You want to extend Live with a partner

You have a residence permit to live with your partner to whom you are married, who is your registered or cohabiting partner, or who you plan to marry or live with as cohabiting partners, and you want to extend your permit.

  • Important to know
  • How it works
  • Apply

You can apply to extend your residence permit. If you have lived in Sweden with a residence permit for at least three years, you can also choose to apply for a permanent residence permit at the same time.

You must still live together
You must still live with the partner through whom you were granted a residence permit the first time you applied.

You must have a valid passport

Requirements to get a permanent residence permit

You must have had a residence permit in Sweden for at least three years

You must meet the requirements for an extended residence permit

You must be able to support yourself financially

To get a permanent residence permit, you must be able to support yourself through income from employment or your own company, or a combination of the two. You may add together income from one or more part-time jobs, provided that all the positions meet the below requirements and the total income is sufficient to be able to support yourself financially.

Your ability to support yourself must be sustainable

You must be able to show that you can support yourself financially for a long time to come. If you do not have a permanent position, we always make an individual assessment of whether your income is reliable.

Your employment must be serious. For example, the Swedish Migration Agency can check that your employer is able to pay you the wages/salary you specified in your application.

People who support themselves financially through self-employment must demonstrate that their company has realistic business plans and stable finances, so that you can be expected to be able to support yourself through your profits for a considerable period of time.

Only the income you actually have when we consider your application counts. You cannot get a permanent residence permit based on your chances of getting another job or higher income sometime in the future.

What income counts?

You may only count taxed income from legal employment. This means that you must have permission to work or be exempt from the requirement to have a work permit. You may not count undeclared income, nor income from a profession that you are not licensed to practise.

You may count 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 12 months.

To count income from your business, you must show that you own at least half of the company and that you have decisive responsibility for its operations. It is also required that you run the company professionally, independently and for profit.

If you wait too long to apply for a permanent residence permit (after your current permit has expired), you will not have the right to work while you wait for a decision and therefore will not meet the maintenance requirement.

Amount of income

Your income after tax must be high enough so that after you pay your monthly housing costs, you still have a certain amount of money left over that can cover the costs of food, clothing, hygiene, telephone, electricity, and insuring yourself, among other things. In 2024, that amount is SEK 6,090 per month for a single adult. If you have a child with whom you do not live and you pay maintenance to the child’s other parent, your wages/salary must also be sufficient to cover their maintenance allowance.

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 water and heating in this calculation, if the latter are 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 housing costs.

You only need to be able to support yourself, not your family members. If you live alone or with underage children, you must include your entire actual housing costs in your calculation. However, if you live with one or more other adults, you should divide your actual housing costs by the number of adults in the household and only include your share in the calculation, no matter how much each person actually pays for your housing.

What income does not count?

You may not count income from

  • a family member
  • wealth or returns from capital
  • unemployment insurance or activity compensation
  • 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 wages)

Pensions do not count as income either, but people who receive a pension may be exempt from the requirement that they must be able support themselves financially.

Exemptions from the maintenance requirement

Exemptions from the maintenance requirement can be made if

  • you are under the age of 18 when the Swedish Migration Agency makes a decision
  • you are entitled to a pension
  • you are unable to support yourself financially on other special grounds.

If you can submit a decision from the Swedish Pensions Agency that shows that you are entitled to an income-based retirement pension, guarantee pension, or financial support for the elderly, then you are exempt from the requirement to be able to support yourself financially. It is the right to a pension that is crucial, not whether you actually take out a pension or the size of your pension. Both guarantee pensions and financial support for the elderly can be paid out no sooner than the month you turn 66. Income-based old-age pensions can be paid out no sooner than the month you turn 63. If you have reached the age of 63 but not 66, you must show that you have retired and started to take out your income-based old-age pension. It is your age on the date of the decision that matters.

Exemptions from the maintenance requirement may also be made if other special grounds exist which are not temporary. For example, you may be unable to meet the maintenance requirement on the grounds of permanently impaired working capacity, for example due to illness or disability. This can also apply if you are unemployed and so close to retirement age that it is difficult to get a new job. Exemptions can also be granted if it is not reasonable to request that you be able to support yourself financially. For example, such exemptions are granted for monks and nuns.

If you believe that you have special grounds for exemption from the maintenance requirement, please attach documents showing that you have, for example, a permanently impaired ability to work. Such proof may take the form of an investigation by the Swedish Public Employment Service, a decision on entitlement to sickness benefits, sickness benefits or activity compensation from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, or a medical certificate.

You must live a well-behaved life

In order to get a permanent residence permit in Sweden, it is important that you cannot be assumed to commit a crime in the future. For this reason, it is a requirement that applicants for a permanent residence permit can be expected to live a well-behaved life. To be able to assess this, the Swedish Migration Agency needs to look at how you have lived so far, for example if you have been convicted or suspected of any crime in Sweden or abroad.

There are no detailed rules on the types of crimes or the length of the penalty that may prevent a person from being granted a permanent residence permit. It is not only serious crimes that are taken into account. Even less serious ones can be an obstacle, if you misbehaved in other ways at the same time.

If there is reason to suspect that you will not live a well-behaved life in the future, the Swedish Migration Agency will weigh these concerns against the reasons for granting you a permanent residence permit. We take into account how you have misbehaved and how long ago the events took place.

Exemptions to this so-called “good conduct qualification” are made only for children under the age of 15.

If you do not meet the requirements for a permanent residence permit, you may still be able to granted an extended permit, if you meet the requirements.

