EU Citizen

Family Members

Family reunification is a recognized reason for the immigration of family members to a country where one or more family member already reside.

As a family member of an EU/EEA citizen exercising their right of free movement,you can get a visa through a facilitated process to travel with your family member or to join him/her in Sweden.

Family members are:

Spouse/partner/common law spouse
The direct descendants (children) who are under the age of 21 or are dependents, and those of the spouse or partner.
The dependent direct relatives in the ascending line (e.g. parents) and those of the spouse or partner.
You can apply for a short-stay Schengen visa (type C-Joining a Family Member) which will permit you to enter Sweden and the Schengen area.
Once in Sweden you should apply for a residence card for a family member of a EU/EEA citizen within three months for a Residence Card of a family member of a EU/EEA citizen.

Swedish-Nordic Family

Reunification

If you are Swedish or Nordic citizen, then you can apply for residence permit under national Laws. Requirements are slightly different than the above-mentioned EU residence card.

The person who wants to invite his family to the country he should be residing and have enough income resources to provide financial support to the family and a standard house to live in. However, these mentainence requirements are not applicable in all cases.

Student-Work-Business Permit Family

Reunification

What are

Mentainence Requirements

Housing

Requirements:

The person who wants to invite his family to the country he should be residing and have enough income resources to provide financial support to the family and a standard house to live in.

If you rent your home, you have to send in a copy of your tenancy agreement. You must also enclose a rent invoice for the last month’s rent (1 month).

The agreement has to contain:

Monthly rent
Number of rooms
Name of tenant
Name of landlord
Period of tenancy
Signature of landlord.

If you are a

Sub-tenant in your home

If you are a sub-tenant in your home, you also have to send in documents showing that your landlord, housing cooperative association or rent tribunal has approved the let. When you rent as a sub-tenant, it is the property-owner who is the landlord, not the holder of the tenancy agreement. The agreement or contract must be signed.

If you

Own your home

If you own your home, you have to send in a copy of your purchase agreement or some other transfer document showing that you own the home. If the number of rooms is not stated in the document, you can attach a layout plan, a home specification or a similar document.

You also have to send in documents showing what housing cost you have. Irrespective of whether you live in a cooperative (‘tenant-owner’) or owner-occupied home, you have to send in documents showing what interest expenditure you have and the size of your amortisation payments.

If you live in a cooperative home, you also have to send in copies of documents showing the monthly charge and any other operating costs not included in the monthly charge, such as for heating, electricity and water.

If you live in an owner-occupied home, you have to send in documents showing what operating costs you have. This can, for instance, be charges for heating, water, refuse collection, waste water, joint property management charges, property charges or other costs linked to your housing.

Income Requirements:

If you

are Employed

If you are working, you need to send in a copy of your employment agreement or some other document showing your employment.

The document has to contain:

Name of employee
Form of employment (for example open-ended, fixed term, substitute)
Level of employment
Wage
Employer
Signature of an authorised representative of your employer.

You also need to send in a copy of your most recent pay slip.

It has to contain:

Name of wage earner (employee)
Name of person paying the wage (employer)
Net wage
Any wage supplements or wage deductions (leave or illness, for example).

If

Temporary Employment

If your employment lasts for longer than one year, you need to send in a copy of your employment agreement and your most recent pay slip. If you have an hourly or on-call employment, you can send in a copy of your employment agreement and your three most recent pay slips.

If your employment lasts for less than one year and you have had previous fixed-term employment, you also need to send in previous employment agreements for the past year.

You can also send in documents to prove that you are a member of an unemployment benefit insurance fund, and that you will receive compensation from there in the event of unemployment.

Employment agreements, or other documents showing your employment, have to contain:

Name of employee
Form of employment (for example open-ended, fixed term, substitute)
Level of employment
Wage
Employer
Signature of an authorised representative of your employer.

Your pay slip has to contain:

Name of wage earner (employee)
Name of person paying the wage (employer)
Net wage
Any wage supplements or wage deductions (leave or illness, for example).

If

Unemployment insurance fund

You need to send in a copy of a decision from the unemployment insurance fund and account statements showing payments made to you. The documents should show how much benefit you receive and the period when you have the right to benefit.

If

you are receiving benefit from Försäkringskassan

You need to send in a copy of a decision from the Försäkringskassan [the Swedish Social Insurance Agency] showing what type of benefit and how much benefit you are receiving. The documents should show the period when you have the right to benefit from Försäkringskassan.

If

Pension

You need to send in a copy of a decision showing what type of pension you have and how much pension you receive each month or year. This can, for example, be a decision from the Swedish Pensions Agency.

If

you are self-employed

If you are a sole trader or are a partner in a trading partnership or limited partnership, your income consists of your share of the surplus from your company after deduction of social security contributions. This usually means the surplus from business activities that you declare in your tax return.

You can show your income by sending in:

A copy of your final tax assessment for the previous income year
A copy of your tax return, along with a copy of your NE or N3A annex, for the previous income year
A copy of the decision on your preliminary tax for the present year from the Swedish Tax Agency, or an account statement from your tax account for at least three months clearly showing preliminary tax paid.

If

you are a partner in a limited company

If you are a partner in a limited company, you can show that you withdraw salary or other compensation from your limited company

by sending in the following documents:

salary agreement and pay slips for the last month (1 month)
statement from the limited company’s tax account for at least three months to show employer’s contributions and preliminary tax paid to the Swedish Tax Agency
if you conducted activities in the previous year, you can send in the final tax assessment or tax return information for yourself for the previous year
a copy of your income tax return for the previous year and a K10 form from the Swedish Tax Agency showing that you have received a dividend for your share
an extract from the Swedish Tax Agency showing income statements submitted for you for the last three months.

