How long do I have to have lived in Sweden to qualify for citizenship?

As a general rule, you need to have lived in Sweden for five consecutive years with a valid residence permit or EU right of residency (or EU right of residency followed by a post-Brexit residence status for Brits who arrived in Sweden before Brexit).

EU citizens who have lived together with a Swedish citizen for at least two years can apply after living in Sweden for three years if they fulfil all the other conditions for citizenship.

Although non-EU citizens who have lived with a Swede also have a shorter three-year residence requirement for citizenship, they have an additional permanent residency requirement. 

In practice, this usually means that they have to have been living in Sweden for at least four years to apply for citizenship despite being eligible after living with their Swedish partner for three years, as a permanent residence permit can only be granted at the same time as a temporary residence permit is renewed, and temporary residence permits generally last for two years at a time.

For the same reason, non-EU citizens who do not live with a Swede will usually have to live in Sweden for six years (three two-year permits) before they can apply for permanent residency, which they need before they can apply for citizenship, despite the official residence requirement for citizenship being five years.

When can I start counting from?

Again, this depends.

For non-EU citizens, the following rules apply:

If you had a permanent residence permit or a permit to live in Sweden when you entered Sweden (for example, you lived in Sweden before, gained permanent residency, moved away from Sweden and moved back before your permit was withdrawn), then you can count from the day you arrived in Sweden.

If you did not have a permanent residence permit or a permit to live in Sweden when you arrived in Sweden, you can count from the date you submitted your application for a Swedish residence permit.

If you applied for a residence permit and your application was denied, but a later application was approved, then you can count from the date your successful application was approved.

In practice, though, you’ll usually have lived in Sweden for long enough by the time you are granted permanent residency.

For EU citizens, your period of residency starts from the date on which you began exercising your right of residence in Sweden. If you’re working in Sweden, for example, you would start counting from the first day of your job.

If you’re self-employed, you could include documents showing your company’s registration certificate and corporate tax certificate, along with proof that it has been active in Sweden for sufficient time, and if you were supporting yourself financially you could include proof of housing costs covering the period in question, as well as documents showing you’ve been able to support you and your family for the whole time. 

For EU citizens, the simplest way of checking when you started exercising your right of residence in Sweden is to order a personbevis or population registration certificate from the Tax Agency (at this link, under skriv ut personbevis).

You’ll need to log in with BankID or similar, after which you should click on Utdrag om folkbokföringsuppgifter – engelsk text. 

A PDF document will be generated, and if you scroll down to Moved from/to Sweden, you should see a date listed. Next to this, you will see right of residence at immigration. If the word ‘yes’ is listed under that heading, then that means you’re able to count this as the start date for your period of residency in Sweden. If this says ‘no’, then you will need to find whatever specific date you started exercising your right to residency in Sweden through a different route, such as the date you first started working or studying, for example.

Nordic citizens have a right to live in whatever Nordic country they choose, so they can count their residency from the date they moved to Sweden.