Produced by The Local’s Creative Studio in partnership with Skövde Municipality

The fast-growing Swedish city attracting global talent

The fast-growing Swedish city attracting global talent

“It still feels kind of unbelievable and really exciting to be here,” says Wade Wang, a few weeks into his new life in Skövde, a fast-growing city in central Southern Sweden.

“Moving from China to Sweden was a very big step for us. But we got the opportunity to live and work together in another country, learn a different culture, and enjoy a different way of life. We see this in a very positive way.”

They’re not alone. Skövde is the principal hub of Skaraborg, Sweden’s fourth largest labour market region. Talented workers from across the world are relocating to work in its leading industries, which include fintech and game development, as well as the automotive sector. 

After working as a design engineer and quality engineer in the automotive industry in China, Wade is the new Head of Plant Quality at Aurobay Skövde, a joint venture between Volvo Cars and its parent company Geely Holding. His wife, Shirley Liu, works at the same plant in Skövde as a project engineer for electric engines. Both have permanent contracts and with their first child due in January, they’re looking forward to making Skövde their family home. 

“Once I got an opportunity to be here, my manager and my company said ‘Why don’t we also bring your wife here?’” he says. “Then, we also found an opportunity for her – and now our baby will be born in Sweden and will also have different opportunities!” 

Find out more about the exciting career and educational opportunities for international talents living in Skövde

Wade Wang working at Aurobay in Skövde

Skövde is surrounded by natural beauty. Photo: Skövde Municipality

Embracing a new life 

Wade previously worked for Volvo Cars at Skövde’s sister plant in Hebei province and had visited the Swedish city a few times on business trips. Only now is he able to appreciate the quality of life it offers.

“It’s a very peaceful city but has everything you want,” he says. “Life in China is more fast-paced. We will have more family time to enjoy together and there are a lot of new things we want to learn.”

Skövde is also well-connected. Stockholm is around two hours away by train and Gothenburg only an hour, which is another plus for newcomers to Sweden. Wade loves to try new things and feels he’s in a great location to do just that. Is he worried about the Swedish winter? No! Actually, he can’t wait.

“The temperature isn’t an issue because I came here from a city in China where it reached -26C or -27C in winter,” he says. “I’ve never tried cross-country skiing but that’s the first sport I want to try in Sweden. This country has such nice nature, with the forests and lakes, I imagine it must be very beautiful in the snow.”

He’s also excited about trying to cook Swedish food. “The fish, shrimps and crayfish here are much better in general than what I had in China,” he says. “I like cooking. I got a book from a friend about how to cook Swedish food, so I’m learning – but I haven’t really figured it all out yet!”

Paula Cal and Flor Coletta moved from Berlin to Skövde. Photo: Skövde Municipality

A special working culture

This appetite for throwing himself into challenges also applies in Wade’s working life – and he’s impressed by the local business culture

“The people here are very open and honest, they share their ideas and then we challenge each other with respect and discuss how we can come up with the best solution and a common understanding,” he says. “That’s something I really like.”

 

Approximately 1,700 people work at the Aurobay plant. English is used as the company language, which has helped Wade to settle in. “But I’m very interested in learning some Swedish and I plan to join some language classes.”

As the home city of Sweden Game Arena, Skövde is also firmly on the games industry’s international map. Indeed, the University of Skövde runs northern Europe’s biggest and broadest range of game development programmes.

 

Paula Cal and Flor Coletta, a couple from Argentina, first moved to Europe to live in Berlin. But when they wanted a change of scenery only a year later, a friend told them about opportunities at game developer Palindrome Interactive in Skövde and they were impressed by the firm’s title Immortal Realms.

 

“We decided to get in touch with them and after our first chat, we were sure there was something special waiting for us over here,” says Paula. They weren’t wrong. Paula now works as a senior animator at the company, while Flor is a 3D artist.