You must attach copies of these documents to your application. Make sure that the information on your submitted documents is clearly visible.

Correctly made copies of your passport
If your passport is about to expire, you should extend it, because you cannot get a permit for longer than your passport is valid. If you are an EU/​EEA citizen, you can attach copies of your passport or national ID card.

Read more about what the passport copies must show

Copies of the passport or identity document of the person with whom you live

Your partner must document that you still are in a relationship
If the person with whom you live has some form of e-identification, such as BankID, they must document in the e-service that you are still in the relationship you initially reported.

If the person you live with does not have e-identification, they must fill in the form:

Declaration of cohabitation (243011B) Pdf, 1.2 MB.

Attach the form to your application.

A representative can apply for you, if you grant them power of attorney. In that case, the person who applies for you must attach a copy of the power of attorney to your application.

Power of attorney (107011) Pdf, 1.1 MB, opens in new window.

Read more about power of attorney

If you are applying for a permanent residence permit, you must also submit documents showing how you support yourself financially:

If you are an employee

Employment contract

One to three of your most recent payslips

If you are self-employed

Your F-tax certificate

The registration certificate for your company

Your final assessment notice for the previous income year

A copy of your income tax return (together with a copy of the NE or N3A appendix) for the previous income year

If you are exempt from the maintenance requirement

Decision from the Swedish Pensions Agency that shows that you are entitled to an income-based retirement pension, guarantee pension, or financial support for the elderly

Documents showing that you are exempt from the maintenance requirement based on other special grounds
For example, a decision on entitlement to sickness benefits or activity compensation from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, an investigation from the Swedish Public Employment Service, or a medical certificate.

If you have children under the age of 18 who also want to apply for an extension of their residence permit or for a permanent residence permit, you must also attach correctly made copies of each child’s passport.

Read more about what the passport copies must show

If your children are over 18 years old, you cannot include them in your application in the e-service. Instead, they must submit their own application using a form:

Application for residence permit to settle in Sweden (161011) Pdf, 869.6 kB.

You can apply for an extension no more than two months before your current permit will expire. You must apply before your current permit expires.

If you have children under the age of 18, you apply for them when you apply for yourself.

You can be granted a residence permit for a maximum of two years, but never for longer than your passport is valid.

If you receive a permanent residence permit, it is valid as long as you are resident in Sweden.

Adults: SEK 2,000
Children under 18 years of age: SEK 1,000

The following people pay no fee to apply:

  • family members of EU/EEA citizens. In this context, Swedes do not count as EU citizens
  • EU/EEA citizens who are applying for a residence permit
  • Swiss citizens and their family members
  • Japanese citizens
  • husbands, wives, cohabiting partners, registered partners and unmarried children under the age of 18 who are applying for a residence permit to live with a family member who has been granted a residence permit in Sweden due to their need for protection or exceptionally distressing circumstances.

It is not possible to say exactly how long you will need to wait for a decision. There are many things that affect the waiting time, for example whether your application is complete to begin with or whether we need to request more information, or whether we need to check with other authorities when investigating your case.

Here we show statistics on how long it has taken for people who have applied for the same permit as you.

75% of applications receive a decision within:7 months

In some cases, you can still apply for an extension of your residence permit even if the relationship has ended. Then you need to be able to show that you still have a connection to Sweden in several ways, for example that you live with a new partner, have children who have the right to live in Sweden, have established yourself in the labour market or that you have otherwise adapted to life in Sweden. The Swedish Migration Agency will make an overall assessment of your connection to Sweden.

If you have met a new partner, you normally need to live together. You must provide your partner’s name, address, and telephone number, as well as their personal identity number. If you are married, you can show this by providing a marriage certificate. You can show that you live together through documents such as a rental agreement or purchase contract for a home that lists both of your names.

You can show the extent to which you have worked through an employment contract, payslips, or tax notices. In the case of fixed-term employment, the contract must state how long you will be employed.

You can also show that you have adapted to life in Sweden through certificates documenting, for example, your involvement in associations, your studies here, or other aspects of your life.

If you want to continue living in Sweden because you have children who have the right to live here, you can apply for a residence permit through your connection to your child.

You want to extend – Parents of children under the age of 18

In some cases, you can get an extended residence permit if the relationship has ended because you or your child have been mistreated by your partner. In that case, you or your child must have been subjected to violence or another serious form of violation. The relationship must have been serious from the beginning and not completely short-lived. It must seem very likely that the violations have occurred. There is help available for people who are victims of violence.

Help for those who are living with domestic violence

News

2025-03-05

The Swedish Migration Agency's new website has now been launched

On 5 March, the Swedish Migration Agency launched a completely new version of migrationsverket.se, with a new structure and a more user-friendly navigation. The purpose of the new website is primarily to make it easier for visitors to find the information they need.

2024-12-16

Now you can see your complete deci­sion on My Page

If you are waiting for a decision from the Swedish Migration Agency, you can now see the complete decision on My page. Previously, you have only been able to see if the decision is positive or negative, and the justification has only been sent home to you in paper format.

2024-11-26

Citi­zens of Kazak­hstan, Kyrgyz­stan, Taji­kistan, Turk­me­nistan and Uzbe­kistan will from 2 December 2024 contact the Swedish Consu­late General in Istanbul

Until now citizens of, or persons otherwise legally residing in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, have had their applications for residence- and work permit handled by the Swedish Embassy in Moscow. From December 2 2024 you will instead have your applications handled by the Swedish Consulate General in Istanbul.

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.