Leaving Sweden: what to report and close

If you are leaving Sweden for a year or more, report the move to Skatteverket, the Swedish Tax Agency, at the latest one week before you travel. That one report ends your folkbokföring, the population register. It does not end your tax liability, your pension, your a-kassa membership or your student loan, and each of those has its own authority and its own step.

This article is for anyone who is registered in Sweden and is moving abroad for a year or more, whatever the citizenship or permit. It follows the order in which you meet each step. It does not re-explain the register or the tax system: folkbokföring is the register that gives you a personnummer, and Swedish tax follows a separate set of residence rules. Both are covered in the foundation guides of this series.

It is not for visitors, who were never registered. Visitors should start at planning a trip. It is also not a guide to closing a business: if you run a sole-trader business, F-skatt and VAT need their own steps, and the F-skatt guide is the place to start.

Prerequisites: who this applies to

These conditions decide which steps apply to you.

• You are folkbokförd in Sweden with a personnummer. The utflyttning is a deregistration from folkbokföring, so it applies to a person who is registered. A person who was never registered has no utflyttning to report.
• You plan to be abroad for a year or more. That is the threshold Skatteverket uses. The law uses the same measure: under 20 § of the act, a person who can be expected regularly to spend their nightly rest outside Sweden for at least one year is deregistered as utflyttad.
• A shorter plan that grows. Skatteverket says to report the move if a shorter stay abroad is extended to a year or more.
• Optional, per step: a membership in an a-kassa, a pension, benefits from Försäkringskassan or a student loan from CSN. Skip a step if it does not describe you.

The order, with deadlines

Step 1: Report the move to Skatteverket

Utflyttning, the move out of Sweden, is reported to Skatteverket. Under 27 § of folkbokföringslagen, a registered person who intends to move abroad must report it at the latest one week before departure, with the departure date. If the trip is cancelled or postponed, you report that no later than the departure date you gave.

You report on form SKV 7665, "Anmälan - Flyttning från Sverige". The notification states, among other things (29 §): your name and personnummer, your address in Sweden, the departure date, your address abroad and type of housing, the purpose and expected length of the stay, your employer abroad, and any property or rented home in Sweden you keep. For a child under 18, all guardians must sign. A child aged 16 or 17 may also report their own move (30 §).

The timing sets the date of your deregistration. For a move to a country outside the Nordic countries, Skatteverket registers you as utflyttad from the day you move, provided you report by that day. If you report later, you are registered as utflyttad the day Skatteverket receives the report (36 §). Moves to another Nordic country follow special rules, so check Skatteverket's page for that route.

What does not change: Skatteverket states that you keep your Swedish personnummer, and that your Swedish citizenship is not affected by moving abroad. The personnummer guide explains the number.

Skatteverket says it takes about three weeks before a case officer picks up the notification. That is another reason not to leave the report for the last week. You can report online, but a move to another Nordic country cannot be reported in that e-service; use the form.

Step 1b: Migrationsverket, if you hold a residence permit

If you live in Sweden on a residence permit, the move also affects the permit. Migrationsverket, the Swedish Migration Agency, decides on it, and this is a separate step with its own deadline.

Utlänningslagen (2005:716), the Aliens Act, 7 kap. 7 § says: "Ett permanent uppehållstillstånd ska återkallas för en utlänning som inte längre är bosatt i Sverige." A permanent residence permit shall be revoked once you no longer live in Sweden. If you notify Migrationsverket that you want to keep the permit even though you are moving, it can be revoked at the earliest after one year, or two years for some researchers and doctoral students.

Migrationsverket says the notification, on form 186011, "Anmälan om att få behålla permanent uppehållstillstånd", must reach it at the latest one week before you leave Sweden. If your permanent permit is revoked, you must apply for a new one from the country where you live if you want to move back.

A time-limited permit may be revoked for a person who does not intend to stay in Sweden (7 kap. 3 a §).

Step 2: Tell Försäkringskassan

Försäkringskassan, the Social Insurance Agency, says you must report to it when you move to another country. It then assesses, from your situation, whether you stay under Swedish social-insurance legislation. You report on Mina sidor, its online portal, or on form 5459.

What follows depends on that assessment, so what you keep from Försäkringskassan depends on where you go and your situation. It is your responsibility to tell the agency when something changes.

Two benefits catch families:

• Barnbidrag, the child allowance. Försäkringskassan says that when a child goes abroad for more than six months you no longer have the right to barnbidrag for that child.
• Bostadsbidrag, the housing allowance. Försäkringskassan says your bostadsbidrag can be affected when a child is abroad.

Report before the child leaves Sweden. Försäkringskassan warns that otherwise you may have to repay money you had no right to.

Step 3: Tell your a-kassa, then decide on membership

An a-kassa is the unemployment insurance fund you join. To receive benefit, lag (2024:506) om arbetslöshetsförsäkring, 2 kap. 1 §, requires that you are able and free to take a job, registered as a jobseeker at Arbetsförmedlingen, and otherwise available to the labour market. Kommunals a-kassa puts it plainly: to have the right to a-kassa, you must be able to search for and take a job in Sweden at short notice.

Ask your fund about your case before you leave.

There is one official exception for people who go abroad to look for work in the EU. You can take Swedish unemployment benefit with you for three months when you search for a job in another EU/EEA country, Switzerland, or the United Kingdom. This needs the certificate intyg U2 from IAF, the Unemployment Insurance Inspectorate. IAF lists three conditions:

• You have the right to Swedish unemployment benefit, not for example activity support, at the latest on the day you leave.
• You have been completely unemployed, registered at Arbetsförmedlingen and available to it for at least four weeks before the day you leave.
• You apply for U2 before your departure day.

