The decision
How the matter was handled
Spanish citizenship by residence requires proof of integration, and the law measures it through two Instituto Cervantes examinations: the DELE language test and the CCSE test on constitutional and sociocultural knowledge. Anyone who cannot sit them under ordinary conditions has two routes: ask to be exempted, or ask for the tests to be adapted. In this file the exemption was requested, with documents evidencing the personal circumstances, and the Directorate-General refused it in April 2023.
We lodged an application for reconsideration in May 2023. This was not asking for a favour: the twelfth additional provision of the consolidated Act on the rights of persons with disabilities, article 6.7 of Royal Decree 1004/2015 and article 10.5 of Order JUS/1625/2016 require the Instituto Cervantes to provide the supports and reasonable adjustments needed to take part on genuinely equal terms. The answer was already in the law; it had to be enforced.
The Directorate-General for Legal Certainty and Public Attestation decided in November 2025 and partly upheld the appeal: it maintained the refusal of the exemption — an exemption is a waiver and is read restrictively — and authorised the adapted tests offered by the Instituto Cervantes. 911 days passed between the appeal and the decision.
With that authorisation the file moves again: register for the DELE and the CCSE and ask the examination centre for the adapted sitting, producing the authorisation. The road to citizenship is not closed; it is walked with the adjustments the law recognises.
Every case is unique: it depends on its facts, its evidence and the authority deciding it. The outcome of one matter does not anticipate the outcome of any other, and the timescales given here are the ones that particular file took: they are set by the authorities, not by us.