Their employer is “not only interested in what you can bring to the project, but also in your personal development and how you are feeling overall as an individual,” says Paula. “We value that greatly.”

Furthermore, Palindrome Interactive contacted Sweden Game Arena for support with the couple’s relocation, including finding an apartment. “I think it is safe to say that it’s the nicest apartment we have ever lived in,” says Paula, of the home she shares with Flor and their two dogs, Lexa and Tita. “We could not be happier with the way it turned out.”

 

Skövde 

“It's a very peaceful city but has everything you want. We will have more family time to enjoy together.”

A perfect location 

As the city grows, around 400 new homes are being built per year and a major new central district of homes and offices is in development. Science Park Skövde is also expanding, adding central premises to the evolving Skövde Science City district. But wherever you live or work in Skövde, you have nature on your doorstep.


Wade and his wife chose to live in Skultorp, a small town just a few minutes outside the city. “The location is perfect,” says Wade. “Driving from my home to work takes 10 minutes and driving to Billingen [a nearby mountain with panoramic views of the city] takes 10 minutes.”

In addition to planning a career and a family in Skövde, Wade and his wife also plan to get the most out of life by fully exploring the region’s impressive natural environment.

“In China, if I want to do something really fun, I need to drive one, two or maybe three hours,” he continues. “Here, I can drive to either of the big two lakes in around 30 minutes. There’s also another lake I really like, Lake Hornborgasjön. It’s known for having a lot of birds and in different seasons, there will be different birds there, so it’s a place I’d like to go to regularly.” For Wade and his family, the adventure of a lifetime in Skövde and its surroundings is just beginning.

For members

MOVING TO SWEDEN

READER QUESTION: How can I move to Sweden as a self-employed person?

Are you self-employed and thinking about moving to Sweden? Not sure what to do, or what rules apply to you? Here's our guide.

READER QUESTION: How can I move to Sweden as a self-employed person?

The process for moving to Sweden as a self-employed person varies depending on where you come from. Your citizenship will determine whether you apply to the Tax Agency or the Migration Agency, as well as whether you need to apply for a permit (uppehållstillstånd) or whether you have the right of residence under EU law.

Here’s a rundown of the rules for each different group.

Nordic citizens (Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland)

As a Nordic citizen, you don’t need a residence permit (uppehållstillstånd) or right of residence (uppehållsrätt) to live in Sweden. All you need to do is go to the Tax Agency upon arrival in Sweden and register yourself and any family members as resident in Sweden.

You may need to prove that you are planning on living in Sweden for at least a year in order to be registered in the population register and given a personnummer.

EU/EEA citizens

As an EU/EEA citizen, you have the right to work, study or live in Sweden without a residence permit (uppehållstillstånd), and that this includes starting and running your own company.

You do, however, still need to meet certain criteria in order to fulfil the requirements for right of residence under EU rules (uppehållsrätt).

There are different options for fulfilling the right of residence requirement as a self-employed EU/EEA citizen, and both require registering at the Tax Agency rather than the Migration Agency.

The first is as a self-employed person, which means you’ll have to prove that you have a business which either is currently running in Sweden, or is in the planning stages.

You’ll need to provide documents to back this up, which could include things like proof that you have F-tax (the tax status for self-employed people and freelancers), a marketing plan, a registration certificate for your company, and a copy of the lease for any premises you will be using.

You may also need to prove that you have previous experience and skills relevant to your company or the work you’re planning on doing in Sweden, receipts and invoices for any material you’ve purchased, as well as accounting documents showing how much VAT you have paid or are expecting to pay.

You’ll need to take these to the Tax Agency along with your passport and any documents proving your relationship to any family members you’ll be registering at the same time, such as your marriage certificate or registered partnership certificate for your spouse or partner, and a birth certificate for any children.

The second route is as someone “providing or performing services“, which is the route you should use if you’re self-employed abroad but will be providing a service to a recipient in Sweden, such as as a consultant or freelancer, for a limited time.

