7-month backlog for foreigners' work permits with 5,500 applications pending

Applications from foreigners for residence permits and work permits have tripled since 2016, causing seven-month delays in processing. 

Of the 34,674 applications submitted in 2023, around 5,500 still have to be processed by either the Catalan or Spanish authorities, or indeed both.  

Of the 29,170 applications resolved, 4,500 were initial authorizations for temporary residence and paid employment which took up to seven months to be processed, more than double the legal limit.  

Procedures submitted by foreigners already resident were resolved within the specified timeframe. 

Sources from the Catalan government say processing problems have been caused by the increase in the number of requests, but also because Catalan government workers do not have access to the IT platform Spanish government staff use for case management. 

The lack of access to the Spanish system causes staff at Catalonia's Department of Business and Labor to spend "a large amount of time simply transcribing data from files by hand," which they describe as a "totally inefficient administrative task." 

Catalan government sources calculate that if they had access to the platform, called Mercurio, procedures for modifications would go from being resolved in 75 days to five or ten days.