Spain’s plan to grant legal residency and work rights to undocumented migrants will be the largest scheme of its kind in European history.

There have been at least 1.3 million applications made, more than double the 500,000 the centre-Left coalition government expected. The deadline for applications is on Tuesday.

Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, said the amnesty was an act of justice but also of necessity, to continue Spain’s strong economic growth and safeguard public pensions by bringing younger workers into the country.

It began on April 16 and by mid-June 360,000 people out of 900,000 applications had been granted provisional residency permits as their claims were processed.

Hopeful migrants had formed long queues as they collected the necessary documents to prove they met the qualification criteria for the one-year residence and a work permit.

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