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VISAS

Sweden to simplify residency permit applications for foreign students

Foreign students and researchers at Swedish universities may soon be able to apply for residence permits in Sweden without having to travel to a Swedish embassy for an ID check first.

Published: 21 February 2023 11:39 CET
Sweden to simplify residency permit applications for foreign students
Lund University in southern Sweden. Photo: Emil Langvad/TT

Since November 1st, new rules for foreign students and researchers applying for temporary residency in Sweden require applicants to visit a Swedish embassy or general consulate in person to verify their identity using their passport.

Many universities have raised concerns over the new rules, which Education Minister Mats Persson has described as having “disproportionate consequences”.

“An American researcher on the west coast needs to travel to Washington DC to show their passport,” Persson said.

“This has devastating consequences for Sweden as a nation for knowledge.”

The Migration Agency has now been tasked with proposing solutions to this issue, with Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard suggesting that this could include mobile teams from the Migration Agency visiting certain cities near large universities abroad – in Canada and the USA, for example, where many applicants to Sweden come from – where applicants from visa-free countries can show their passports for checks.

“The government’s goal is that this issue will be fixed before the upcoming admissions for the autumn semester,” she said.

The new passport requirements were introduced after the Migration Agency received criticism for their handling of passports by Sweden’s National Audit Office.

Member comments

  1. This is a welcome change. I’m studying in Sweden and was living in Costa Rica when I requested the residence permit. The Swedish government forced me to travel to a dangerous part of Guatemala City to get my photo taken and have fingerprints taken at their embassy there. The day I was in Guatemala City, a doctor at a hospital close to the embassy was shot in the face by an assailant in the parking lot as he left work. The Swedish government is irresponsible in forcing students to travel like this.

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For members

WORK PERMITS

Is Sweden meeting its 30-day work permit target for high-skilled foreigners?

Three months after the Swedish Migration Agency rolled out a new system for work permits, how long are highly qualified foreign professionals having to wait for a decision?

Published: 3 May 2024 05:58 CEST
Updated: 3 May 2024 09:07 CEST
Is Sweden meeting its 30-day work permit target for high-skilled foreigners?

More than 7,750 work permit applications have been submitted to Sweden’s Migration Agency since a new system designed to speed up waiting times for skilled workers was implemented.

The new system, rolled out on January 29th, divides workers into four different categories depending on their profession. It was introduced after complaints about long waits for both first-time and renewed work permits and promised to process the top category, “A”, within 30 days.

Category A applications are those already classified as “highly qualified” under the Standard for Swedish Classification of Occupations (SSYK), and include leadership roles, roles requiring higher university education, and roles requiring university education or equivalent.

A Migration Agency spokesperson told The Local that a total of 95 percent of complete work permit applications sent in by highly qualified workers since January 29th were processed within 30 days, with a median handling time of 14 days, according to figures from April 15th.

“Our ambition is to decide cases for highly qualified labour within 30 days – sometimes it happens that the application isn’t complete and that can make the processing time longer,” the spokesperson said.

By mid-April, the Migration Agency had processed 4,461 complete applications, 550 incomplete applications and 423 applications for permanent residency which were complete but had to wait for a decision because the applicant’s previous permit hadn’t yet expired.

Around 77 percent of incomplete applications were processed within 30 days.

A Migration Agency spokesperson told The Local that there may be various reasons why an application is incomplete, but “common mistakes” include passports lacking a signature, incorrect information about accommodation when needed, no or not enough information about the applicant’s insurances, or no statement from the trade union about working conditions.

The spokesperson also said that the four percent of complete applications that didn’t get processed within a month were delayed because of, for example, the applicant failing to visit an embassy to show their passport before the deadline, having a criminal record in Sweden that required further investigation of their application, or the security police blocking their application.

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