Spanish Consulate in Havana announces changes to appointments for Spanish nationality

The Consulate General of Spain in Havana announced this Thursday the extension of its appointment schedule to eight weeks for a highly demanded procedure: the option for Spanish nationality under Law 36/2002.

"Starting this week, the appointment schedule for nationality options (Law 36) has been extended to 8 weeks to provide interested parties with a greater time frame to book and attend these appointments," says the statement on the official Consulate account on X.

Until now, the availability window was more limited, which led to fierce competition for appointments and fueled a black market for bookings. In 2025, some people paid between 600 and 800 euros for an appointment.

Last week, they also confirmed the extension of the schedule for appointments for the initial appointment for Marriage Transcription, for the same reasons.

The measure adds to a series of capacity expansions that the Consulate has implemented in recent years in response to the ongoing pressure from the volume of cases they handle and the delays in processing for Cubans.

In May 2025, the diplomatic mission added 336 additional weekly appointments, a 27.2% increase, to address the "bottleneck" in the Spanish nationality processing.

In February 2026, appointments for legalizations increased by 35%, rising from 1,000 to 1,350 per week.

The Consulate of Havana is the only Spanish diplomatic mission in Cuba authorized to process nationality applications, which creates an extraordinary demand.

In 2025, it received 107,338 applications under the Democratic Memory Law, representing 12.24% of the total global applications for that law, which has accumulated nearly 2.5 million applications to date.

A few days ago, the Consulate warned about an active scam involving fake appointments for labor contract procedures. Several individuals presented fraudulent emails impersonating the Consulate, with the subject line "Change Appointment for Labor Contract" and coercive instructions such as "Cancellations are not allowed through this channel."

In light of this situation, the Consulate urged those affected to report the scam to the authorities: to the National Revolutionary Police if the events occurred in Cuba, or to the Spanish National Police if the services were contracted in Spain.