Self-employed people
Residency route facts
Identity
| Official name (local) | Egen företagare as of 2025-02-24[4] Page name on Migrationsverket's Swedish site. Body wording: 'uppehållstillstånd för att driva eget företag i Sverige'; the paper form is 'Ansökan om uppehållstillstånd för egna företagare (124011)'. The statutory phrase 'bedriva näringsverksamhet' does not appear on the page. |
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| Official name (English) | Self-employed people as of 2025-01-27[3] Page name on Migrationsverket's English site; the page title is 'Apply for a residence permit to run your own business in Sweden'. Official English published by the authority itself, not a translation made here. |
| Legal basis | Utlanningslag (2005:716) 5 kap. 10 a (Lag 2022:303) as of 2026-08-21[5][6] 'Ett tidsbegransat uppehallstillstand far beviljas en utlanning som onskar vistas har i landet for att bedriva naringsverksamhet, om han eller hon har formaga att bedriva den aktuella verksamheten och kan forsorja sig. Ett uppehallstillstand enligt forsta stycket far inte beviljas for langre tid an tva ar at gangen.' Amendment search run separately against the SFSR register at rkrattsbaser.gov.se: sixteen acts amended Utlanningslagen in 2025-2026 and six of them touched 5 kap. (2025:225, 2025:429, 2026:385, 2026:457, 2026:1142, 2026:1221); none touches 5 kap. 10 a, whose last amendment remains SFS 2022:303. Migrationsverket cites no section on its own route pages – this citation comes from the consolidated statute. |
| Instrument type | residence permit as of 2026-08-21[6] 5 kap. 10 a grants a 'tidsbegransat uppehallstillstand' – a time-limited residence permit, not a national visa or a card. |
Who can apply
| Nationals not served by this route | EU, EEA as of 2025-01-27[3] EU/EEA citizens who meet the conditions for right of residence – including through running their own company – do not need a residence permit at all. Swiss citizens are excluded too but by a separate national route rather than by a bloc, and holders of EU long-term resident status in another member state have their own route; neither is expressible in this field, which takes bloc ids. |
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| Criminal-record condition | Not established from a qualifying source |
Permit terms
| Initial duration | up to 2 years as of 2026-08-21[3][6] Statute: 'far inte beviljas for langre tid an tva ar at gangen'. Migrationsverket: 'You can be granted a residence permit for a maximum of two years, but never for longer than your passport is valid.' A ceiling, not a fixed grant – hence bound 'maximum'. |
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| Renewable | Yes as of 2026-08-21[3][6] 'Your residence permit can be extended.' The statutory phrase 'at gangen' (at a time) presupposes renewal. |
| Renewal duration | up to 2 years as of 2026-08-21[6] The two-year ceiling in 5 kap. 10 a applies per grant ('at gangen'), so it governs extensions as well as the first permit. |
| Work rights | self-employment only as of 2026-08-21[3][6] The permit exists to run the holder's own business – 5 kap. 10 a 'for att bedriva naringsverksamhet' – and Migrationsverket requires the holder to run the business and own at least 51 per cent of it. Nothing on the route page grants a right to take employment; a person who finds a job applies for a work permit instead. |
Permanent residence and citizenship
| Counts toward permanent residence | Yes as of 2026-08-21[1][6] Utlanningslag 5 kap. 5 andra stycket 1 (Lag 2026:1142, in force 12 July 2026): a permanent residence permit may be granted to a person who has held a time-limited business permit for at least two years, 'om verksamheten ar etablerad'. Migrationsverket states the same condition without the word established: 'You must have had, and met the conditions for, a residence permit as a self-employed person, and have run your own business in Sweden for at least two years', with a sustainability test on realistic business plans and stable finances. This survived the 12 July 2026 rewrite of 5 kap. 5 – see the reader-misleading item in notes/se.md about Migrationsverket's own 'as a general rule, permanent residence permits will no longer be granted'. |
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| Years to permanent residence on this route | 2 as of 2026-08-21[1][6] Two years on this route against the country default of four years within the last seven – the shortest qualifying period in 5 kap. 5, and conditional on the business being established. |
Requirements
| Minimum capital | Recorded at the source, but not reducible to a single value[3] A capital-sufficiency requirement exists but no figure is published and none is capable of being published: 'You need to have enough money to cover the expected costs and investments running the business will involved, and enough money to buy the business, if that is what you plan to do. It must be your own money; loans are not normally accepted.' The test is qualitative and assessed case by case against the applicant's own budget, so an amount field cannot hold it without inventing a number. Same shape as Finland's entrepreneur route – re-raises fi's authority-assessed means-test item. |
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| Business plan required | Yes as of 2025-01-27[3] 'You must have a credible basis for your budget. The Swedish Migration Agency will conduct a financial assessment of your business plans.' Balance sheet and profit and loss statement for the current financial year are required attachments, plus the two most recent annual accounts if the business already trades. |
| Endorsement required | No as of 2025-01-27[3] The page's requirement list is closed on its face – 'These requirements must be met in order for you to be granted a residence permit' – and contains no startup-committee, accelerator or third-party endorsement step. The financial assessment is made by Migrationsverket itself. |
