The step-by-step plan for Sweden

Good news to start with: as a Dutch citizen you don't need to apply for anything to live in Sweden. Since 2014 EU citizens no longer have to register with the immigration service (Migrationsverket) either. You may live there as soon as you work there, run your own business or live on your own money. There's no document, no application and no counter.

What you do arrange is the folkbokföring: your entry in the Swedish population register, at Skatteverket (the Swedish Tax Agency). It gives you a personnummer, and you need that number for healthcare, a bank account, BankID (the Swedish digital ID) and school.

Three things to know now:

• You may only register if you intend to stay for at least a year.
• You have to come in person to a government service office.
• After that, expect to wait about five weeks.

If you leave later, keep an eye on one thing: there's a bill to reintroduce registration with the immigration service as of 1 January 2027. It isn't law yet.

Finding a home is, for most people, the hardest part of moving to Sweden. That's why this step comes before everything else.

An ordinary rental home, with your own contract with the landlord (a "first-hand" contract), comes through a queue. In Stockholm almost 900,000 people were registered at the end of 2025, and the average waiting time is nine years. As a newcomer you start at the back.

The route that does work is renting andrahand: you rent from someone who has a contract themselves. That's allowed if the landlord or the rent tribunal has given permission. Three rules protect you:

• Never rent without that permission. Otherwise the main tenant can lose their contract, and you your home.
• Never pay for the contract itself. Trading in rental contracts is a criminal offence, for the buyer too.
• If you pay a subletter too much rent, you can claim the excess back.

Meanwhile, register with the queues straight away. In Stockholm that costs 200 kronor a year, and every month in the queue counts.

In this step you see what the move is going to cost you. The good news: the paperwork costs almost nothing in Sweden. The registration (folkbokföring) is free and the ID card, the Swedish identity card, costs 400 kronor. Even bringing the car is cheap, unlike in Denmark.

The money mainly goes to three things:

• The home: deposit and advance payment if you sublet.
• The first months, because life in Sweden is more expensive.
• Your first payslip. Until your tax is arranged, your employer withholds 110% of the table rate. Later in the plan you arrange that.

Work it out with your own choices in the calculator.

With this step you decide together whether you go. Sweden feels familiar, but a few things deserve an honest conversation before you decide.

Going alone? Then have this conversation with the people you're leaving behind. The questions below work for them too.

Take three evenings. One conversation is too short for a decision like this. Set aside three evenings, a week apart. Talk with your partner, and depending on their age with your children too:

• Evening 1, why. Why do we want this? What do we hope to find in Sweden? What are we leaving behind here? Would that really be different there?
• Evening 2, what we give up. Who and what will we miss? What are we dreading most? What do we do if it disappoints?
• Evening 3, the conditions. What needs to be in place for each of us to say yes? When do we check together whether it's going well, for example after six and after twelve months? And what would be a reason for us to come back?

Write the conditions down. On the kitchen-table card it all fits on one A4 sheet.

With Sweden these two belong on those evenings too:

• The light. The winter is long and dark, and that weighs more heavily than most people think.
• Housing. If you start by subletting (andrahand), you may move more often than you'd like before you find something permanent.

Divide the work. Agree who takes on which part of this plan: the papers, the house and the cancellations, the school, the move. That way not one of you carries everything. Invite your partner into your plan; then you both see what's done.

Is one of you going without an income of your own? Someone who lives in Sweden and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually stops building up AOW. AOW is the Dutch state pension. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. From the moment you're no longer insured, you have one year to take out voluntary insurance with the SVB.

Also discuss whether that partner keeps an account and money of their own, and how you decide together on big expenses. And who earns the income in the first months?

Married, registered or living together? That can matter for your partner's right of residence, for being insured together for healthcare and for inheritance. If your partner is an EU citizen, your partner has a right of residence of their own. If your partner has a nationality from outside the EU, your partner lives in Sweden as a family member of an EU citizen. Not every EU country treats a registered partnership as a marriage. If you're neither married nor registered, the country decides case by case, on the basis of a durable relationship. Check in the step on your healthcare further on in your plan what applies to you.

Are children coming? How you tell them depends on their age:

• Up to about four. Tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed routines, such as the bedtime ritual and the cuddly toy in the hand luggage.
• Primary school. Tell them well in advance and let them look along: photos of the school, the neighbourhood and the house. Let them choose something, such as their room.
• Teenagers. Involve them in the decision itself. For them, saying goodbye to friends weighs heaviest. Agree how they'll stay in touch and when they'll see their friends again.

In Sweden the grundskola, primary and lower secondary in one, is free. For the förskola, childcare for young children, there's a place guarantee of four months after registration. So register your child as soon as you have an address.

Who learns the language, and when? You learn to read Swedish quickly, but at school, at work and in parent-teacher meetings everyone speaks Swedish. The free language tuition (SFI) has been limited to three years since 2026, so start in time. Often the partner without work needs the language most, and that's exactly the one with no colleagues to practise with. Plan it together, preferably before you leave.

Choose below the date on which you want to be standing in Sweden. The step-by-step plan works out whether that's feasible with what still has to happen — and says so honestly if it gets tight. A target date is yours: you can always move it, and moving it is a perfectly fine outcome.