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RESIDENCY PERMITS

What could the Swedish language test for permanent residency look like?

Sweden plans to introduce language and civics tests for permanent residency from 2027. What could the language test entail and how good would your Swedish need to be to pass?

Published: 31 May 2023 15:33 CEST
Updated: 7 June 2023 11:36 CEST
What could the Swedish language test for permanent residency look like?
A woman studying from a textbook. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

These language and civics tests haven’t yet been drawn up, but here’s what they could look like based on the suggestions in a proposal from earlier this year.

How good do I need to be at Swedish?

The proposal states that applicants would be expected to have a level of Swedish equivalent to A2 on the CEFR, the EU’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

This is equivalent to SFI level C, and is classified as a “basic” level of Swedish.

The language test would only measure your listening skills, so you would not be tested on your speech or writing skills. However, you would need to read some questions in Swedish, and the civics test would be held in Swedish, so you’ll need to be able to read at a high enough level to answer the tests.

You would not however be tested on your reading comprehension.

Here are the CEFR guidelines for an A2 level:

“Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment). Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters. Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.”

What would the questions be like?

A2 level listening comprehension tests would examine your ability to understand simple sentences in spoken Swedish. 

The proposal states that the questions asked would be “closed questions”, so you would not be expected to write answers longer than a couple of words, as you’re being tested on your listening comprehension rather than your writing skills. 

Questions would most likely consist of an audio clip which you would then have to answer simple questions on, such as writing down a phone number someone has read out, listening to an answerphone message and answering questions on its content, or answering questions on a short radio report or conversation.

These are likely to be fairly simple, factual questions and would not require you to explain your answer.

Essentially, questions like “what time does the train leave?” “what colour car does she want?” or “how many children does he have?” rather than questions asking you to give your opinion or provide an argument for a specific viewpoint.

You can take a look at mock A2 level Swedish tests like this one from Folkuniversitetet (under “listening comprehension”) if you want to get a gauge of whether your Swedish is up to scratch.

What would the test itself be like?

According to the proposal, the test would be held digitally and would consist of two parts each lasting 50 minutes, with a ten minute break in between.

This is quite long for a listening test (the mock test linked above is only 30 minutes long) so it would likely cover a wide range of topics, although at A2 level these topics should all cover relatively basic vocabulary on topics like talking about yourself and your family, activities such as work or visiting the supermarket, or other basic tasks that you’re likely to come across in your daily life in Sweden, like making a phone call or ordering in a restaurant.

If any vocabulary above A2 level is included, the proposal states that a glossary of terminology should be included for vocabulary above A2 level.

How long does it take to learn Swedish to A2 level?

Most estimates state that it takes anywhere from 120 to 300 hours of work to get up to A2 level, although that includes hours spent practicing the language, so listening to Swedish radio, podcasts, music or TV would all count into that total.

Depending on your prior education, your ability to learn a language and the amount of time and resources you are able to dedicate to study, it could take anywhere from a few weeks on an intensive full-time course to a couple of years or more if you’re studying a couple of hours a week by yourself.

This might sound like a long time, but bear in mind that applications for permanent residency usually require you to have lived in Sweden for four years.

You also won’t lose your right to live in Sweden if you don’t pass the language test as long as you still fulfil the requirements for temporary residency, you just won’t be able to apply for permanent residency until you’ve passed it.

Find out more about both tests for permanent residency in our explainer below.

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For members

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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