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You want to apply Seafarers

You want to apply for a work permit to work as a seafarer on board a Swedish ship in domestic traffic. If your family will be accompanying you, they can apply at the same time.

If you are a citizen of a country outside the EU/EEA, you will in most cases need a permit to work in Sweden.

A seafarer is employed to work in shipwork on board a ship, in a position such as ship’s officer, sailor, engineer officer, or on-board service personnel.

What does “domestic traffic” mean?

“Domestic traffic” means travel from a Swedish port to the same port or another Swedish port. A ship operating between two Swedish ports is considered to be in domestic traffic, even if it occasionally passes through international waters.

Your employer starts your application

Your employer in Sweden will start your application by submitting information about your employment to the Swedish Migration Agency. To do this, your employer needs information about your name, date of birth, citizenship and email address. Once your employer has completed their part of the application, you will receive a link via email, which you should use to continue with your part of the application. Only once you have completed and submitted your part of the application will it be registered with the Swedish Migration Agency.

You complete your application

Once you have received the email with the link, log in to the e-service and fill in the information about yourself. You must also check that the information about your terms and conditions of employment corresponds to what you and your employer have agreed. Once you have completed your part of the application and have submitted it, it will be registered with the Swedish Migration Agency.

To be granted a work permit, your employment must meet all the requirements. You cannot have two or more jobs that together meet the requirements.

To be granted a work permit, these requirements must be met:

  • You must have a valid passport

  • The ship on which you are working must be registered in the Swedish Register of Ships and operate in domestic traffic in Sweden

  • You must have the necessary qualifications for your profession
    You must meet the requirements for qualifications and certificates specified in the rules of the Swedish Transport Agency.
    Qualifications for seafarers (in Swedish) External link.

  • You must have an employment contract
    The employment contract must be signed by both you and your employer.

  • You must have the right terms of employment
    Your salary and other terms of employment must be at least on par with Swedish collective agreements or what is customary in the profession or industry.

  • Your employer must have taken out insurance for you
    By the time you start your job, your employer must have taken out medical insurance, life insurance, industrial injury insurance, and occupational pension insurance for you.

  • Your employment should enable you to make a good living
    This means that you must have a monthly salary that amounts to at least 80 per cent of the median salary published by Statistics Sweden (SCB) that applied when you submitted your application.

You must attach copies of these documents to your application

Make sure that the information on your submitted documents is clearly visible.

A representative can apply for you if you give them power of attorney. To do this, you must attach a copy of the power of attorney to your application.

Power of Attorney (107011) Pdf, 1.1 MB.

Read more about power of attorney

Documents to attach if your family is applying with you

  • Correctly made copies of each family member’s passport
    Your family member can never be granted a residence permit for longer than their passport is valid.
    Read more about what the passport copies must show

  • Documents showing your relationship
    If you are married: marriage certificate, marriage record, or similar document.
    If you are cohabiting partners: documents showing that you have lived together, such as population registration certificates, a joint rental contract, or proof of the joint purchase of a home.

  • Documents showing that you meet the maintenance requirement

You can act as the representative for your family members over the age of 18 and apply for them. To do this, you must have a power of attorney and attach it to the application.

Power of Attorney (107011) Pdf, 1.1 MB.

Read more about power of attorney

  • Birth record or birth certificate stating the names of the child’s parents

  • Sole custody decision
    If you have sole custody of the child(ren), you must attach a court decision to this effect. If the other parent is deceased, you must submit a death certificate.

  • Consent that the child may move to Sweden
    If a child has two parents/legal guardians and the child’s other parent/legal guardian will be remaining in their country of origin, you must attach a statement of consent from the other parent/legal guardian to the application. You must also attach a copy of the other parent/legal guardian’s passport or other identity document.

    Consent for a child to settle in Sweden (217011) Pdf, 1.1 MB.

