Consulate General of Spain — Local services in San Francisco

It has been 6 years since we started the Sefardi citizenship process. Six. Years. I have waited a while to write this review. In fact, I had two children since we got started on the citizenship journey, and all of us are still waiting for our birth certificates so we can move forward with a passport.

The Spanish govt lost my paperwork in 2019 because, and I am not making this up: ‘someone resigned and left all their paperwork on a table somewhere’, so my file was only retrieved in late 2022 after our lawyer prodded them. Suddenly my application was approved, a whole 2 years after my mother and brother already had their Spanish birth certificates issued.

I then finally, finally got an appointment at this SF consulate to swear in as a citizen in June of 2024, and I am still waiting to this day (Jan 2025) on my Spanish birth certificate so that I can get my passport. Note to others; you cannot move to Spain without this, as you need it to get your DNI.

I sent in my FBI check and apostille again since it expired while waiting during this timeframe. According to USPS it arrived on November 14th 2024 at 11:09am. I emailed them a copy of all these documents asking for any kind of acknowledgement of receipt. Nothing. I asked again if they needed more information from me. Nothing.

My cousin submitted his paperwork to the SF consulate to get his newborn daughter her birth certificate and citizenship a month after she was born. She is now 2 years old. We have heard nothing.

I cannot fathom why this consulate is all right treating their own citizens so poorly. You cannot even make an appointment asking to be seen for this issue. My cousin begged me to take in his daughter’s paperwork during my appointment in June, but they wouldn’t accept it since he ‘needed to send it via post’. Which he had already done and received no answer for.

We are New Citizens who want to be part of the Spanish economy and help it grow. My husband and I are both experts in our fields and would have loved to move as a young family and contribute to Spain. But we cannot because of how ridiculously long this process is taking.

I understand things take longer in Spain. We lived in Spain previously for several years. My ancestral family settled in Venezuela and goodness knows their bureaucracy is brutal.

But I thought Spain was a country that was set on reparation and doing a good thing. I thought they felt pride in helping make up for the collective ancestral trauma caused by the inquisition, and give our generation a chance to return ‘home’. I am sorely disappointed and heartbroken.

I would write this out as well in Spanish, but seeing as I have not even been given the opportunity to move forward due to this consulate’s poor management, I will not be exuding any more effort on your...

Quite the experience! First, the bad- the website is terrible and not accurate. They do not answer their phones, and when you email a question, they respond with a link to their website (which, did I mention is not accurate? See note below about mailing passporst). The best way to be successful is to be neurotic and prepared for every possible thing that could come up, then just hope for the best.

The good- the employees are very friendly and helpful. I think I figured out their system, and that made the waiting not so bad. I highly recommend getting as early an appointment as you can, then showing up right when they open. They don't view appointments in a traditional way- it's more like they collect everyone's documents at the same time, and the appointments determine which order to process them. I feel they are processing your documents well before you are aware of it, and by the time they call you back, your appointment is almost over. So, we weren't called back until 45 minutes after our appointment, but we were done in an hour. That seems reasonable. The other thing is they take care of Spaniards first, then they process visas. I think (but cannot confirm) that the appointments are really just for visa applications and the rest is first-come, first-serve.

The other big warning is that they will not mail the passports back to you. They will mail them to an honorary consulor in your state. Get Priority Express Flat Rate- I actually brought two priority envelopes, because I didn't know which one to use, and I'm glad I did. They took the one I bought during a last-minute panic of "what if the first envelope is the wrong one?" (Hey, I said to be neurotic) However, my daughter was told that they would not mail to Idaho (where we live). Luckily, she goes to school in Washington, so the lady made a copy of her student id and agreed to mail it to Seattle. If she was a student in Idaho, they would have made her take another trip to San Francisco to pick up the visa, rather than mail it to Seattle, where we could drive 5 hours to pick it up. I'm still confused about that. I'm not sure why they make the pick-up process so difficult.

Overall, lead-up was terrible, the day of was a good experience. Moral of the story is to be neurotic, read as many reviews as you can and research everything, and be...

Worst experience of my life. Staff is very unprofessional, rude and discriminative. I visited the consulate with my family- 2 kids ( 4 & 9) and my wife to apply for Schengen visa for our Spain vacation. At the consulate I was told by the lady at the counter that I need specific type of insurance. It has to have repatriation coverage in it. This particular requirement is not clearly mentioned on the online help document of the consulate website. All the time she was showing some sample insurance paper from behind the glass at a distance of 5 feet. I had to rush out along with my family to get one done. Some how I purchased the insurance via AAA and asked my wife and kids to go to the consulate by the time I get the print outs as it was almost their closing time ( 1 pm). To my wife's shock, the guy at the outside desk declined to recognize her and was not ready to admit her and my kids inside. She had to ask other people in the waiting area to prove her presence in the morning. Thanks to the people's confirmation he had to admit my family in. After few minutes we all were in front of the same lady with the insurance she asked for. She was still not happy and demanded for additonal coverage than what was mentioned previously. Only if she had given complete information in the morning, we could have got the needed insurance. She asked us to come back next day with correct insurance. I requested her to get the process done for my kids at least so that they don't have to miss school again. But, appently this being least kid friendly place, she didn't agree. Also, to collect the passports, it's required that my kids were supposed to collect in person. I have done fair amount of travel and faced my share of hard nuts and senseless rules, but this one exceeds the limit. Why in the world would some one want a four year old to collect his own passport? We finally gave up on the idea and dropped our Spain vacation. Shame on Spain's consulate and it's policies which doesn't treat kids and family well. Also, the staff is incompetent and reckless and doesn't treat the visitors...