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RESIDENCY PERMITS

What’s a Swedish ‘coordination number’ and why do I need one?

Many foreigners who arrive in Sweden are given a samordningsnummer or 'coordination number' in English. But what does this ten-digit code mean, and what do you need to know about it?

Published: 7 December 2019 19:58 CET
Updated: 7 August 2023 14:22 CEST
What's a Swedish 'coordination number' and why do I need one?
An interview takes place at a Migration Agency office. Photo: Marcus Ericsson/TT

What is a samordningssnummer?

The samordningsnummer, also known as a coordination number in English, is a ten-digit code used to identify individuals who have any sort of contact with Swedish authorities. Some of the most common circumstances in which a coordination number would be given out are to people who work in Sweden, are seeking asylum in Sweden, live abroad but have a business registered in Sweden, are resident and job-hunting in Sweden, or are studying in Sweden for less than a year.

People receive a coordination number if they are not eligible for a personnummer. A personnummer (‘personal number’ or social security number) is granted to people who can prove they will be living in Sweden for at least a year, such as long-term students or employees. 

Like personal numbers, coordination numbers are unique, are linked to the same person throughout their lifetime, and the first six digits are based on a person’s birthdate (although for a coordination number, 60 is added to the date of birth).

They were introduced in 2000, partly due to an increasing number of foreign individuals who had contact with Swedish authorities but didn’t meet the requirements for a personnummer. EU membership was one factor that meant more foreigners were suddenly eligible to work in Sweden, or buy a summer cottage here for example.

Skatteverket is one of the authorities that can issue coordination numbers. Photo: Janerik Henriksson/TT

Who exactly can get a coordination number in Sweden?

As mentioned, a coordination number is given out to people who are not eligible for a personnummer but still need to be registered with the authorities, for example in order to work, pay taxes, own property or a car. These numbers may be issued by state authorities including the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket), Migration Agency (Migrationsverket), Swedish police, the Swedish Transport Agency (Transportstyrelsen), as well as some institutions of higher education.

You can only receive a personal identity number if you plan to stay in Sweden for longer than one year, and can prove that you’ll be able to do so. 

So there are two categories of people who tend to be recipients of a coordination number. The first category is people who do not plan to reside in Sweden at all, or only plan to do so for less than a year, such as cross-border workers, people with holiday homes or business activities in Sweden, or short-term students. People who are not resident in Sweden but are prosecuted or jailed in Sweden would also receive this number.

The second category is people who do plan to live in Sweden long-term, but are not yet able to prove that they will have right of residence for at least a year.

For example, EU citizens are able to move to Sweden and live and work here under freedom of movement, but they only have the right to live here as job-seekers for six months. Therefore, EU citizens who move to Sweden as job-seekers would receive a coordination number, and would not be eligible for a personnummer until they found a job. Another group falling into this category would be asylum seekers who have not yet received a decision on their case. 

Summer house owners who do not live in Sweden may need a coordination number. Photo: Janerik Henriksson/TT

How does having a coordination number affect your life in Sweden?

It allows you to receive benefits such as sick pay or an occupational pension if you work in Sweden, and to take part in basic aspects of life such as opening a bank account, registering your child at a school or preschool, joining a municipal housing queue, sign up for Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) lessons and sign up as a job-seeker at the Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen). Note that the number does not in itself give you the right to these services, but is an administrative means of giving you access to them.

But it is still a step below a personnummer, which means many parts of society remain off limits to people who only have a coordination number. For example, you cannot get electronic BankID, which means payment services like Swish or online shopping can’t be used, you cannot join most shops’ loyalty schemes or join many gyms, nor can you rent cars or get a phone contract from many providers.

Are there any problems with the coordination number system?

For individuals, the main problem is the lack of access to things like online payments, gyms, and phone contracts which make day-to-day life simpler and more comfortable. 

And meanwhile, both Swedish police and government agencies have warned that the system allows many people to live in Sweden without their identity being confirmed. There is no general requirement that people prove their identity in order to receive the number (although different authorities have different rules), and according to Skatteverket figures obtained in 2019 by Dagens Nyheter based on a sample of 4,000, around 45 percent of people living with a coordination number at that point had not done so.

The same Skatteverket figures showed that in ten percent of the cases investigated, it was suspected that the person in question may have been exploited on the illegal labour market, since they had not paid tax. Dagens Nyheter also found adverts on websites in different countries which offered to sell coordination numbers, for example through buying a car.

Most authorities have processes to confirm the individual’s identity before granting the coordination number, but how this is done can vary, and sometimes a scanned copy of a passport is enough. Meanwhile, the police, Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) and Skatteverket can issue the numbers without confirming identity, although Skatteverket recently opted to tighten its own procedures. Now, anyone who asks Skatteverket to be registered in Sweden with a coordination number needs to show a work permit.

