Comunitat Valenciana, Catalonia, Andalusia and Madrid are the autonomous communities in which more requests have been granted, among which 62% of women are registered.

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Ukraine

Spain has exceeded 180,000 temporary protections for Ukrainian refugees since the activation of this extraordinary protection mechanism, which immediately grants residence and work permits to citizens displaced by the Russian invasion. As of July 7, a total of 180,785 protections have been processed and granted by the Asylum and Refuge Office of the Ministry of Interior and the National Police.

The European Commission communicated last March to the Council of Interior Ministers the extension of temporary protection until March 2024. The activation of the Temporary Protection Directive, for the first time since its creation in 2001, was unanimously approved at the Council of Interior Ministers held on March 4, 2022, and only six days later Spain launched the urgent application and processing procedure.

Sixty-two per cent of the people who have obtained this status in Spain are women (112,591) and 38% are men (68,194). By age group, 32% are under 18 years old; 26% are between 19 and 35 years old; 35% are between 36 and 64 years old; and 7% are over 65 years old.

In addition, the majority of those who have obtained temporary protection, 98.1%, are citizens of Ukrainian nationality, while the remaining 1.9% are citizens of other nationalities who were legally residing on Ukrainian territory when the war broke out.

Temporary protection by autonomous communities
Comunitat Valenciana (50,066), Catalonia (41,343), Andalusia (25,952) and Madrid (24,972) are the autonomous communities in which most temporary protection has been processed and granted.

Spain exceeds 180,000 temporary protections to refugees from Ukraine* Up to 20:00 h. on 06/07/2023 / Source: Ministry of Interior

The first activation of the European Directive
The mechanism activated by the Asylum and Refuge Office of the Ministry of Interior allows to grant temporary protection in an agile and simple way within a maximum period of 24 hours from the application.

The procedure is initiated at the National Police stations throughout the country and at the authorized reception centres, where officers of the National Police, supported by interpreters, are in charge of taking the identification data of Ukrainian citizens. This request is subsequently processed by the Asylum and Refuge Office and is resolved within 24 hours.