CRIMINAL RECORD vs POLICE RECORD in SPain

Often people confuse criminal records with police records at the same time people know, that these kinds of records could affect negatively on a residence permit or nationality application and the renewal of these or for example when applying for a job or joining an association in Spain.

CRIMINAL RECORD AND POLICE RECORD
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Criminal records and police records are a kind of registered annotations about certain actions or sanctions that have occurred in Spain. In the case of criminal records, the register entries are made in the Ministry of Justice, and in the case of police records in the records of the Ministry of Justice.  This was the first difference between the records.
The other difference between these records is the nature of the act itself.

Therefore the first difference is found in the entries in these records are made in different ministries, depending on whether it is a criminal or police record.

The criminal record is an entry in the record after a final criminal sentence issued by a Court, that has to lead to a certain sanction of the committed crime.

Another thing is the police record, which is an entry in a register that they have collected in the framework of the prevention or investigation of crimes or administrative infractions. A general annotation is could be if someone has been detained.

CRIMINAL RECORD CERTIFICATE

To find out if you have a criminal record, you may apply for a criminal record certificate (Certificado de antecedentes penales), that is issued by the Ministerio de justicia. 

We remind you that criminal records are generated only when we have been convicted in a final sentence for the commission of an act constituting a criminal offense.
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ACCESS TO POLICE RECORDS

As for the police record, you could apply for a certificado de antecedentes from the type of police body that has made the entry. For example Guardia Civil or certain police of an autonomous region. One could ask for the deletion of these records.