Whether to keep your membership is your decision. One rule shapes it: under 5 kap. 9 § of the same act, months of membership while you were covered by another country's social-security legislation under EU Regulation 883/2004 do not count when your membership time is calculated. Unionens a-kassa advises that if you end your membership because you work abroad, you should reapply as soon as that work ends. It also says that if you expect to return to Sweden after working outside the EU/EEA and Switzerland, you should not leave as a member. Ask your own fund before you act. The guides on joining an a-kassa and on income-related a-kassa against alfa-kassan show how membership works.

Step 4: Tell Pensionsmyndigheten

Pensionsmyndigheten, the Swedish Pensions Agency, pays the allmän pension, the public pension. You must tell it if you move abroad, if you plan to be abroad for more than a year, or if you plan to be abroad regularly for more than six months a year. For bostadstillägg and äldreförsörjningsstöd, the figure is more than three months a year. Skatteverket's report is not a pension report, so tell Pensionsmyndigheten yourself.

What you keep. Pensionsmyndigheten lists income pension, premium pension, supplementary pension, child pension, adjustment pension and widow's pension as pensions that follow you wherever you live.

What you lose.

• Garantipension. It rests on residence, so it is paid only if you live in Sweden. Pensionsmyndigheten says that if you move you as a rule have no right to have it paid out, and that residents abroad lost it from January 2023. It names three exceptions: Canada, on certain conditions; people born in 1937 or earlier who live in an EU/EEA country or Switzerland; and a planned stay abroad of at most one year.
• Bostadstillägg, the housing supplement. Your right normally ends from the month after you move.
• Äldreförsörjningsstöd, the income support for older people. Your right normally ends from the month after you move.

If you receive money you no longer have a right to, you can be required to repay it. That is why the notice matters.

Tax on your pension. If you are begränsat skattskyldig, taxed only on certain Swedish income, you pay SINK, särskild inkomstskatt för utomlands bosatta, on your pension. It is a final tax of 22.5 percent from income year 2026, and Skatteverket says you do not need to declare the income. The rate falls to 20 percent from 1 January 2027 (SINK law, lag (1991:586), 7 §). You apply to Skatteverket, and an email address is enough to use the online service. You may instead ask to be taxed under the inkomstskattelagen, the Income Tax Act, which means filing a deklaration (SINK law, 4 §). The SINK guide covers the rest of the system.

Step 5: Tax after you leave

This step surprises people most. Skatteverket says you are obegränsat skattskyldig, taxed on all income, if you have moved away but still have väsentlig anknytning to Sweden. That can be so after your folkbokföring has ended.

Under Swedish tax law you are obegränsat skattskyldig, taxed on all income worldwide, if you live here, stay here permanently, or have väsentlig anknytning, an essential connection, after moving away. If you are a Swedish citizen, or have lived in Sweden for at least ten years, you must show yourself that no essential connection remains. That applies for five years from the day you leave (inkomstskattelagen 3 kap. 7 §). If neither applies to you, the same test still applies, but Skatteverket must show that the connection remains rather than you showing that it is gone (inkomstskattelagen 3 kap. 3 § and 7 §). After five years you are begränsat skattskyldig unless Skatteverket finds that you still have a connection.

Skatteverket names citizenship, a home in Sweden fitted for year-round use, family and property in Sweden among the factors.

If you are obegränsat skattskyldig, you declare all income in your inkomstdeklaration, the annual income declaration, whether it comes from Sweden or another country. Skatteverket says that you usually pay tax on all your income in the country where you have your hemvist, your residence under the tax treaty. The skattsedel guide shows how preliminary tax and final tax relate.

The practical points:

• The declaration is annual. For the 2026 declaration (income year 2025), the last day without an extension was 4 May. Dates are set each year, so check Skatteverket for the one that applies to you. The year you leave needs a declaration whatever your status afterwards, because you were taxed on all income until you left (inkomstskattelagen 3 kap. 3 § and 8 §).
• Refunds need a bank account. Skatteverket pays a refund automatically into a registered bank account. If you expect money back, think before you close your last Swedish account.

If you disagree with a decision, see appealing a Skatteverket decision.

Step 6: CSN

CSN, the student-finance authority, expects its own notice. If you owe a studielån, a student loan, you repay while you live abroad. CSN's page asks you to register your foreign address, easiest on Mina sidor, and says you can only pay the amounts in the plan.

After you have left: claiming pension from abroad

When your pension age comes, the route depends on where you live.

• EU, EEA or Switzerland. You turn to the pension authority in the country where you live for help with the application.
• A country Sweden has a social-security agreement with. You also apply through the pension authority where you live.
• Any other country. You apply for Swedish pension on a form.

You can send the application at the earliest one year before the age of your first withdrawal. Pensionsmyndigheten also says to allow three to five banking days from the payment date until the money reaches your foreign account.

If something goes wrong

• A rejected benefit: appealing a Försäkringskassan decision.
• A refused a-kassa claim: appealing an a-kassa denial.
• Anything else: the guide to appealing a rejected decision shows which authority hears which case.

For more on tax and work rights, see the Tax hub and the work-rights hub.

Last verified against the official pages on 7 October 2026. Rules and dates change, so check the authority before you act.