Swedish citizenship: the rules since June 2026
On 6 June 2026, Sweden's National Day, the new naturalisation rules came into force. If you had been counting on the old rules, you were moved onto the new ones overnight, even if your application had long been with Migrationsverket (the Swedish Migration Agency).
That is the part many German-language guides still get wrong today, and it is the most expensive mistake in this whole area. So, first things first:
There is no transitional arrangement. None.
Migrationsverket leaves no room for interpretation: the new rules also apply if you applied before and your case had not been decided by 6 June. The law came utan övergångsbestämmelser, without transitional provisions.
What that means in practice is unpleasant. If you applied in 2023 after five years of hemvist (habitual residence) and have been waiting since then, you will now be assessed under the eight-year rule. The fee has been paid, the waiting time has passed, and the decision still comes back negative, or the case sits there until the eight years are up. There were several court cases about this in the spring; the principle has not changed.
If you are in this situation, the only sensible response is to check your case against the new criteria instead of continuing to hope for the old ones.
The new requirements
Hemvist: eight years instead of five
The main rule has gone up from five to eight years. If you don't have a Swedish spouse, that is the number that counts.
The exceptions that might affect you:
| Group | Hemvist period |
|---|---|
| Main rule | 8 years |
| Nordic citizens, former Swedish citizens | 2 years |
| Married to a Swedish citizen | 7 years |
| Under 21 | 7 years |
| Stateless persons | 5 years |
| Recognised refugees | 7 years |
| Identity cannot be proven | 10 years |
The spouse exception is narrower than it sounds: you must have been married or registered partners for five years and your partner must have been a Swedish citizen for five years. Before, it was three years in total.
Permanent right of residence
You need a permanent right of residence or an equivalent status. For EU citizens, this is not a permit you apply for, but the permanent uppehållsrätt (permanent right of residence) that arises after five years of lawful residence. Lawful means: you worked, were self-employed, studied, or had sufficient means of your own and health insurance. Migrationsverket is the authority that decides in each individual case; the five-year rule is the normal case, not a guarantee.
Language and knowledge of society
What's new is that you have to prove you can speak Swedish and know how the country works. This applies to everyone between 16 and 66; anyone who can't, because of a disability or for other reasons, is exempt.
The proof does not automatically mean taking a test. If you have one of these certificates, that is enough:
- a pass grade in Swedish or Swedish as a second language from year 9 of the grundskola (compulsory school)
- a corresponding certificate from gymnasium (upper secondary school), Komvux (adult education) or a folkhögskola (folk high school)
- a passed SFI course D (Swedish for Immigrants)
- the Tisus test
Only if you cannot present any of these will you be invited to the medborgarskapsprov (citizenship test). And "invited" is meant literally: you can only take the test if you have received a letter about it from Migrationsverket. You can't simply sign up to get ahead.
The process as it stands today: the test on society was held for the first time in August 2026, organised by Universitets- och högskolerådet (UHR, the Swedish Council for Higher Education), in Swedish, as a multiple-choice exam on paper. The language test will come later, currently expected in autumn 2027. UHR has not yet published dates, locations or the registration fee for the upcoming sessions.
That also makes clear what the old advice to "prepare for B1" is worth: a language test doesn't even exist yet, and when it does come, the SFI certificate will be the easier route for most people. Learning Swedish is still worth it, just not because of an exam that isn't happening yet.
Försörjningskrav: you have to support yourself
This is the requirement that raises the most questions. Your income must be at least three inkomstbasbelopp (income base amounts) a year. For 2026 the inkomstbasbelopp is 83,400 SEK; three of them come to 250,200 SEK a year, or around 20,850 SEK gross a month.
Important: it's a formula, not a fixed figure. Migrationsverket itself rounds it to "cirka 20 000 kronor per månad före skatt" (about 20,000 kronor a month before tax), but the amount rises every year with the basbelopp. If you take an annual figure from an older article, your calculation will be wrong.
The income must come from employment or self-employment, not from benefits, and it must be stable. There is also a limit on social benefits: no more than six months of receiving them within three years.
Pensioners, people with disabilities and full-time students with proven academic progress are exempt.
For employees on a normal Swedish salary, the threshold is not an issue in most sectors. The people affected are the self-employed in their start-up phase, part-timers and parents on leave without other income: exactly the situations in which many newcomers spend their first years.
Conduct
The existing requirement for a skötsamt och hederligt levnadssätt (orderly and honest way of life) has been tightened, mainly through longer waiting periods after criminal offences. If you have debts with Kronofogden (the Swedish Enforcement Authority) or entries in the belastningsregister (criminal record), sort that out before you apply, not afterwards.
What it costs and how long it takes
The application fee for adults is 2,900 SEK, for a child 475 SEK. Neither is refunded if the application is rejected.
And now the figure that determines all your planning: for adult applications, Migrationsverket states that 75 per cent of the most recently decided cases were decided within 53 months. That is four and a half years.
Read that again. Processing now takes almost as long as the entire hemvist period that used to be required. If you apply today, you normally won't get a decision before 2031, and until then you carry the risk that the rules will change again and be applied to you without a transition period. That is exactly what happened in 2026.
For children things look much better: 75 per cent within twelve months, a hemvist period of usually three years, five from the age of 15. The language and society requirement only applies from 16. If you live here with children, look at their application separately from your own: it is faster and runs under milder rules.
You may be able to keep your current passport
One piece of good news that hasn't changed: Sweden has allowed multiple citizenship since 2001. Whether you can keep your current citizenship also depends on your home country, so check its rules. Germany is a good example: with its reform of June 2024, it opened up multiple citizenship for all naturalisations. So if you are German, you don't have to give up your German passport. Both in parallel, with full rights in both countries.
What this means for you
You came in 2018 or earlier and work here. You meet the eight-year requirement. Work through the other points (income, certificates, criminal record extract) and submit the application once everything is in place. The waiting time runs from receipt, so earlier is better. But submit it complete; an incomplete application in a four-and-a-half-year queue is an expensive mistake.
You came between 2019 and 2023. It's not your turn yet. Use the time for the points that can't be put in place at short notice: a Swedish certificate that spares you the test, and a cleanly documented income above the threshold.
You have already applied and are waiting. Your case will be decided under the new rules. Check whether you meet them. If not, the question is not whether you keep waiting, but when you submit a new application.
You have only just arrived or are still coming. Plan for a decade, not five years. Eight years of hemvist plus four and a half years of processing is the realistic horizon. That is no reason not to do it, but it's a good reason not to build anything on it.
And for everyday life, the passport isn't the bottleneck anyway. As an EU citizen with a personnummer, you can live, work and buy here, and vote in elections held at municipal level. Citizenship mainly changes two things: the right to vote in elections to the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament), and protection against residence rules ever turning against you.
This article is not a substitute for legal advice. It reflects the situation as of 25 September 2026. The details of the language and society tests are still in flux; UHR publishes dates, fees and format on an ongoing basis. For your specific case, Migrationsverket is the authoritative source.
Buying a house in Sweden: practical guide, the in-depth guide on this topic, is currently available in German: view it in the shop.
I'm Sebastian Schiefner, a photographer in Gothenburg, and I help people who are moving to West Sweden with finding a home and buying property. Free intro call.