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WORKING IN SWEDEN

Half of those blocked by Sweden’s work permit salary threshold will be graduates

A new analysis by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise has found that 51 percent of the labour migrants likely to be blocked by a new higher salary threshold will be graduates. Karin Johansson, the organisation's Deputy Director General, told The Local how this will hurt businesses.

Published: 22 April 2024 14:21 CEST
Half of those blocked by Sweden's work permit salary threshold will be graduates

When Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard received the results of a government inquiry into setting the median salary as the threshold for new work permits, she said that highly qualified foreign workers would not be affected. 

“This is an important step in our work to tighten requirements for low-qualified labour migrants and at the same time to liberalise and improve the rules for highly qualified labour migration,” she said. “Sweden should be an attractive country for highly qualified workers.” 

But according to the confederation’s new analysis, published last week, graduates will in fact make up the majority of those blocked from coming to Sweden, if the government increases the minimum salary to be eligible for a work permit to 34,200 kronor a month from the 27,400 kronor a month threshold which came into force last November. 

“The politicians’ argument does not hold up,” Johansson told The Local. “More than 50 percent of those who have this kind of salary are skilled workers with a graduate background. These are the people that that the government has said that they really want to have in Sweden. So we are a little bit surprised that they are still going to implement this higher salary threshold.” 

Of those earning between 80 percent of the median salary (27,360 kronor) and the median salary (34,200 kronor), the study found that 30 percent were working in jobs that required “extended, university-level competence”, and a further 21 percent in jobs requiring “university-level education or higher”. 

“They are technicians and engineers, and many of the others are also really skilled workers that are hard to find on the Swedish labour market at the moment,” Johansson said. 

The proposals made by inquiry were put out for consultation in February, with the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise planning to submit its response later this week. 

Johansson said that further raising the threshold risked exacerbating the serious labour shortage already suffered by Swedish companies. 

"In our recruitment survey, we have discovered that 30 percent of all planned hires never get made because companies cannot find the right people," she said. "Many companies are simply having to say 'no' to businesses. They can't expand. So, of course, it will have an impact on the Swedish economy if they now increase the salary threshold. We know that there will be fewer people coming from abroad to work in Sweden." 

Johansson said she had little faith in the exemption system proposed by the inquiry, under which the the Swedish Public Employment Service will draw up a list of proposed job descriptions or professions to be exempted, with the Migration Agency then vetting the list before sending it on to the government for a final decision. 

"The decision of who will be exempted will be in some way a political one, and in our experience, it's the companies that know best what kind of people they need," she said. "So we are not in favour of that kind of solution. But, of course, it's better than nothing." 

She said that companies were already starting to lobby politicians to ensure that the skills and professions they need to source internationally will be on the list of exemptions, a lobbying effort she predicted would get only more intense if and when the new higher salary requirement comes into force next June.  

"If you have a regulation, not every company can have an exemption. You need to say 'no' sometimes, and that will be hard for companies to accept," she predicted. "And then they will lobby against the government, so it will be messy. Certainly, it will be messy." 

Although there are as yet no statistics showing the impact of raising the minimum salary for a work permit to 80 percent of the median salary last November, Johansson said that her members were already reporting that some of their foreign employees were not having their work permits renewed. 

"What we are hearing is that many of the contracts companies have with labour from third countries have not been prolonged and the workers have left," she said. 

Rather than hiring replacements in Sweden, as the government has hoped, many companies were instead reducing the scale of their operations, she said. 

"The final solution is to say 'no' to business and many companies are doing that," she said. "If you take restaurants, for example, you might have noticed that many have shortened their opening hours, they have changed the menus so it's easier with fewer people in the kitchen. And also shops, the service sector, they have fewer staff."

To give a specific example, she said that Woolpower, a company based in Östersund that makes thermal underwear, supplying the Swedish Armed Forces, had been struggling to recruit internationally. 

"They have seamstresses from more than 20 different countries and it's more or less impossible to find a seamstress in Sweden today," she said. "It's really hard for them to manage the situation at the moment and they are a huge supplier to Swedish defence." 

She said that the new restrictions on hiring internationally were also forcing existing employees and also company owners to work harder.  

"Current employees need to work longer hours than they have done and if you're a small business, you, as an owner, will work more than you have done before," she said. 

The best solution, she said, would be to abolish the salary thresholds and return to Sweden's former work permit system, which required that international hires receive the salary and other benefits required under collective bargaining agreements with unions. 

But she said that the government's reliance on the support of the Sweden Democrats party, enshrined in the Tidö Agreement, meant this was unlikely to happen. 

"This is the result of the Tidö Agreement, and you if you take away one single piece of this agreement, I think maybe everything will fall apart. So I think it's hard. When we discuss this with the different parties, they all agree that they want to push ahead with it. But it's the Sweden Democrats who put this on the table when they made their agreement." 

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