Maintenance requirement for the person in Sweden

If you live in Sweden and a family member who is not an EU/EEA citizen wants to apply for a residence permit to live with you, you must meet a maintenance requirement.

What the maintenance requirement means

You who live in Sweden must

• be able to financially support yourself, other people in your household, and the family members who are applying for a residence permit
• have a home of sufficient size and standard for you to live in.

Who is subject to the maintenance requirement?

The maintenance requirement applies if you have family members who are applying for a residence permit to live with you in Sweden for the first time, and you have one of the following:

• Swedish citizenship
• Nordic citizenship
• permanent residence permit
• permanent residence card
• permanent right of residence
• residence permit due to a need for protection or exceptionally distressing circumstances
• residence permit due to impediments to enforcement.

The maintenance requirement also applies if you have or intend to apply for a permanent residence permit and you have family members who intend to apply for an extended residence permit to continue living with you in Sweden, and you have or have had any of the following:

• work permit as an employee
• residence permit as a self-employed person
• residence permit as a doctoral student.
  

Your financial maintenance

You need to show that you have regular income sufficient for your financial maintenance. Income includes, for example

• salary/wages from work
• income from your own business (if you are self-employed)
• unemployment benefits
• sickness benefits
• income-based old-age pensions.

You may also fulfil the maintenance requirement (be considered able to support yourself) if you have enough money/taxable assets to support yourself, other persons in your household and the family members who are applying for a residence permit for at least two years.

Your income

The amount of income you must have depends on how large your family is and how high your housing costs are.

Your income after tax must be high enough so that after you pay your monthly rent, you still have a certain amount of money left over that can cover the costs of food, clothing, personal hygiene, telephony, and insurance for everyone in the household.

In 2025, the amount you must have left over after the rent is paid 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.

Your housing

You must be able to show that you have housing for at least one year in the future that is large enough to accommodate all of you.

For two childless adults, a home is considered large enough if it has a kitchen or kitchenette and at least one room. If children will be living in the home, it must have more rooms. Two children can share a bedroom. This means that the housing requirement is met if a family of two adults and two children has a flat consisting of two rooms and a kitchen. There are no requirements for how many square metres a home must be, but the rooms must be intended for accommodation.

It is possible to sublet your housing, but the rental must be approved by the landlord, tenant-owner association or rental board. Lodging with someone else or living at home with your parents does not count as having acceptable housing.

Exemptions from the maintenance requirement

You are not required to be able to support yourself and have housing in these cases:

• You are under 18 years old. (If you are living in Sweden with a parent or legal guardian and the person applying for a residence permit is your other parent or legal guardian, this exception does not apply. In that case, the parent/legal guardian who is already in Sweden must meet the maintenance requirement.)
• You are a Swedish citizen, citizen of the EU/EEA or Switzerland and you are married or cohabiting partners and the relationship is well established – you have, for example, lived together for a long time. (However, if your family member has any children who will be moving to Sweden with them, and you are not the child’s other parent or legal guardian, the maintenance requirement applies.)
• You have a residence permit with status as a refugee and your family member applies within three months of the date on which you received a residence permit in Sweden, you lived together just before you moved to Sweden, and you have no possibility of being reunited in a country outside the EU.
• Special grounds exist, for example that you have permanently reduced working capacity due to an illness or disability.