Family

Reunification for Refugees

You have to be in Sweden or on the Swedish border in order to apply for asylum. It’s not possible to apply for asylum before you arrive, or at a Swedish embassy in another country.

If a person receives a permanent residence permit as a refugee or as an individual who needs subsidiary protection, then you may have the right to invite your family to that country. Family reunification is a step towards the settlement of refugees to live with their families.

The person who wants to invite his family to the country he is residing should have enough income resources to provide financial support to the family and a standard house to live in.

The maintenance requirement does not apply if you are a refugee or a person in need of subsidiary protection and your family members submit their applications within three months of the date on which you were granted a residence permit or protection status.

However, the maintenance requirement does apply if you and your family have the possibility to reunite in a non-EU country to which your family has a special connection. In addition, in order to be exempt from the requirement that their applications be submitted within three months of each other, couples must have started their relationship before entering Sweden, or the relationship must be well-established.

No maintenance requirement applies if a decision to reject the application for a residence permit would be contrary to a Swedish convention commitment.

The possibilities for your family to live with you in Sweden if you have a temporary residence as a refugee or as a person needing subsidiary protection is governed by different things. Some of the important points regarding residence permits are listed below:

have been granted a permanent residence permit
have been granted a temporary residence permit as a refugee or a person in need of subsidiary protection and have good chances of receiving a permanent residence permit.

Family reunification and residence permits for family members in Sweden

Who can

Move with You

Only your immediate family members can move with you if you have a temporary residence permit. Your immediate family members mean your spouse, children under the age of 18, registered partners, and cohabiting partners. Other family members and children who are above 18 are not eligible to move to Sweden or the EU on your behalf while you have a temporary residence permit. If you are under the age of 18, then your parents are counted as your immediate family members.

In case you have a permanent residence permit or you are planning to get married to a person in Sweden, then that person can apply on your behalf for the residence permit. Persons other than your immediate family members like parents or siblings can also move to Sweden with you.

Family Reunification in Sweden: Bringing Your Family Here

Family reunification is the route by which a partner, child or parent joins someone already living in Sweden. Which rules apply depends entirely on the status of the person in Sweden, and getting that wrong at the outset is the most expensive mistake available in this area.

First question: which route are you on?

If the sponsor is an EU or EEA citizen exercising free movement, EU law applies. See EU family reunification, which is generally the more favourable route.
If the sponsor is a Swedish citizen, or holds a Swedish permit outside free movement, Swedish national rules apply under Utlänningslagen (2005:716). That is what this page covers.

Who can be brought under the national route

Spouse, registered partner or cohabiting partner. The relationship must be genuine, and for cohabitation there must be evidence of an established shared life
Children under 18 of the sponsor
A partner you intend to marry or live with, assessed more strictly as a newly established relationship
Parents, in narrow circumstances involving a special dependency relationship. See bringing parents to Sweden

The maintenance requirement

Under the national route the sponsor generally must show:

Sufficient income to support themselves and the arriving family members
Adequate housing of a suitable size and standard for the household

There are exemptions, and whether one applies to you is a question worth resolving before filing rather than after. The housing limb catches people out more often than the income limb: an apartment that is comfortable for one person may not satisfy the standard for a family of four, and the assessment is made against the household as it will be, not as it is.

What Migrationsverket examines

How and when you met, and the pattern of contact since
Documented evidence of the relationship over time
Consistency between both parties’ accounts, which is why interviews are common
Income and housing, where the maintenance requirement applies
Identity, and documentation of any earlier marriages and how they ended

Inconsistency between two accounts of the same relationship is the most frequent cause of refusal, and it is usually poor preparation rather than dishonesty. Two people remember the same holiday in different months.

Where applications go wrong

Applying under the national route when the EU route was available, and losing the benefit of it
Housing that does not meet the standard for the household size
Income that meets the threshold on paper but is not durable
Documents from abroad that are not properly legalised or apostilled
Thin evidence of the relationship, particularly for newly established ones

Frequently asked questions

How long does family reunification take in Sweden?

Processing times vary considerably by category and by how complete the application is. Applications that trigger requests for further evidence take substantially longer, which is why the quality of the initial filing matters more than most applicants expect.

Do I have to be married?

No. Established cohabitation can support an application, as can an intention to marry or cohabit, though the latter is assessed more strictly.

What income do I need?

Enough to support the household, alongside adequate housing. Whether the requirement applies at all, and at what level, depends on your circumstances.

Can I bring my adult children?

Generally children under 18. Adult children are possible only in limited circumstances, typically involving dependency.

What happens if we are refused?

Depending on the grounds, reconsideration by Migrationsverket under Förvaltningslagen (2017:900) or appeal to the Migration Court. Deadlines are short and strictly applied, so act on a decision immediately.

Talk to us before you file

Sweden Relocators AB handles family reunification under both the EU and national routes, across Sweden and Denmark, including appeals. Because these cases turn on the evidence assembled before filing and on choosing the correct legal route, the first conversation is the one that changes the outcome.

Call +46 72 327 62 76, message the same number on WhatsApp, or email info@swedenrelocators.se. For Danish family cases see Nordic Relocators.

General information, not individual legal advice. Last reviewed 26 August 2026.

På svenska

Den här sidan finns också på svenska: Familjeåterförening i Sverige. Se även alla våra tjänster på svenska.

FAMILY REUNIFICATION