Sweden Work Permit 2026: New Salary Floor, 30-Day Track

Sweden promised skilled workers a 30-day decision and largely delivered it. Then, on 1 June 2026, it changed the question. A Sweden work permit now turns on a salary floor of SEK 34,470 a month, and speed is the second thing to worry about rather than the first.

The floor is not the same for everyone, and the gap between the two figures is wide enough to decide whether you apply at all.

Table of Contents

The salary requirement, and the exempted rate

The old maintenance requirement is gone. In its place is a salary requirement pegged to the national median, which the Migration Agency currently puts at SEK 38,300 a month.

Who you are	Share of the median	Per month
Most applicants	90 per cent	SEK 34,470
An exempted occupation or category	75 per cent	SEK 28,725
Extending a permit granted before 1 June 2026, if you apply between 1 June and 1 December 2026	80 per cent, the old rule	SEK 30,640

Swedish work permit salary requirement, for applications received from 16 June 2026.

Two things follow. The median moves, so these are not permanent numbers and a figure quoted anywhere, this page included, should be rechecked against the Migration Agency’s own page before you rely on it. And the transitional rule has a deadline: if you hold a permit granted under the old rules, applying to extend before 1 December 2026 is worth real money.

The exempted occupations are the useful part

Around twenty occupational groups need 75 per cent rather than 90, and the list reads like a shortage list, because that is what it is. It includes:

Assistant nurses in home care, habilitation, healthcare wards and outpatient services, and childcare and ambulance care assistants.
Welders and structural steel erectors, and maintenance mechanics.
IT operations, support and systems technicians, and engineers and technicians in chemistry and chemical engineering.
Electrical distribution technicians.
Butchers and meat cutters, and machine operators in meat, fish and food processing.
Farm animal breeders and caretakers, forestry workers, and agricultural and forestry machinery drivers.

Four categories of applicant are exempted regardless of occupation:

Former students applying from inside Sweden.
People with foreign qualifications working towards a Swedish professional licence in pharmacy, medicine, nursing or dentistry.
Holders of temporary protection permits moving to an employment-based permit.
Employees of start-ups in tech or life sciences, meaning a company under five years old with fewer than 100 staff.

If you are a welder, an assistant nurse or a food processing operator, that second figure is your application. The Agency published the full list in May 2026, and the occupational code on your contract is what decides it, not the job title the employer happens to use. Compare with the Swedish shortage occupations.

Two occupations closed entirely

From 1 June 2026 a work permit can no longer be granted for personal assistants (SSYK 5343) or forest berry pickers (SSYK 9210). No salary clears it; the occupations are simply off the route.

The berry picking exclusion is narrower than it looks. Berry picking for an employer established in Sweden is still possible on a seasonal work permit, which is how most pickers come, and seasonal permits were lengthened in the same reform from six months to nine months in any twelve. So one route closed and the route almost everyone actually used got three months longer. See 11 European countries offering seasonal work visas.

What else changed on the same day

Health insurance. If the stay is a year or less you must hold, or have applied for, comprehensive health insurance covering the employment.
EU Blue Card. The maximum permit length went from two years to four, which makes Sweden competitive with the better Blue Card countries on duration.
The employer is now assessable. The Agency can refuse on employer grounds: a criminal record, sanctions for employing unauthorised workers, or failures to report tax and fees.
A four-month clock. The employer must tell the Agency if the employment has not begun within four months of the permit being issued, or it can be revoked.

The third of those is new leverage for you and worth using. Sweden now refuses applications because of the employer, so asking whether a prospective employer has hired from outside the EU before is no longer a polite question, it is due diligence on your own application. The EU Blue Card is the alternative if you clear a higher bar.

So how fast is it, really

The 30-day promise was real, and it is conditional. Three timelines exist in practice:

Route	Typical decision
Employer is certified with the Migration Agency	Around four weeks
Highly qualified role, application complete and accurate	Within 30 days
Everything else	Around four months

Swedish work permit processing, 2026.

The word doing the work is complete. A file missing one document does not get a slow decision on the fast track, it falls off the fast track. Ask the employer whether they are certified before anything else: it is a fact about them, it is knowable in one email, and it is worth three months. See the mistakes that cost people months.

What to do

Check your occupation against the exempted list first. It is the difference between SEK 34,470 and SEK 28,725.
Recalculate rather than trusting a figure. The requirement is a percentage of a median that moves.
Ask whether the employer is certified. Four weeks against four months.
If you are extending an old permit, apply before 1 December 2026 and keep the 80 per cent rule.
Arrange health insurance if the job is a year or less. It is now a condition, not a precaution.

Last checked September 2026. The salary requirement is a percentage of the Swedish median salary and changes when the median does. Confirm the current figure with the Swedish Migration Agency before relying on it.

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