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How you can get a faster decision from Sweden’s Migration Agency

If you've been waiting six months or more for a ruling from a Swedish agency there is something you can do to force the agency to take a decision. So is this worth doing in work permit, residency permit and citizenship cases?

Published: 26 July 2024 11:21 CEST
Updated: 4 August 2024 14:31 CEST

An office of the Migration Agency in Stockholm. Photo: Anders Wiklund/Scanpix

If you’ve been waiting a long time for your decision to come through you can, by law, submit what is called a “request to conclude”.

What is a ‘request to conclude’?

According to Sweden’s Administrative Procedure Act, which came into force in 2018, if an application you have made has not been decided “in the first instance” within six months at the latest, you can request in writing that the agency decide the case, using a process called a dröjsmålstalan, or “request for a case to be expedited”.

The agency then has four weeks to either take a decision or reject the request to conclude in a separate decision. You can then appeal this rejection to the relevant court or administrative authority.

You can only use the request to conclude mechanism once in each case.

How do you apply for a ‘request to conclude’ a Migration Agency case?

It’s very easy to fill in the form on the Migration Agency website, which only asks you to give your personal details, say whether your case concerns a work permit, residency permit, right of residency case, or ‘other’, and list any other people applying along with you. You then send the application by post to the Migration Agency address on the form.

Does it work?

A lot of people do seem to have success using the mechanism. The Migration Agency in section 9.1 of its annual report says that it is forced to to prioritise those who do this trick after a six month wait ahead of those who have spent longer in the queue. This is particularly the case for the ‘easy’ applications.

More or less everyone, though, has their initial request to conclude refused, seemingly automatically without the request ever being seen by a case officer.

Most them are then successful when they then appeal this refusal to the Migration court, with the Migration Agency stating on page 91 of its annual report that it lost 96 percent of such cases in 2021, 80 percent of such cases in 2022 and 77 percent of such cases in 2023.

As the Administrative Procedure Act states clearly that a decision should come within six months, the Migration Agency has in most cases a weak legal position.

Once your request is rejected you only a short time to appeal, so it is important to act quickly, even if the agency fails to inform you that your request has been rejected. It you have heard nothing and the four weeks are up, it’s important to chase your request so you can appeal before the deadline expires.

Even those who are rejected and don’t appeal sometimes get results, finding they are asked to submit their passport shortly afterwards.

However, this is not always the case, so it is essential to go ahead with the appeal anyway, even if your passport is requested.

What do people say?

The mechanism appears to be particularly popular among British people, with one member of the Brits in Sweden Facebook page saying that “pretty much everyone has used it”, but it is also used by other groups, such as Indians in Sweden.

One British woman said she had been informed about the rule by her case officer, and, although she was worried it might make a negative decision more likely, is glad she did so.

“I used it as it was offered and I didn’t want to wait any longer. I thought there was nothing to lose and it didn’t cost anything, only a bit of time!” she said.

She had her request for decision accepted, with the officer in four weeks getting back to her requesting that she send in two more forms, one documenting her relationship with an EU citizen, and another on her ability to support herself and pay for her accomodation.

“It’s a shame they didn’t advertise it more widely and I didn’t hear about it before. as I could have got a decision earlier on my residency application and then could have applied for permanent residency much sooner,” she said.

Another British woman said that she had decided to send in a request for a decision after she had been waiting for seven months for a decision on citizenship and her case officer told her to expect to wait as long as 36 months, despite being a simple case given that she had lived in Sweden lawfuly for five years, working throughout.

“I knew of the request to conclude option and used it. They waited the full month before responding and rejecting it, as was expected. But the next day also assigned me a case officer and asked for my passport,” she remembers. “I believe they did this so I wouldn’t appeal their rejection and get the courts support for them to hurry up and process it.”

Two months later, her citizenship was approved.

An Indian man said he had used the mechanism no fewer than three times, firstly when extending a work permit, then when applying for permanent residency for a dependent, and thirdly, when applying for citizenship.

