Jurisdiction criteria applicable to consular offices of the Civil Registry

The Official State Gazette (BOE) today publishes the Instruction of 9 January 2026, of the Directorate-General for Legal Security and Public Faith, on competence criteria applicable to consular offices of the Civil Registry, of which we highlight:

In the field of consular offices of the Civil Registry, lthe implementation of DICIREG has meant the full digitalization of the processing and realization of Civil Registry entries by these offices, assuming an important advance and overcoming the keeping in manuscript books of the inscriptions, moving to a Civil Registry that is configured as a single, public, free, electronic and interoperable registry between the offices themselves and with the operators that interact with it.

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First. Competence criteria between offices with DICIREG with the full implementation of the consular offices of the Civil Registry of DICIREG.

1. Attention to the citizen and registration of procedures.

2. Consultation of open procedures.

3. Foreign documents on the basis of which entries are made in the register.

4. Practice of main inscriptions.

5. Practice of supplementary registrations/annotations when there is a main registration in the civil registry.

6. Practice of supplementary registrations/annotations when there is no main registration in the civil registry.

Second. Competences of the Central Civil Registry Office in relation to Consular Offices.

As a general rule, the Central Office of the Civil Registry will have competence for the practice of seating under foreign public documents of citizens residing in Spain and the Consular Offices for the practice of seating under foreign public documents of residents abroad.

The registration of facts and acts may be requested and, where appropriate, carried out on the basis of foreign public documents at consular offices by citizens resident in Spain, when there is a short period of time between the date of the act or act to be registered and the request for it at that consular office.

Proceedings on the basis of a foreign authentic instrument shall cease to be conducted at the General Offices. They will serve as a window for sending procedures to the Central Office through DICIREG.

In the Consular Offices, these procedures will continue to be processed under a foreign public document in accordance with the provisions of Law 20/2011, of 21 July.

Third. Law 20/2022 of 19 October 2022 on Democratic Memory.
This instruction shall not affect the competence and conduct of proceedings on the right of option to Spanish nationality established in the eighth additional provision of Law 20/2022 of 19 October 2022 on Democratic Memory., which will be in accordance with the aforementioned Law and the Instruction of 25 October 2022 of the Directorate-General for Legal Security and Public Faith, on the right of option to Spanish nationality established in the eighth additional provision of Law 20/2022 of 19 October 2022 on Democratic Memory.

This is without prejudice to the following: (…)

Fourth. Publication in the Official State Gazette.

This Instruction shall enter into force on the day following its publication in the Official State Gazette.