Last updated: 30-Sep-2026. Salamanca, Spain
Update: The existing three-part travel and return proposal is presented as a legal commentary, with its eligibility conditions, practical arrangements and safeguards retained.
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Problem: a person may live lawfully in Spain and have an established Belarusian identity and nationality, yet have no usable national passport and no realistic way to obtain one. Acceptance of an expired passport for Spanish residence paperwork does not solve international travel or return to Spain.
Existing options first: identify the person's status and the document needed. Use the applicable existing route for domestic identification, an exceptional journey, return to Spain or a special protection/statelessness regime where its conditions are met. These are different procedures, not interchangeable documents.
Proposed solution: for lawfully resident Belarusians whose travel-document problem those routes do not resolve, retain three distinct outputs:
1. An official Spanish decision confirming the documentation obstacle — the person's identity, nationality and lawful residence are checked, and the authority records why a usable Belarusian travel document cannot be obtained or renewed.
2. A reusable Spanish travel document — issued under a separate category-based procedure, without requiring a prior cédula de inscripción or an exceptional reason for each issuance. Its use and return conditions would be linked to the person's continuing residence rights.
3. A Spanish consular replacement or return document — for a holder whose new Spanish travel document is lost, stolen or becomes unusable abroad, after verification by the Spanish police and consular authorities.
Who should act: the migration authorities and the Ministry of the Interior, including the Dirección General de la Policía, should coordinate the documentation procedure; MAEUEC and Spanish consulates should address replacement abroad and return. The competent institutions determine the implementing instrument after examining existing powers and the precise remaining legal obstacles.
These are proposed arrangements, not an application procedure already available. A Spanish-issued document would not itself guarantee recognition by another State, a visa exemption, airline boarding or transit.
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Contents
The proposal concerns lawfully resident Belarusian nationals who are objectively unable to obtain a usable national travel document. They retain their nationality. Their identity and right to live in Spain may already be established. What is missing is a usable document for travel, not necessarily a residence permit or proof of who they are.
For the group at the centre of this proposal, neither of the apparent alternatives works: the person cannot attend the required procedure in Belarus, and the necessary passport cannot be obtained through an accessible consular procedure abroad. The reason must be identified: the service may not be provided abroad, an actual access condition may be impossible to meet, or a sufficiently evidenced individual obstacle may make the required contact or appearance unsafe or impossible. This does not mean that every Belarusian consular service is unavailable or that every Belarusian abroad has the same circumstances.
This group is not identical to the group entitled to international protection. The absence of a passport does not by itself establish refugee or subsidiary-protection status. A resident outside those special regimes can still face a genuine documentation obstacle. The proposal therefore does not require a person to seek asylum merely to obtain a travel document. Where a protection or statelessness travel-document regime applies, it remains the appropriate separate route. [1–2]
The proposed category would identify a documentation need and the conditions for addressing it. It would not create a new nationality, residence status or protection status. Lawful residence remains a condition of this design: a pending asylum application, an estancia or the absence of residence status does not automatically satisfy it. Children may be included when they meet the relevant conditions, with separate checks on identity, nationality, representation and consent.
Article 25 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1347 provides a separate travel-document regime for recognised refugees and, under its conditions, beneficiaries of subsidiary protection who cannot obtain or renew a national passport. Statelessness documentation is also a distinct regime. The proposed ordinary-resident procedure must not displace these routes or make their beneficiaries meet additional ordinary-resident requirements. [1–2]
The Joint Instruction of 19 January 2026 allows expired Belarusian passports to be presented for the immigration and TIE procedures it covers, for Belarusian nationals present in Spain on that date and while the circumstances justifying the measure persist. Its personal, procedural and temporal limits must be checked. It does not make the passport valid for international travel or itself grant residence. Article 210(12) separately enables a ministerial measure for specified administrative uses of expired documents; it is not authority for a new general travel-document scheme. [3–4]
Article 210 of Royal Decree 1155/2024 implements the documentation route in Article 34(2) of Organic Law 4/2000. It is not restricted to recognised refugees. The applicant must meet the requirements concerning inability to be documented and the exceptional humanitarian, public-interest or international-commitment grounds specified by the law. Expiry of a passport alone does not establish entitlement. [2–3]
The application is made personally and in writing to the relevant police office. Documents of any kind, including expired documents, may support identity, origin and nationality. Article 210(3) provides for notarial evidence of an unanswered consular request. Article 210(5) contains specific exceptions, including serious reasons preventing consular appearance for the applicants for exceptional-circumstances residence whom it covers; an OAR report may be sought. That limited exception is not a general exemption for every ordinary resident and is not a requirement to apply for asylum. [3]
After the Article 210 procedure, Article 211 permits the Dirección General de la Policía to issue a travel document to a person who cannot obtain their own passport and establishes an exceptional need to leave Spain. The document states the countries, maximum validity and restrictions on use, and may provide for return to Spain. A document issued solely to return to the country of nationality or residence does not include authorisation to return to Spain. [3]