In the first case, he said, the request had been accepted on a first attempt and his work permit extension — for which he had been waiting for more than a year — was granted 28 days later.

The second request, which he made after discovering his dependent had no case officer after seven months, was rejected. They appealed, the court ruled in their favour and their case officer gave a positive decision a month later.

Finally, in the citizenship case, the court ruled in his favour after the request was rejected, but 40 days later he is still waiting for a decision on the initial application.

Does sending in a request increase your chance of having an application rejected?

Anecdotally, it doesn’t appear to.

“It was a concern, yes,” the first British woman said, saying she had been told that sending in the form was “no reason to reject my application.”

“But this is Sweden and in my opinion, even simple or clear-cut things can be a gamble,” she added.

How does the mechanism affect handling times overall?

While the request-to-conclude mechanism might help applicants in individual cases, the Migration Agency complains that it has been making the problem of long processing times worse by creating an addition set of processes case officers need to handle, and also by affecting the agency’s ability to prioritise.

“The fact that many individuals request that their cases be decided is taking up a lot of resources and leading to processing times generally becoming longer, not least as many delay cases are appealed to the court,” Mikael Ribbenvik, the Migration Agency’s former Director General said when asking for the agency to be exempted from the system in April 2023.

Member comments

Anonymous - 26 July 2024 at 16:17 CEST

I use this mechanism which resulted in a lie given in the letter from the migration agency informing that my case was complex which was not the case ( chatting with a agency person via the migration agency chat function resulted in the actual truth that there is no case officer assigned to my case)

I ended up appealing the decision to the migration court which sided with me and forced the agency to complete doonest.

got my citizenship after 3 months then
Anonymous - 6 August 2024 at 08:34 CEST

I am British with post Brexit status, reside with Swedish partner, I work in Sweden. I applied for Citizenship, I demanded they conclude my case after 6 months, received denial 4 weeks later, I appealed, one working day later I receive court judgement stating it was an unreasonable delay, ordering them to resolve my case as soon as possible. The next day migration asked for my passport. Demanding they conclude case definitely seems to prompt action.

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How to use Swedish parental leave to spend three months with your baby back home

Under Sweden’s generous system of parental leave, parents of newborns are allowed to take up to 30 so-called “double days”, when both parents receive parental benefit at the same time.

This means that if each partner also takes a month of parental leave solo, with the other taking their full 25-day holiday entitlement at the same time, couples can enjoy a full three months of paid leave away from work to be with their infant.

This is such a common thing to do that Swedish schools have even been established in some of the most popular resorts in Thailand, so that parents can bring school-age children with them on their breaks, which are the subject of envious reports in the Swedish newspapers.

If you still have days left for another, previous child, you can add in these too, stretching your paid time off from work even longer.

We asked Anna Stenhoff, an executive at the Swedish Social Insurance Agncy, how the system works.

READ ALSO:

Sweden’s 480 days of parental leave: What you need to know

What’s the maximum amount of time you can be abroad on parental leave?

There are different rules for the 390 days that you are paid at sickness level (80 percent of salary) and for the 90 days paid at the minimum level of 180 kronor a day. There are also different rules for stays inside and outside the EU.

Under Sweden’s rules, sickness level parental leave is a work-based benefit. This means you remain entitled to it for as long as you are employed in Sweden and have a child resident in Sweden.

In practice, this generally means you and your child can stay outside the EU and collect sickness level parental leave for up to a year, so long as you do not, say, decide to work for a new employer in the country where you are working, or are not made redundant from your job in Sweden.

“So long as you keep your job, you can take that leave abroad,” Stenhoff told The Local. “But for parental benefit specificially the child has to be a resident of Sweden, so that’s why the one year kicks in, because typically after a year, the child would no longer be a resident of Sweden, which is a qualificiation for the benefit.”

The 90-days paid at the minimum level, however, is a residency-based benefit, which under Sweden’s rules can only be collected ouside the EU for up to six months, so long as you are still considered resident in Sweden.

“Normally, if you travel abroad on holiday, that’s not an indication of changing residency, but if you moved abroad, you would lose this benefit from day one,” Stenhoff said.

