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Sweden opens online student visa service

The Swedish National Migration Board (Migrationsverket) will allow visiting students to apply online for their entry visas and residence permits, as well as pay their fees on its website.

Published: 27 October 2010 13:10 CEST

Sweden opens online student visa service

The goal of the move is to offer better service, as well as reduce the waiting time to process applications. The service will be initially introduced on a small scale, then gradually be introduced to Swedish embassies and consulates.

“Applicants will find the e-services on the Migration board website under the headings ‘Study in Sweden’ and ‘Visit Sweden,'” the agency said in a statement.

Two groups of applicants can now make use of the electronic services. Those who do not need an entry visa to visit Sweden can apply for a residence permit for visiting students on the agency’s website. The application will then be processed in Sweden and the permit issued by the embassy or consulate indicated by the applicant.

For Chinese residents, those who must apply for a visa for any kind of visit to Sweden, or a residence permit for visiting students can do so online for applications handled by the Swedish embassy in Beijing.

Applicants can submit all their information online and pay the application fee electronically before the mandatory embassy visit, making the application process more efficient.

The Swedish consulate in Shanghai will also offer these services next month. They will be rolled out at other Swedish missions next year.

According to the agency, in 2009, Sweden’s embassy and consulate received nearly 2,500 applications for visiting student permits out of about 16,900 in various other countries around the world.

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Should foreigners trapped in Sweden by permit delays risk a one-way visa?

When Waleed Dajani, who has been waiting for a work permit decision since March 2021, wanted to go home to attend his father’s funeral, his case handler at the Migration Agency was unable to help. As he lacks a valid work permit, if he left Sweden he risked being turned away at the border on his return.

But when he instead turned to the Swedish embassy in his native Jordan, he found them much more receptive.

“I explained the situation to them, and they were much more cooperative. And they told me that I can apply for a single-entry visa once I was in Jordan,” he says. “I went to Jordan at the beginning of June. I missed the funeral, but at least I was there for my family.”

Once in Jordan, the Swedish Embassy arranged a one-way visa for him in just one week.

Listen to Waleed Dajani on The Local’s podcast

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You need to have a special, urgent situation

According to immigration lawyer Pia Lind, arranging a one-way visa through the embassy in your home country is “not recommended”.

“There’s a really heavy requirement. You have to present super-strong reasons why you needed to return home to be granted such a visa,” she told The Local. “So it might be a member of your family dying, or some super-severe circumstances that you have to prove are the reason why you are returning to your home country.”

Up to the discretion of the embassy

As these one-way visas are issued by the local embassy with no involvement from the Migration Agency in Sweden, how easy or difficult they are to secure depends a lot on the individual embassy, and even the individual consul taking visa decisions.

“It’s not impossible, but it varies greatly between the embassies,” Lind said. “I have been in touch with a number through the years and there are some that are a lot more cooperative and reasonable, and others where it is almost impossible.”

Dajani said that when his girlfriend, who is from Egypt, tried to do what he had done, she had received a stern email from the Swedish embassy in Cairo detailing the level of proof she would need to prove that her mother was indeed ill, as she claimed, and warning her that the embassy could give no guarantees that she would receive a visa on leaving Sweden.

“The made it quite scary, like, ‘you need to bring like proof that she is sick and you need to visit her’, that ‘we might not give you the visa’, that ‘we’re gonna investigate this’ and so on,” he said.

“They try to scare people, so that only those who really need to travel actually take the risk. And maybe then they will give them the visa.”

In the end, his girlfriend decided not to take the risk.

On the other hand, a friend of his from Morocco was lucky enough to be given a multiple-entry visa by the Swedish embassy in Morocco, meaning he not only got to return to Sweden, but gained the right to leave and return at will for the duration of the visa.

No guarantee at time of departure

Even in Dajani’s case, the consul in Jordan was only able to confirm by email before his departure from Sweden that it was possible for the embassy to issue a single-entry visa, meaning he had to leave Sweden without knowing for certain that he would receive a visa to return.

“I got an email from them saying, ‘Please be informed that the embassy can give you a D-visa once you’re in Jordan, as long as you have not got a decision for your process in Sweden’,” Dajani said.

Can be handled in as little as one day

In the end, though, it took the Swedish embassy in Jordan just one day to handle his application and add a single-entry visa to his passport. It is the same application form as for a D-visa.

“It went really fast. You bring some photos, your passport, and so on, and they print the visa on your passport,” Dajani said.

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