Under this route, you’ll need to take your passport and any family documents along to the Tax Agency, as well as a certificate describing the service you’ll be providing in Sweden, where you will be working or carrying out the service, and how long for. This needs to be signed by whoever you’ll be carrying out the service for in Sweden.

Note that you can only be registered in the Swedish population register and given a personal number if you can prove that you’ll be in Sweden for more than a year, but you still need to register your stay in Sweden as an EU citizen if you’re planning on being in Sweden for more than three months.

Non-EU or ‘third country’ citizens

If you’re a non-EU/EEA citizen and you want to be self-employed in Sweden you need to apply for a residence permit at the Migration Agency before you come to Sweden, with a few exceptions.

“You can ‘swap’ from studying to work permit and self-employed under certain conditions. And you can swap between work permit to self-employed and self-employed to work permit,” Robert Haecks, press spokesperson at the Migration Agency, told The Local.

So if you’re already in Sweden as an employee or student you don’t need to leave Sweden to apply for a permit to become self-employed.

For students, your permit to be in Sweden as a student must still be valid, and you must have completed at least 30 credits of your studies or a whole term as a research student.

If you’re planning on working in Sweden for less than three months, you do not need a residence permit, but you may need to apply for a visa depending on your citizenship.

Non-EU citizen working in Sweden longer than three months

If you’re planning on working in Sweden for longer than three months, you’ll need to apply for a “residence permit for people who have their own business”, as there is no specific residence permit for self-employed non-EU citizens.

There are quite a few conditions that need to be met in order for the Migration Agency to be satisfied that you can really run a business in Sweden.

First off, you need a valid passport, and it’s a good idea to make sure this has at least a few years of validity left as you can’t get a permit for longer than your passport is valid.

Applicants will need to prove that they have experience in the industry and previous experience of running their own business, as well as relevant knowledge of Swedish or English (if most of their suppliers or customers will be Swedish, the Migration Agency will expect applicants to speak good Swedish).

You’ll need to prove you run the company and have responsibility for it, provide a budget with plausible supporting documentation and show that you have customer contacts or a network which you can use in your business via contracts or similar.

You will also need to provide a slew of financial and legal documents, such as a registration certificate for your company in Sweden, copies of contracts with customers, suppliers and premises, your two most recent financial statements if your company has already been in operation, and a balance sheet for the current financial year up until the month you apply. See a full list of the required documents here.

Finally, you’ll need to prove that you have enough money to provide for yourself and any family members who will be joining you. The Migration Agency states that this corresponds to “the equivalent of SEK 200,000 for you, SEK 100,000 for your accompanying wife/husband and SEK 50,000 for each accompanying child for a permit period of two years”. So, an applicant moving to Sweden with their spouse and two children will need at least 400,000 kronor in savings in order to qualify.

You will also have to pay a fee of 2,000 kronor in most cases.

The Migration Agency will then carry out an analysis of your plans for a business and decide whether it is good enough to grant you a residence permit.

If you get a permit to stay for six months or longer then your spouse and children may also live in Sweden. They can apply for a residence permit at the same time as you, or afterwards.

If you have a permit to be in Sweden as a self-employed person, your family members moving with you also have the right to work (as long as they are aged 16 or older). However you still must show that you can support them.

If you get a residence permit for Sweden as self-employed you will only be allowed to work in your own business.

Talent visa for non-EU citizens

There is another option for highly-qualified applicants who want to move to Sweden to research setting up a new business, which you may also qualify for if you’re interested in moving to Sweden as a self-employed person.

This is the “talent visa”, more specifically referred to as a “resi­dence permit for highly quali­fied persons to look for work or start a busi­ness”.

This permit allows non-EU citizens with a higher-level degree to apply for a visa of between three to nine months, which they can then use to stay in Sweden while they look for work or research setting up a new business.  

You can read more on how to apply for the talent visa here.

By Loukas Christodoulou and Becky Waterton

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