  • Adoption documents, if your child is adopted

  • Document showing that your children over 21 years of age are dependent on you or the other parent for their financial maintenance

To be considered to be making a good living, you must have a monthly salary/wages of at least SEK 29,680. This corresponds to 80 percent of the current median salary that Statistics Sweden publishes in June of each year.

Read about the current median salary on Statistics Sweden’s website (in Swedish) External link.

Your monthly salary/wages must also be in line with collective agreements or with common practice in your profession or industry. This means that your salary/wages may need to be higher than 80 percent of the median salary.

Read more on the page A good living – maintenance requirement for work permits

Other rules apply if you are a citizen of the EU/EEA or Switzerland, or if you have long-term resident status in another EU country.

EU/EEA citizens with right of residence

If you are an EU/EEA citizen, you have the right to live in another EU/EEA country if you fulfil the requirements for right of residence through work, your own company, your studies, or by having sufficient funds to support yourself. If you have right of residence, you do not need to apply for a residence permit to live in Sweden.

EU/EEA citizens

Swiss citizens

If you are a citizen of Switzerland, you can move to Sweden to work, study, start your own business, or live on your own funds. If you want to remain in Sweden for longer than three months, you must apply for a residence permit for Swiss citizens.

You want to apply – Swiss citizens

If you have long-term resident status in another EU country

If you have long-term resident status in another EU country, you can move to Sweden to work, study or live on your own funds. If you plan to stay longer than three months, you need to apply for a residence permit for long-term residents.

You want to apply – Long-term residents in another EU country

You do not need to apply for a work permit to work in Sweden if you

  • have a permanent residence permit
  • are a student with a residence permit to study in Sweden at the first-, second-, or third-cycle level
  • are a researcher who has been granted a special residence permit for research
  • are an asylum seeker and are exempt from the work permit requirement (have AT-UND)
  • have a residence permit as a person in need of protection under the Temporary Protection Directive
  • have a residence permit on the grounds of a need for protection, particularly distressing circumstances, or impediments to enforcement
  • have a residence permit to live with someone in Sweden.

If you have any of the above permits, you already have the right to work in Sweden and do not need to make another application.

People in some professions can work in Sweden without a work permit

People in certain professions can work in Sweden without a work permit and should instead apply for a visitor’s residence permit. There are also people in certain professions who do not need a work permit or visitor’s residence permit, as long as they will be working in Sweden for less than 90 days. However, they may need to apply for an entry visa to travel to Sweden.

Certain people may work in Sweden without a work permit

If any of your family members also want to apply for a residence permit, they can do so at the same time as you. “Family members” are considered to include spouses, registered partners, cohabiting partners, and children under the age of 21. In special cases, children over the age of 21 can also accompany you to Sweden, if they depend on you for their financial maintenance.

If anyone in your family later decides that they want to move to Sweden to join you, they must submit their own application afterwards.

You want to apply – Family of an employee or self-employed person who apply afterwards

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.

You must be able to financially support your family

If your family applies together with you, you are subject to a maintenance requirement. This means that you must have an income that allows you to financially support yourself and your family.

To meet the maintenance requirement, you must have an income that can cover housing costs and living expenses for yourself and your family members.

In the first instance, the Swedish Migration Agency looks at your income from salary/wages, but if this is insufficient, it is also possible to count income from business activities or personal wealth.

The following types of income count

  • taxed income from the employment for which you are applying or have been granted a permit
  • parental benefits or sickness benefits, provided that you have ongoing employment and your parental leave or sick leave is not assessed to be longer than 18 months
  • income from business activities
  • assets.
Amount of income

Your income after tax must be high enough so that after paying your monthly rent, you still have a certain amount of money left over that can cover the costs of food, clothing, hygiene, telephone, and insuring everyone in your household, among other things.

For 2025, the amount you must have left after paying your rent is:

  • SEK 6,186 for a single adult
  • SEK 10,219 for cohabiting spouses or cohabiting partners
  • SEK 3,306 for children 0–6 years of age
  • SEK 3,967 for children 7–10 years of age
  • SEK 4,629 for children 11–14 years of age
  • SEK 5,290 for children 15 years of age or older.

