A few questions, no signup. This runs the same scheduler that builds a real plan, so the date it gives you is the date we would work to.
Each child is a second filing — reunification, which follows the first one being granted.
Applying from inside Spain adds the housing contract and the municipal registration, which can only be done there.
If so, that country has to certify you too. It is the longest lead time in the whole process and the one people find out about last.
Certificates are authenticated by the state that issued them. Same state means one envelope; different states mean one each.
A degree needs the registrar, then a notary, then the state — three steps where most people expect one.
One timing risk on this plan. If the federal apostille runs at its worst observed speed, 2 documents would expire before they could be filed. That is a fact about the process, not about you — it is why the schedule is built backwards, and it is the kind of thing an attorney is worth twenty minutes of.
The first 12 documents are in the base price. This is an estimate from your answers, not a quote — a person checks every plan before a box ships.
Which means the work is not gathering them. It is starting each one at the moment that leaves enough room for everything that has to happen to it afterwards. Take the record check every applicant needs: Spain accepts it for ninety days from the day it was issued.
Start it too early and it is stale by the appointment. Start it too late and the authentication has not come back. The plan picks the window, and it works backwards from the day you file rather than forwards from today.
The same logic runs the other way round for bank statements, which have to be the freshest thing in the file and so are started last. And translation always comes after authentication — the apostille is itself an English page, so translating first means paying for it twice.
Four steps and two envelopes. This is what every document’s page looks like when you scan the code on its slot.
Request the document from whoever issues it.
Hague Convention authentication. Spain will not accept a foreign public document without one.
Translated by a traductor jurado, stamped and signed. Covers the apostille too.
We check the name spelling, the dates, the seal and the validity window before it goes in the box.
Filed in the order the office wants it, tabbed.
Proves the parental relationship, with both parents named.
Two children born in two states means two Secretaries of State and two envelopes. Same-state siblings batch into one.
Which is why it is not the first thing you do. The schedule picks the window it has to land in.
A family of three can have three birth certificates bound for three different states. Three envelopes, one colour — because when you are holding one, the only question is where it goes.
| Envelope | Where it goes | Paper travels? | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| sky | Secretary of State | yes | State-level apostille. The state that issued the document, not the state you live in. |
| coral | US Department of State | yes | Federal apostille, Washington DC. Federally-issued documents only — the FBI check is the one everybody needs. |
| mint | Sworn translator | no | A traductor jurado accredited by Spain's MAEC. Not any translator, and not a notarised translation. |
| sun | Notary | no | Wet-ink or remote online notarisation, depending on whether the receiving state will apostille a RON. |
| peach | Consulate or UGE | yes | Where the finished dossier is filed. Consular if you apply from the US; UGE if you apply from inside Spain. |
| cream | Back to you | yes | The finished dossier, tabbed in filing order. |
It happens and it is nobody’s fault. The plan flags the document and the page behind its code updates, so you hear about it before you post the old one.
Short fee, missing signature, a seal that did not photocopy. Most get caught at review, before the envelope goes out — and when one still comes back, the replacement is already scheduled.
Twenty minutes with an immigration attorney, booked from the app, with your file already in front of them. The first session is in the price.
We are not a law firm and we are careful about the line. We can tell you what an office asks for and what a document has to look like. Whether you qualify, and what you should file, is a question for an attorney — so we make it easy and cheap to ask one.