Swedish citizenship security checks: how Säpo enters your case

Your case has been open for three years, a friend who applied later already has a decision, and someone has told you that means Säpo is looking at your file. Most of the time it means the queue is long. This page sets out what the security process actually is, where it is written down, and the large parts of it that are not published at all.

The word you are probably looking for is the wrong one

In Swedish law, säkerhetsprövning is a term of art from säkerhetsskyddslagen (2018:585). It means the vetting of a person who is going to take part in security-sensitive activity, normally an employee, and it involves a registerkontroll and sometimes a särskild personutredning.

It is not what happens in a migration case, and Säkerhetspolisen keeps the two in separate sections of its own website. Searching for the wrong term is one reason this subject feels so opaque.

The words that do apply are four: remiss, the referral; yttrande, the opinion that comes back; erinran, an objection inside that opinion; and säkerhetsärende, what the case is called once the objection exists.

Remiss, yttrande, erinran

Migrationsverket describes the trigger in general terms only. What decides it is whether there are indications suggesting the person may constitute a threat to Sweden’s security; if so, the case is put before Säkerhetspolisen. The information can reach the agency through the conversation with the applicant, or through a tip from the public.

Säkerhetspolisen then assesses what is known about the person’s background, contacts and activities in Sweden or abroad, and gives examples of what it is looking for: links to unlawful intelligence activity, meaning espionage, or to terrorism.

The opinion goes back to Migrationsverket. Both agencies stress the same point in almost identical words: Migrationsverket decides the matter independently, even when an objection has been made. Säkerhetspolisen is the expert authority on threat assessment, not the decision-maker.

A legal basis exists for the data exchange itself. 7 a § of medborgarskapsförordningen lets Migrationsverket give information to and collect information from Polismyndigheten, Säkerhetspolisen and Kronofogdemyndigheten when it examines the requirement of a well-behaved and honest way of life in 11 § first paragraph point 4.

How many cases, and how long

Migrationsverket publishes referral and objection counts in its annual report. In 2025, 584 citizenship cases were referred and 534 objections were recorded, against 34 881 naturalisation decisions taken that year.

Handle those numbers carefully. In 2023 the objections figure, 756, is higher than the referrals figure, 687, and the report does not explain why. Säkerhetspolisen can ask to be heard on its own initiative, and a case referred in one year can be answered in the next, but no official reconciliation is published, so it is not a rate and should not be read as one.

There is one statement that sits awkwardly with the referral numbers. A Migrationsverket press release from 21 March 2025 quotes its assignment lead saying that all cases are also checked by Säkerhetspolisen. How a check of all cases squares with 584 referrals is not published. The likely reading is a routine register check as against a formal referral, but that is our inference and we are labelling it as one.

What you are told, and what stays secret

Three provisions do most of the work. Offentlighets- och sekretesslagen (2009:400) 18 kap. 2 § puts a presumption of secrecy on material from Säkerhetspolisen’s intelligence work, with disclosure allowed only if it is clear that no harm follows. 37 kap. 1 § adds secrecy for personal circumstances in citizenship cases specifically.

As a party you have a right of access to the file, but 10 kap. 3 § allows material to be withheld where it is of exceptional importance that it not be disclosed. In that situation the authority must instead tell you what the material contains, so far as you need it to protect your rights and it can be done without serious harm.

The reasons in the decision can also be thinned. Förvaltningslagen 32 § allows a motivation to be left out in whole or in part where it is necessary with regard to national security, and requires the authority to supply reasons afterwards where possible if you ask and you need them.

One thing is absolute. Secrecy never prevents a party from reading the decision itself. Whatever else is withheld, the decision is yours.

Säkerhetspolisen answers the obvious question on its own website: in some cases information can be kept secret even from the person concerned, covering things like working methods, cooperation with other authorities, or where a piece of information came from.

The appeal goes somewhere unusual

An ordinary citizenship refusal is appealed to a migration court, and the deadline is three weeks from the day the decision reached you, under förvaltningslagen 44 §.

In a security case, §27 of the citizenship act sends the appeal to the Government. Säkerhetspolisen can also appeal. This is a different appeal route from an ordinary citizenship refusal; follow the instructions in your decision.

One more effect of 27 §: in a security case the acquisition of citizenship takes effect from the day the decision gains legal force, not from the day it is written.

For the ordinary route, the three-week appeal is set out in full in its own article, and the underlying conditions are in the step-by-step guide.

If your case is slow

The realistic actions are administrative rather than dramatic, and the first four cost nothing.

What is not published

There is no criteria list, threshold or scoring for when a citizenship case is referred. The only published formulation is indications suggesting a possible threat to Sweden’s security.

There is no published rule on whether or when an applicant is told that their case has become a säkerhetsärende. Migrationsverket has no glossary entry for the term, no notification template and no example decision.

There is no processing-time data for security-flagged cases. The word säkerhetsärende does not appear in Migrationsverket’s 2025 annual report, and the waiting-times page has no security breakdown. Note also that the duty to handle security cases with urgency sits in the Aliens Act, not in the citizenship act.

And there are no published statistics on citizenship security appeals to the Government: how many are lodged, how long they take, how many succeed. If someone tells you a number for that, ask them for the source.