I have a question that I have not found anything related on any site that only applies to this group of people: *"People of origin from Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea or Portugal or Sephardic, who are pursuing a **PhD** in **Spain**."*

In many European countries such as Poland (where I reside) or Czech Republic (where a person I know resides) your studies as a *master or doctoral* student (*not undergraduate*) count as half of residence time in these countries and in countries like The Netherlands, if you pursue a PhD (**strictly a PhD**), your years of residence are counted as full-time residing in that place.

Due to the previous examples, if you pursue a PhD in Poland or Czechia for 4 years, it means: *"You have lived 2 years and if you learn Polish (B1+) and work for 3 years more then you are eligible for the **permanent residence** card."*

And in The Netherlands, if you study 4 years, pass the integration test, work 1 year more and learn Dutch (B1+) you are eligible apply for the **permanent residence** card.

Now my question is:

> What is the situation in Spain? Does the doctoral student's time count
> towards to your citizenship?

Because I read that in certain articles the following:

> "In the case of nationals of origin of Ibero-American countries,
> Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea or Portugal or Sephardim,
> they may apply for Spanish nationality at the time of serving two
> years of legal and continued residence in Spain , and immediately
> prior to the request."
>
> *Source in Spanish: [Nacionalidad española, Gobierno de España
©Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Unión Europea y Cooperación*][1] *at 2019-12-02 16:39*

The time as a *"doctoral student"* is not something clear in most of cases and less their status (*in The Netherlands you get researcher's visa, not a student's one*). I only found that if you're [a regular student][2] (not PhD) is not counted.

And that makes sense, since generally, when you're a regular student, you often have a scholarship or you're paying your studies, technically, you're exempt of paying taxes. And the section of the taxes is where there is a difference between a PhD researcher and a regular student. In most of European countries, a "doctoral student" is considered a researcher in the universities, a kind of worker since they pay taxes and scholarships are uncommon (*Canada, the US, Australia, etc. They are not the rule*) because even in **[Marie Curie][3]**, which provides many of the EU "scholarships", for instance, they are considered jobs not scholarships as you can see in the image below.

[![marie curie][4]][4]


  [1]: http://www.exteriores.gob.es/Portal/es/ServiciosAlCiudadano/InformacionParaExtranjeros/Paginas/Nacionalidad.aspx
  [2]: https://legalteam.es/lt/la-tarjeta-de-estudiante-no-computa-para-la-nacionalidad-espanola/
  [3]: https://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/how-to/find-job_en
  [4]: https://i.sstatic.net/GAREh.png