Bringing your partner and children on a Swedish work permit: who can work, and what it costs

For most families the hard question is what happens to the partner, and in Sweden the answer is unusually good: a partner on a dependent permit can work, in any job, from day one. The friction sits elsewhere, in the paperwork order, the maintenance figures, and a ten-digit number without which nobody can open a bank account. This guide walks through it in the order it actually happens.

Can your partner work in Sweden on a dependent permit?

Yes. Adult family members of a work-permit holder, and children who turn 16 in that year, get the right to work with no restriction: no separate work permit, no employer sponsorship and no occupation limit.

That is Migrationsverket’s own wording on the family page, as of September 2026, and it holds whether the family applies with you or later. The partner’s permit is a residence permit for family reasons tied to yours, and its length follows yours. The same applies on the EU Blue Card: adult family members and children aged 16 and over may work (Migrationsverket, EU Blue Card). If your partner is also in tech, they can search exactly as you did, starting with the city hubs, and without needing the sponsorship signal on the ad, which widens the field considerably.

Should you apply together or later?

Together, if you can. One application, one decision, and the whole family arrives with permits in hand. Applying afterwards works, at the cost of a second wait and a period apart.

Migrationsverket’s employees page lets family members apply at the same time as the worker; the separate page covers applying afterwards. The fees are the same either way: SEK 1,500 per adult and SEK 750 per child. Two things to plan around:

• The permits are linked. Family permits are granted for the same period as yours, and since 11 June 2026 they can be revoked if yours is (Migrationsverket, May 2026). A change of job on your side is a family event as much as a career one.
• Short contracts hurt twice. From 1 June 2026 an employment of at most one year requires you to hold private health insurance for the permit (source), and a stay under a year gets a coordination number instead of a personnummer, covered below. Ask for a contract longer than twelve months if the employer will give one.

What are the maintenance and housing requirements?

Migrationsverket’s maintenance requirement, as of 2026, is that your net income after housing costs leaves SEK 10,314 a month for a couple plus a per-child amount, and that the housing is of adequate size, meaning a kitchen and at least one room for a couple.

The figures on Migrationsverket’s försörjningskrav page (the maintenance requirement for the person in Sweden), as of 2026:

• SEK 6,243 a month for a single adult; SEK 10,314 for a couple.
• Per child: SEK 3,336 (age 0–6), 4,004 (7–10), 4,672 (11–14), 5,339 (15 and over).
• These are what must be left after rent or housing costs, not gross income.
• Housing of adequate standard and size: for a couple, a kitchen and at least one room; more rooms with children.

Whether and how this general requirement applies to your specific permit type is something to confirm with Migrationsverket for your case; the work permit itself has a separate statutory salary requirement, covered in work permit sponsorship in Sweden. Either way, a couple with two children needs a monthly salary that carries rent and roughly SEK 17,000 to 21,000 on top, depending on the children’s ages, which is worth having in mind when the offer arrives. See salary negotiation in Sweden for how to raise it without it sounding like a demand.

What about children and school?

Sweden’s municipalities run the schools, and the kommun you register in is where you ask about a place. Do that before you move.

We have not verified the schooling rules against a primary source for this guide, so we will not state them as fact. What we can say is practical: the kommun handles placement, registering the family with Skatteverket is usually the first thing it asks for, and international schools in the big cities have their own waiting lists and fees. If you qualify for expert tax relief, children’s school fees are among the costs exempt in full, which changes the international-school arithmetic entirely. Email the kommun’s education office (utbildningsförvaltningen) with your children’s ages and your arrival date; most answer in English.

Why does the personnummer timing matter?

Because the bank account, BankID, most rental contracts and the kommun’s systems all key on it, and it takes weeks. Skatteverket says about three weeks before a case even gets a handler.

The personnummer is the personal identity number you receive when Skatteverket registers you as resident (folkbokföring). The sequence, as of September 2026, from Skatteverket’s processing-times page and its coordination-number page:

1. You should register within a week of moving to Sweden. Go to a Skatteverket service office in person, the whole family together, with passports, permit cards, and marriage and birth certificates.
2. Expect about three weeks before the case is assigned a handler, and more before the number arrives.
3. A stay of under one year gets a samordningsnummer, a coordination number, instead. It can take up to twelve weeks and opens far fewer doors, which is the second reason to want a contract longer than a year.

Until the numbers arrive, the partner cannot easily be paid into a Swedish account, cannot get BankID (which Swedish life runs on), and will struggle to sign a first-hand rental. Plan the first two months around that: an employer-arranged or short-term furnished flat, a foreign card that works in Sweden, and no promises to a landlord that depend on a number you do not yet have.

Why do families stay? 480 days of parental leave

Sweden pays parental benefit for 480 days per child, 390 at an income-related level and 90 at a flat rate, with 90 days reserved for each parent, usable until the child turns twelve.

The figures are Försäkringskassan’s, as of September 2026: 480 days per child, 390 of them income-related and 90 at SEK 180 a day, 90 reserved for each parent, and the days can be used until the child is twelve. Add the statutory 25 days of vacation a year with four consecutive weeks in summer (Semesterlag 1977:480) and a working culture in which a father on several months of leave is unremarkable, and you can see why so many families who came for a two-year contract are still here a decade later. The days are also why Swedish colleagues shrug at a base number that looks low from abroad.

Parental benefit has its own qualifying conditions, and which of them apply to a newly arrived family depends on registration and income history. Confirm your own situation with Försäkringskassan rather than assuming the full 480 days are available from the day you land.

A short checklist

Apply together, get a contract over a year, book Skatteverket for the week you arrive, and email the kommun about school before you move.

1. Ask the employer to include the family in the work-permit application, and to draft a contract longer than twelve months.
2. Confirm with Migrationsverket how the maintenance and housing requirements apply to your permit type, and whether the offer clears them for your family size.
3. Gather passports, marriage certificate and birth certificates, translated or apostilled where needed, before you leave.
4. Email the kommun’s education office with ages and arrival date; ask an international school about its waiting list at the same time.
5. Register the family at Skatteverket in the first week; plan the first two months without a personnummer.
6. Once the partner has a number, they can be hired like anyone else, with no sponsorship needed. If the partner is in tech, they should be searching from month one, since the permit does not wait for the number.

Whether you are choosing the national permit or the EU Blue Card changes little for the family, but the comparison is in EU Blue Card or Swedish work permit.

This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice; the figures are Migrationsverket’s, Skatteverket’s and Försäkringskassan’s as of September 2026, and their current pages are the authority.