| Innovation criterion | No as of 2025-01-27[3] Same closed requirement list: no innovation, scalability or novelty test. What is tested is industry experience, control of the business, a credible budget, established customer contacts or networks, and language ability in Swedish or English. |
| Jobs to be created | Not applicable[3] |
| Own means requirement | SEK 200,000 measured over 24 months as of 2026-06-25[2][3][4] 'You need to have at least SEK 200,000 in a bank account in your name' – held for the applicant alone, separate from the money needed to run the business, and evidenced by three months of bank statements plus a certificate showing two years of support. Migrationsverket's own gloss: 'Business owners must show that they have their maintenance secured for two years at a time, which corresponds to approximately SEK 200,000.' The account need not be in Sweden but the money must be transferable here. No index link to prisbasbelopp or any other national figure is stated – contrast the student and post-study thresholds on the same Migrationsverket page, which are expressly '18 percent of the current price base amount'. The Swedish-language page states the identical figures. |
Process
| Where to apply from | from abroad only as of 2025-01-27[3] 'If you are applying for a residence permit for the first time, you must do so from outside Sweden, otherwise your application may be rejected.' Six exceptions let an existing permit holder apply in-country: a previous work permit whose conditions were met and which is still valid; a residence permit for higher-education studies where at least two semesters (or two semesters of doctoral study) are complete; a residence permit to look for work or start a business after completing studies or research; a residence permit for highly qualified individuals to look for work or investigate starting a business; a residence permit for a traineeship within higher education; and a residence permit for research. Holders of, or former holders of, temporary protection are treated separately. The enum records the first-time rule; the exceptions are all in-country switches by people already lawfully present. |
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| Statutory processing time | Not established from a qualifying source |
| Observed processing time | Recorded at the source, but not reducible to a single value[3] |
| Fees | |
| Quota |
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Physical presence
| none stated | to keep the permit as of 2026-08-21[3][6] Neither 5 kap. 10 a nor the route page states a day count, a maximum absence or a reporting obligation for keeping the permit. A presence-shaped condition does exist further on: the permanent-permit route requires the holder to have run the business in Sweden for at least two years, which is recorded on leads_to_pr and pr_years_override rather than here, because it gates the next permit and not this one. |
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Family inclusion
| Family members may be included | Yes as of 2025-01-27[3] |
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| Eligible relations | spouse, registered partner, unmarried partner, minor child as of 2025-01-27[3] 'Family members are considered to include spouses, registered partners, cohabiting partners, and children under the age of 18.' |
| Family may apply at the same time | Yes as of 2025-01-27[3] Family may apply at the same time and can be included in the principal's own e-service application; a family member who decides later must submit a separate application. |
| Family members' work rights | full as of 2025-01-27[3] 'If your family is granted residence permits, your adult family members and children who will turn at least 16 during the current year are permitted to work.' The permission is stated without restriction as to employment or self-employment, hence 'full'; the age condition governs who holds the right, not what the right covers. |
| Additional means per family member |
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Your next step
Read the requirements above considering your own situation: the income multiple, the absence limits, who you can bring. Check the country record for the reference figure those amounts are calculated from, and for anything that has changed recently.
The next step is your own case. That assessment is legal work. Create profile for our assistance in this.
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Verification
| Sources cited | 6 |
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| of which official (tier 1) | 6 |
| Oldest as-of date | 2025-01-27 |
| Newest as-of date | 2026-08-21 |
| Reviewed on | 2026-08-22 |
| Schema version | 1.1 |
Sources
- [1] Apply for an extension of a residence permit for self-employed people
Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2025-02-19 · Accessed 2026-08-21 - [2] How many different maintenance requirements are there?
Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) · official guidance · Tier 1 · Published 2026-06-25 · Accessed 2026-08-22 - [3] Apply for a residence permit to run your own business in Sweden
Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2025-01-27 · Accessed 2026-08-21 - [4] Ansok om uppehallstillstand for egen foretagare i Sverige
Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2025-02-24 · Accessed 2026-08-21 - [5] SFSR amendment register for Utlanningslag (2005:716)
Regeringskansliet · gazette · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-22 - [6] Utlanningslag (2005:716), consolidated text, amended up to and including SFS 2026:1451
Sveriges riksdag / Regeringskansliet · statute · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-22