If you have a child with whom you do not live and you pay maintenance to the child’s other parent, your salary/wages must also be sufficient to cover their maintenance allowance.

Housing costs

The housing costs that your wages must be sufficient to cover each month depend on the type of home in which you live:

  • If you live in a rented flat, you must include both the rent and the cost of heating in this calculation, if the latter is not included in the rent.
  • If you live in a tenant-owner flat, you must include any fees paid to the tenant-owner association and the interest on any home loans in your calculation. You must also include necessary operating costs (such as water and heating), if these are not included in the monthly fee.
  • If you live in a freestanding house, you must include the interest rate for any home loans and necessary operating costs (such as water and heating) in your calculation.

Amortisation of home loans is not included in the cost of housing. You also do not have to include the cost of electricity in your calculation, as this cost is included in the so-called “standard amount”.

You should count your entire actual housing cost. If you and your family are moving to Sweden together, you may not yet have arranged your housing when you apply for a residence permit. The Swedish Migration Agency then assumes a so-called standard cost for housing a family of your size in the town or city where your workplace in Sweden is located.

What income does not count?

You may not count income from

  • a family member
  • unemployment insurance (unemployment benefits) or an activity allowance
  • various forms of grants or scholarships
  • subsidised employment (for example, when the Swedish Social Insurance Agency or the Swedish Public Employment Service pays all or part of the salary/wages)
  • undeclared work or employment without the legal right to work.

You can be granted a work permit for a maximum of two years, but not for longer than the duration of your employment. You can never be granted a permit for longer than your passport is valid.

If your family is accompanying you, they can be granted a residence permit for the same period as you, but never longer than the period of validity of their passports.

The permit can be extended.

Employees: SEK 2,200
Adult family members: SEK 1,500
Children: SEK 750

Citizens of Japan do not pay an application fee.

You will not receive a refund if your application is rejected.


If you currently have a work permit to work for a specific employer but get a new job with another employer, you must submit a new application for a work permit. The same applies if you currently have a work permit to work for an employer and they change their company identity number or get new owners.

If you change profession, get new work responsibilities, or your working conditions change in other ways, your work permit is no longer valid. This means you must apply for a new work permit.

Once you have submitted your application, you can start working for your new employer before you have received a decision from the Swedish Migration Agency, provided that you have applied before your previous work permit has expired.

If you are applying for a work permit for the first time, you must do so while you are outside Sweden, otherwise your application may be rejected.

If any of the following apply to you, you can apply for a work permit while you are in Sweden:

  • You have a work permit but need to apply for a new one because you have changed your profession or employer.
  • You have a residence permit for studies at a university or a university college.
  • You have a residence permit to look for work after completing your studies.
  • You have entered Sweden to visit an employer. This applies only to those professions where there is a high demand for labour.
  • You have a residence permit for highly qualified persons to look for work or explore the possibilities of starting your own business.

Keep in mind that you must apply for a work permit before your current residence permit expires.

If your application is rejected, you must leave Sweden

If you are currently in Sweden and your application is rejected, you must prepare to leave the country. If you do not leave Sweden voluntarily, you may need to regularly report to the Swedish Migration Agency in a process known as supervision, or be placed in a detention centre run by the Swedish Migration Agency. Your case may also be handed over to the police.

News

2025-05-20

What counts as a salary?

One of the requirements for being granted a work permit is that the salary must enable you to make a good living. A new ruling from the Migration Court of Appeal clarifies what counts as a salary.

2025-04-01

From 1 April, the possibility of changing tracks will end

On 1 April, the Swedish Parliament’s decision to remove the possibility of changing tracks will come into force. This affects those who have been granted, or applied for, a work permit after an asylum application has been rejected. Your co-applicant family members will also be affected.

The Swedish Migration Agency is responsible for considering applications from people who want to live in Sweden, seek protection or become Swedish citizens. Our work is based on Swedish laws and international conventions, with a focus on legal certainty and effective reception and return.