Sweden’s good behavior law, passed by parliament June 15, lets the Swedish Migration Agency revoke residence permits for conduct that isn’t criminal, and it reaches permits already granted. That’s a first since 2005. The change takes effect July 13, and it lands on Americans the same way it lands on every other non-EU migrant: through their work, family and study permits.
The conduct the law now counts
The law revives a test Sweden scrapped two decades ago, known in Swedish as the vandelskrav, a rough measure of whether someone leads an honest life. Migration Minister Johan Forssell framed it plainly at a press conference.
“If you for example neglect to pay your debts, if you don’t follow decisions by Swedish authorities, if you cheat on benefits or if you cheat in order to get a Swedish residence permit, well, then you don’t have the right to be here,” Forssell said.
The full legal text wasn’t published beyond the government’s excerpts, so the precise triggers remain to be tested in practice. The conduct the government has named reportedly includes:
- Unpaid debts and unmet financial obligations
- Undeclared work, known in Sweden as svartarbete
- Benefit fraud
- Deception used to obtain a permit
- Links to extremist organizations
None of these has to rise to a crime. That’s the part critics keep returning to. The agency isn’t starting from zero, though. It already weighs finances and conduct when deciding permanent residence, so the law widens a test that exists rather than inventing one.
Decisions can be appealed to Sweden’s migration courts, which sets up years of disputes over how far the conduct standard can be stretched.
Who the law reaches, and who it doesn’t
The rules apply to anyone whose permit rests on Swedish immigration law. That covers work permits, permits for accompanying family and student permits. It doesn’t touch people whose right to stay comes from EU law or international conventions, so refugees, EU citizens and third-country nationals on an EU long-term permit fall outside it.
Americans sit squarely inside the law’s reach. US citizens are non-EU nationals, and the work and family permits they rely on to live in Sweden are exactly the ones the conduct test now governs. The American presence there skews toward tech workers, academics and dual citizens with family ties.
Of the roughly 76,000 long-term permits Sweden issued in 2024, labor migrants made up 16% and family members 44%, the categories most Americans fall into. The reach runs backward too. Authorities can apply the test to permits already issued, though past conduct alone isn’t grounds for revocation; it counts only alongside conduct after the law takes effect.
Part of a wider migration overhaul
The conduct law arrived in a cluster. Days earlier, the government moved to abolish permanent residence permits for people granted protection and for long-term residents, making temporary status the norm. Parliament also passed a reporting duty, by 174 to 172, requiring staff at several public agencies to alert police when they encounter undocumented migrants.
Other pieces landed the same month. A new work-permit salary floor took effect June 1, set at 90% of the Swedish median wage, or about 34,470 kronor ($3,650) a month. Stricter citizenship rules followed June 6, lengthening the residence requirement and adding language and civics tests.
The governing coalition, backed by the Sweden Democrats, has made the tightening a signature issue heading into a September election. Removal orders now bite longer too, staying valid for five years after a person leaves Sweden, up from four since April 2025.
Civil Rights Defenders, Amnesty International and UN experts have argued the conduct standard is too vague and risks eroding legal certainty.
What changes for Americans holding Swedish permits
For US citizens who’ve moved to Sweden, the application path doesn’t change. They still apply as non-EU nationals, with processing that usually runs one to three months, and most work permits still run up to two years before renewal.
What changes is the renewal. From July 13, the Migration Agency can weigh debts, undeclared work and other conduct when it decides whether to extend a permit or revoke one already held. Those decisions can be appealed to a migration court. How broadly the agency reads the conduct standard won’t be clear until the first cases move through.
