay in the country to undocumented people. Among the main current limitations is the inability to work legally, rent property, open bank accounts or access social benefits and public services.
In general, regularization processes in the United Kingdom are studied case by case and they usually are very restrictive. One of the few ways to qualify for a residence permit is prove having resided in the country for a period of 20 years. Once this period has expired, people in an irregular situation can apply for a residence permit. temporal which is reviewed every 30 months. Only when 10 years have passed with this permit can they apply for residency permanente.
The British Government has approved specific programs to speed up the asylum application processing In some specific cases—including that of the Ukrainian refugees or that of the Hong Kong exiles— and also to regularize the situation of certain groups, including those affected by the Windrush scandal, which affected the legal status of thousands of immigrants from former British colonies in the Caribbean.
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