This means you risk losing the benefit at minimum level if you, for instance, inform the Swedish Tax Agency that you have moved to a country outside the EU, or changed your official address to an Indian address, or changed a child’s school to an Indian school.

The rules on residency-based benefits are, however, both more generous and more complicated for stays in another EU country, with the general rule being that you can be in another EU country for up to a year and still receive the benefit.

“It’s more open in the EU, but it’s also more complicated,” Stenhoff said, adding that as the rules changed, for instance, depending on your job and whether you have family members in the other EU country, it was “always a good idea” to ring the Social Insurance Agency to discuss your situation before you leave.

How will a stay abroad affect work or residency permit extensions?

If you only have temporary residency in Sweden through a work permit, you may need to be more careful before taking parental leave outside the EU.

In theory, you can be out of Sweden for six months or more without causing issues when you later apply for an extension, as both being on parental leave and taking the holiday you are entitled to in your job are seen as “an acceptable reason to interrupt your employment” under work permit rules.

This is not the case, however, if the time you have been away from work greatly exceeds the time you were actually working.

“If you have not worked at all, or have only worked for a very limited period of time, your application for a permanent residence permit may be rejected,” the Migration Agency warns on its website.

It’s a good idea to ring the Migration Agency before departure to check that your planned stay will not affect your chances of receiving a new work or residency permit, permanent residency, or citizenship.

What do you need to do before you go abroad?

Even if you are travelling outside the EU, EEA or UK, it is not obligatory to inform the Swedish Social Insurance Agency or request permission to take your leave internationally, Stenhoff said. But she nonetheless said it was a good idea to ring to check that everything you planned to do is within rules.

You should also keep documents or print-outs from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and also from your employer of the days you have taken of parental leave and holiday, as you may need to send these to the Migration Agency when you apply to extend your work permit.

The Swedish Board of Health and Welfare recommends that parents planning to travel abroad with a baby also inform the childcare unit or barnavårdscentral (BVC) that they are registered with of their plans at least a few months before they depart, so that they can ensure that your baby has all the vaccinations they need to travel safely abroad.

In Sweden, BVCs normally invite you to around 13 visits during the child’s first year, so if you plan to be away for three to six months of this, they may also wish to carry out some essential checks before you go.

Which bank account can I be paid into?

If you are receiving benefits abroad, it is easier to have them paid into a standard Swedish bank account. It is, however, possible to have them paid into a foreign bank account, so long as it is in the name of the beneficiary and it has passed the money-laundering and other anti-fraud checks run by the agency’s payments division. You can register a new bank account by logging into the Social Insurance Agency here.

What about if I have a child at school or day care?

There is currently no requirement to send your child to daycare in Sweden, but many municipalities automatically take away your place at preschool if your child is away for two months or more without a good reason.

You may well be able to get around this if you are away for three or four months by explaining your plans to the preschool head. If you want to keep your child’s place you will have to continue paying the monthly fee while you are away.

It is compulsory in Sweden for all children between the ages of 6 and 16 to attend school, however. This means that if you are planning on taking your child out of school for two or three months, you need to convince the headteacher that you have “extraordinary reasons and special circumstances” to do so.

Whether they say ‘yes’ depends on how liberal they are, but you are quite likely to have your request denied, particularly in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, where the municipalities face a recurring problem of chldren being taken out of school without permission.

Acceptable reasons include family celebrations such as weddings and funerals, and important religious festivals. You are unlikely to have a request accepted for a holiday.

For periods longer than a few months, you will need to apply to your municipality for a temporary exemption from compulsory schooling. You can find the application form for Stockholm here, and the city government’s explainer on taking your child overseas here.

The chances are that if you take a child away for longer than a few months, they will be declared no longer covered by compulsory schooling, meaning they will lose their school place and you will have to reapply on your return.

There is no statutory regulation saying what counts as a long or short time overseas, but in Malmö, for example, any journey longer than 10 days needs to be approved by the school head, and anything over six months is very likely to lose you your school place.

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