The General Consulate of Spain in Havana will open a new Visa Application Center in the Playa municipality of Havana on October 5.
The new office will operate as a functional extension of the consular system and aims to alleviate the backlog accumulated over the years from the Grandchildren's Law procedures, according to the Spanish Government itself announced.
The center's address is Avenida 31, between 18 and 14, house 1419, in Miramar-Playa, Havana. There, applications and documentation will be received, applicants will be attended to, and passports and resolutions will be issued.
However, the consulate was explicit on one key point: "The decision regarding the granting or denial of visas will remain exclusively with the Consulate General of Spain in Havana."
The rollout will be gradual. Starting October 5, the short-stay visas (Schengen) and the collection of passports and resolutions will be processed.
Starting from October 12, national visas will be included: studies, work, highly qualified professionals, non-lucrative residence, internships, and research.
Finally, starting from October 19, requests from family members of Spanish citizens and citizens of the European Union, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland will transition to the new system.
The visa delivery schedule at the new center will be Monday to Thursday from 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM, and on Fridays from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM.
"The appointment booking for the various consular services is free of charge. In the case of visa appointment requests, starting from October 5, 2026, they will be submitted at the Visa Application Center for Spain in Cuba at a cost of 17 euros," states the official statement.
End of the Bookitit platform for new requests
Since September 21, the Bookitit platform has stopped accepting requests for these procedures. Those who already had an appointment scheduled or had submitted their application before that date will not need to restart the process: the new center will contact them directly via email.
Requests that have not yet moved to the new center will continue to be handled at the Palacio de Velasco location, on Zulueta Street number 2, at the corner of Cárcel, in Old Havana.
The opening responds to a pressure that has been building for years. The Government of Spain recorded 107,338 nationality applications submitted at the Havana consulate under the Democratic Memory Law—known as the "grandchildren's law"—a figure that represents 12.24% of all applications registered worldwide.
The deadline for new applications closed on October 22, 2025, but thousands of cases are still being processed.
This volume is further increased by the growth of the Spanish community on the island itself. By the end of 2025, the number of Spanish citizens registered in Havana approached 185,000, nearly double that of a decade earlier. Each new citizen creates new administrative needs: passports, registrations, certificates, and renewals that ultimately add to the consular backlog.
Throughout 2026, the consulate had already adopted remedial measures. In February, weekly appointments for document legalization increased by 35%, from 1,000 to 1,350, and starting in July, they expanded to 1,500.
In April, certain Schengen visas for another European country also began to be processed. Nonetheless, complaints about delays and the difficulty in securing appointments continued.
In September, the Supreme Court of Spain temporarily suspended the registration in the electoral roll of those who obtained nationality under the grandchildren's law, although it did not annul the nationalities already granted nor halt the processing of pending applications.
The opening of the new center comes at a time of high demand and political debate regarding the regulation that overwhelmed the consular system.
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