Thinking about applying for Spanish citizenship but worried about the exams? Here’s how many people pass the culture and language tests required to become a Spanish national.
If you want to become a Spanish citizen, you have to prove your knowledge of the country’s culture, history, politics and language by taking a citizenship test.
If you meet the conditions to obtain Spanish nationality via residency, you’ll actually need to pass two tests if you’re not originally from a Spanish-speaking country.
The first test is the Prueba de Conocimientos Constitucionales y Socioculturales de España (CCSE) or Test of Constitutional and Sociocultural Knowledge of Spain (all applicants sit this)
The second is the A2 DELE language exam (Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera) for those whose native language isn’t Spanish.
READ ALSO: How to apply for Spanish citizenship
In 2025, a total of 277,222 candidates took the CCSE exam, according to data from the Cervantes Institute.
There are only certain dates per year when these exams take place and deadlines by when you must have registered for them. Make sure you know when these are so that you don’t miss the deadline and have to wait a long time to be able to register again.
There are many examination centres across the country click here to find out the nearest one to you. Each one of these will be able to tell you when they will be holding their exams and when you need to register by.
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What’s the pass rate for the culture and language exams for Spanish citizenship?
The Cervantes Institute publishes the results of candidates who take the CCSE, which gives us an idea of pass rates.
For January 2026, the number of CCSE candidates registered was 27,157 and the pass rate exceeded 96 percent. In November 2025, the number of candidates was 29,948 with a pass rate exceeding 98 percent.
In September 2025, 29,159 applicants and the pass rate exceeded 98 percent.
Looking a little further back, pass rates for the CCSE seem consistent. In November 2024, the pass rate was 97 percent. In November 2023 it was 95 percent, and in November 2022, the rate was over 98 percent.
From that, we can clearly see a steady but slightly fluctuating CCSE pass rate of 95 percent and above.
For the language tests, however, it seems that applicants have a little more trouble.
For the A2 DELE exams held in October 2025 (the last test taken with published pass rates) more than 10,000 people registered and the overall pass rate was 73 percent.
In September more than 7,500 candidates registered and the overall pass rate was 73 percent.
In August, the pass rate was 75 percent.
A2 is the second lowest level of Spanish proficiency in the DELE rankings, an intermediate-beginner standard which requires the capacity to explain daily routines, carry out simple interactions and use basic past tenses.
