PUT card renewal on Min sida: 3 years, no fee, no new application

The date on the front of your card says 3 August 2027. Your right to live in Sweden is not going anywhere, but the only document that proves it at a border is. This is what to do, when to do it, and how to keep a summer trip out of the way of it.

The card is not the permit

A permanent residence permit (permanent uppehållstillstånd, PUT) is a decision. It has no end date and stays valid as long as you live in Sweden.

The residence permit card (uppehållstillståndskort) is the physical proof of that decision, with a chip holding your photo and fingerprints. The chip has a legal maximum lifetime, which is why the card carries a date at all. Cards issued from 2022 are valid for at most three years; cards issued before 2022 could run for five.

This cuts both ways. You cannot lose permanent residence by forgetting the card. But you can be stopped at a check-in desk with it expired, because an airline reads the card and not your file.

The card is also the document that ordinary Swedish life asks for: an employer verifying your right to work, a bank opening an account, a landlord checking a tenant. None of them can read the decision behind it. Letting the card lapse quietly does not cost you your status, but it costs you time in every one of those queues.

When and how you renew

Log in to Min sida with BankID at the earliest three months before the date on the card. Start the card renewal and book a time for photo and fingerprints at a Migrationsverket service centre. There is no application to fill in and no fee.

The biometrics are taken fresh every time, for adults and for children, so the visit cannot be skipped even if nothing about you has changed. The appointment itself takes minutes; finding a free slot in Stockholm or Gothenburg in June can take weeks. That is the reason the three-month window exists, and the reason to use the first week of it.

The card is produced centrally and posted to your registered address. Count on a few weeks between the visit and the letterbox, and do not build a trip around the day it might arrive.

If the automatic message has not appeared and the date is close, that is not a reason to wait. The window is set by the date printed on the card, not by the reminder. Log in, check whether the option is open, and if it is, use it the same day.

A worked example. Card dated 3 August 2027. Earliest start: 3 May 2027. A sensible plan is to start the renewal in the first week of May, attend the appointment in late May, and have the card by mid-June, well before the July queues and any summer travel. The same card handled in July instead means booking into the busiest month of the year.

Travelling while you wait

Inside the Schengen area there are usually no border checks, though internal checks happen and an expired card is an awkward conversation. Leaving and re-entering Schengen is where it matters: you need a valid card, and airlines refuse boarding without one.

If a trip cannot be moved, contact Migrationsverket before you travel, with the booking in hand, and ask what document they can issue in your case. If your card expired while you were already abroad, contact the nearest Swedish embassy; they can confirm the permit with Migrationsverket and issue a document to get you home. Both routes take days, not hours.

The simple version: book the biometrics first, then the flights.

The address the card is posted to

The card goes to the address in the population register at Skatteverket, not to the address you typed into a form last year. Update it the week you move, and check that Min sida shows the same address before you start the renewal.

If your name changed after a marriage, register the change with Skatteverket first and renew the card afterwards, so that card, passport and register agree. A mismatch between documents is its own small queue.

If the card is lost or stolen, report it to the police and keep the report number, then start a new card on Min sida. If you have no other valid identity document, Migrationsverket sends a letter with instructions; if nothing has arrived in 14 days, contact them.

Every family member has their own date

Each person with permanent residence holds their own card with its own expiry date, and each is renewed separately, children included. A child has to attend the biometrics appointment in person.

The cards were issued on different days, so they expire on different days. Put all of them in one calendar with a reminder four months ahead, and handle the family in one trip where the dates allow it.

One habit pays for itself: photograph the front of every card in the household and keep the images in the same folder as the permit decisions. When an airline, a caseworker or an employer asks for a number, you have it without emptying a drawer at midnight.

What we do not know yet

Migrationsverket does not publish waiting times for biometrics appointments, and they vary a lot by office and season. That is the one part of this process nobody can promise you a number for.

It is also not published how quickly the automatic reminders introduced in April 2026 reach everyone holding an older card. If your card expires within three months and no message has appeared, do not wait for it: start the renewal on Min sida yourself.