The Superior Court of Justice of Madrid has approved the Social Security decision to deny the Minimum Living Income to a father of three children because the children, all under 14 years of age, did not have ID. The court explains that the law of this aid requires the document from all Spanish members of the family, regardless of age.
The man requested the benefit in December 2022 for himself, his wife and his three children. During the process, the INSS requested the children’s DNI (those of the two adults were already in the file), one of the documents that must be provided by all members when filling out the Minimum Living Income application form.
More than a year later, in January 2024, Social Security denied aid with a generic reason: “Identity document of the applicant and/or some of the cohabitants expired.” The father submitted a prior claim (the obligatory step before going to court) in which he alleged that his children “are exempt by age from possessing a DNI,” but it was also rejected that same month, so he wanted to go to court.
A court in Madrid also did not agree with him in June 2025, so he appealed to the TSJ with the argument that the Citizen Security Law only requires having a DNI from the age of 14 and that asking children for it beforehand was against the interest of the minor.
Two rules that regulate different things
Although it is true that the DNI is only mandatory from the age of 14, the TSJ did not agree, since article 21 of Law 19/2021 asks to prove with this document the identity of both the person requesting help and the rest of the cohabitation unit (the family that lives at the same address) when they are Spanish. And it does so without setting any age, since “the norm does not differentiate based on age nor does it limit its mandate to people over fourteen years of age.”
For the magistrates, the Citizen Security Law only says at what age you must have it, but nowhere does it prohibit taking it out earlier or prevent another law from requiring it to collect public aid, so the two regulations “are compatible and regulate different factual situations.”
The IMV law itself confirms this, since its eighth additional provision (one of the final sections of the rule) exempts children under 14 years of age from the families that request aid from the DNI fee, a fee that in 2026 is 12 euros. With this exemption, the Chamber explains, the legislator “expressly contemplated the need to have such a document in this area and removed the economic obstacle that could make it difficult.”
The TSJ thus concludes that asking for a DNI from children who can obtain it for free “does not represent a disproportionate burden or contrary to the interest of the minor,” and rejects the father’s appeal in the ruling, which can be consulted at this link from the Judiciary.
Nor does it appear, adds the Chamber, that the children were identified without doubt by other means, such as the birth certificate, the family book or the registry. Regarding the family book, a resolution of the Ombudsman of 2024 states that many applicants understand that it is valid for children under 14 years of age, since the IMV law requires it to demonstrate who forms the family, and considers that the rule “is not at all clear” about whether these children need a DNI.
They approve the Minimum Living Income without you asking for it; Then they tell him by letter that he has no right to it and, if he does not appeal, he must return 14,498.30 euros to Social Security.
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He said this in the case of a woman who presented the missing DNI of the minor with the previous claim and who was rejected because the document was after the request. Without arguing that it is required, the Ombudsman recommended processing the file “regardless of the date of issuance of the DNI or its validity at the time of submitting the application.” The INSS accepted the recommendation.