Work permits in Sweden

Not if you are a citizen of an EU or EEA country or Switzerland: you can move to Sweden and start working straight away. Everyone else needs a work permit before they start, and in most cases before they travel. A Nordic citizen does not need a permit either.

A job offer from an employer in Sweden, a valid passport, a salary at least at the level the Swedish Migration Agency sets each year, and pay and terms at least as good as the collective agreement or what is usual in the trade. The employer must also offer health, life, occupational injury and pension insurance. The employer starts the application online and you complete it.

It depends on the kind of permit and on whether the application is complete. The waiting times on this page are Migrationsverket’s own: the number of months within which three in four recent cases were decided. Highly qualified workers, researchers and holders of an EU Blue Card are usually decided fastest, often within one or two months when nothing is missing.

A work and residence permit for highly qualified workers with a university degree or long professional experience, a job offer of at least a year and a salary above a higher threshold than for an ordinary work permit. It makes it easier to move on to another EU country later. Researchers and staff transferred within a company (ICT permit) have permits of their own.

If you will live in Sweden for a year or more, you register with the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) and get a personal identity number (personnummer), which you need for a bank account, healthcare and almost everything else. If you stay shorter, or before you are registered, you can get a coordination number (samordningsnummer) for tax and work.

In most cases your spouse or partner and your children under 18 can apply for residence permits to join you, and your partner may then work in Sweden too. They can apply at the same time as you or later.