Starting a business in Sweden on a residence permit

You have a work permit, a client who wants to pay you directly, and a plan that looks better than the job. Before any of that becomes a company, the question is narrow: does the permit you already hold let you run a business, or do you need a different one. The answer decides the order of everything else.

Which permit your plan needs

A permanent residence permit gives you the right to work with anything you want in Sweden, and so does a permit granted to live with a close relative here. If that is your situation, skip to the registrations. There is nothing to ask Migrationsverket.

A work permit is the opposite. It is granted for one employment with a named employer, and you may not be the person controlling that employer. Employing yourself through a company you own is assessed as business activity, not as employment, so it is the wrong door.

If the business is meant to replace the job, the door is the residence permit for self-employed people (uppehållstillstånd för egen företagare). It costs 2 000 kr, with 1 500 kr for an accompanying adult and 750 kr per child.

The money, and two different money questions

Migrationsverket asks about your money twice, and the two questions are often confused.

The first is living costs. You need at least 200 000 kr in a bank account in your name, plus 100 000 kr for an accompanying spouse or partner and 50 000 kr for each accompanying child. The statement has to show enough to support you all for two years. The account does not have to be Swedish, but it must be possible to move the money here.

The second is the business itself: enough funds to cover the costs and investments the business will need. This is where the sentence about loans lives. That capital has to be your own money, and a loan is normally not accepted.

Then there is everything that is not money. A passport valid past the permit you are asking for. Experience of the industry and of running a business. A budget with a credible basis, which Migrationsverket assesses financially. Established customer contacts or a network. Swedish or English, and very good Swedish if you will deal with Swedish customers and suppliers daily. And proof that you own at least 51 per cent of the business and carry the decisive responsibility for it.

The registrations, and what they cost

Registration comes after the permit, not before. Nothing published says you may start the business while the application is pending, so plan to keep the job you have.

For a sole trader (enskild näringsverksamhet), registration with Bolagsverket is normally optional; the step that is not optional is approval for F-skatt at Skatteverket, which is free. If you do register the name, it is 1 800 kr in the e-service. An aktiebolag is 2 400 kr in the e-service and needs 25 000 kr of share capital.

Then Skatteverket. F-skatt if the business is your income, FA-skatt if you keep a job alongside it. VAT registration is not automatic: a business seated in Sweden with a turnover of at most 120 000 kr a year, and which has not exceeded that in either of the two preceding calendar years, does not need to register in most cases.

Your preliminary tax is set from a preliminary income return. For a sole trader that includes egenavgifter, which for an active business is 28.97 per cent of the surplus in 2026, alongside a standard deduction of 25 per cent.

The extension is where the plan is tested

A first permit is granted for at most two years and never beyond your passport. The extension is not a formality: Migrationsverket checks that the business ran according to the plans you filed.

What it looks at is concrete. Taxes and charges paid, accounting obligations met, any licences the trade needs, no debts or payment defaults at Kronofogden, and income from the business that supports you and your family. It also asks whether the business is profitable and durable enough to survive.

After two years with the permit you can apply for permanent residence at the same time as the extension; family members need three years. Only income you actually have when the application is examined counts.

A worked example. Nadia holds a work permit as a UX designer and wants to run her own studio. She has 340 000 kr saved and a partner with no children, so she must show 200 000 kr for herself and 100 000 kr for him, which she can. She files on 3 September 2026 and pays 2 000 kr plus 1 500 kr for her partner, and keeps working while the case runs. The permit is granted on 12 February 2027 for two years. She registers the sole trader business and is approved for F-skatt in late February, invoices 96 000 kr in her first calendar year and so stays under the 120 000 kr line without registering for VAT. At the extension in late 2028 the questions will be whether the studio paid her enough to live on, whether the tax was paid on time, and whether it looks like a business that lasts.

What we do not know yet

Two gaps, and both are worth a written question rather than a guess. Whether a student may run a business alongside studies: Migrationsverket's student pages set a 15-hour weekly limit on employment for permits granted from 11 June 2026 and say nothing about self-employment, and silence is not permission.

And what Migrationsverket treats as a credible budget in practice. The page says the agency conducts a financial assessment of your business plans; it does not publish a threshold, a margin or a template. Two applicants with the same savings and different plans get different answers, and the only useful preparation is documentation: signed contracts, real quotes, and a budget whose numbers you can defend line by line.