The published waiting time on your case has passed, and Migrationsverket has still not decided it. Sweden gives you one specific tool for exactly this situation: dröjsmålstalan (a written request to force a decision), filed under 12 § förvaltningslagen (2017:900, the Administrative Procedure Act). Eligibility and process differ by case type, and the rules sit scattered across separate Migrationsverket pages rather than in one place. This guide sets out the waiting period required for your case type and the correct form to use. It also covers the four-week window that follows filing, and the appeal route available if Migrationsverket refuses your request.
What Dröjsmålstalan Means and When It Applies
Dröjsmålstalan is a written request, made under 12 § förvaltningslagen, asking Migrationsverket to conclude your case if it has been open too long. It targets a case that has not yet been decided, not a decision already issued. If Migrationsverket refuses your request, that refusal is itself a decision. 49 § of the same act lets you appeal it to court, per lawline.se's analysis of the statute.
This is a different tool from an ordinary appeal. An appeal challenges a decision Migrationsverket has already made. Dröjsmålstalan exists for the opposite problem: no decision has arrived at all, even though your case sits past its published waiting time. Filing it does not guarantee a faster outcome. It guarantees you a response, either a decision or a written refusal, within a fixed window.
Check the Published Waiting Time Before You File
Migrationsverket publishes case-type waiting times based on cases decided over the previous 12 months, and states that 75% of recently decided cases were decided within the listed time, per its waiting-times page. Filing before that published time has passed is premature for your case. The four-month, six-month, and other thresholds below run from your application date, not from any personal sense that the case is taking too long.
The waiting-times table lives on Migrationsverket's contact and waiting-times page, organized by case type. Phone calls, emails, and in-person visits to Migrationsverket do not produce case-specific timing information beyond what that published table already shows. Checking the table is the only reliable first step before you decide whether dröjsmålstalan is even available to you yet.
The Waiting Period Required, by Permit Type
The wait required before you file depends entirely on your case type. A first-time work permit application qualifies after 4 months, or 90 days for an EU Blue Card application, per Migrationsverket's page for applicants waiting on a work permit decision. A first-time partner or family residence permit application qualifies after 6 months, per the equivalent page for that case type. A Swedish citizenship application also qualifies after 6 months, per Migrationsverket's citizenship waiting-for-a-decision page. If you hold a permit already and are applying for an extension, separate rules and pages apply, and that case type falls outside the scope covered here.
| Case type | Wait before filing | Form to use |
|---|
| First-time work permit | 4 months (90 days for EU Blue Card) | 271011 |
| First-time partner/family residence permit | 6 months | 271011 |
| Swedish citizenship application | 6 months | 301011 |
If your case is a work permit, see the separate guide on finding work while a permit is pending for how income and employment rules apply during your wait. For the underlying process behind your case type, see the guides on your work or residence permit application, a partner or family residence permit, and your Swedish citizenship application.
How to Submit the Written Request
The request must be a signed, mailed form: 271011 for work and residence permit cases, or 301011 for citizenship cases, per Migrationsverket's own instructions on each waiting-for-a-decision page. If a representative is filing on your behalf, attach a power of attorney unless one is already on file with Migrationsverket.
You will find the mailing address for the completed form printed on the form itself, so there is no separate address to look up. You are allowed only one such request per case, at a single occasion, while Migrationsverket is processing it, confirmed identically across the work permit, partner and family residence permit, and citizenship pages. Filing it too early, before the threshold above has passed, wastes that single opportunity.
What Migrationsverket Must Do Within Four Weeks
Within four weeks of receiving your request, Migrationsverket must either decide the application or issue a written rejection stating it cannot finalize the case in that time, confirmed with identical wording across all three case-type pages. If Migrationsverket decides your case within four weeks, the request has done its job and the case is closed. If it issues a written refusal instead, you can appeal that refusal, and your underlying application keeps moving through standard processing regardless of which outcome follows.
A rejection of your dröjsmålstalan request does not pause or restart the application. Migrationsverket continues handling your case under its normal queue, using whatever information and documents are already on file, whether or not the four-week request produced a decision.
If the Request Is Rejected — Appealing to Court
You can appeal a rejection of your dröjsmålstalan request. Send the appeal to Migrationsverket first, per its own appeal-process guidance; Migrationsverket then forwards your case to Migrationsdomstolen, or in some instances to Förvaltningsrätten, if the agency does not change its own decision on review. That guidance page is published only in Swedish, so you may need translation help or a representative to follow it directly.
The appeal deadline is not a fixed number of weeks stated on Migrationsverket's general appeal-process page. Instead, it is the specific deadline printed in your rejection letter, and that letter is the first place to check once a refusal arrives. Missing the printed deadline closes the appeal route for that particular rejection. This whole sequence sits inside the broader pattern covered under appeals and disputes with Swedish authorities, which walks through how Swedish agency decisions get challenged more generally.
When a Court Order Still Does Not Move the Agency
When a court grants your appeal, it orders Migrationsverket to prioritize your case ahead of others, deciding it snarast möjligt, and that order is not self-enforcing. Snarast möjligt means a prioritization duty, not a fixed calendar deadline the way the four-week window is, per lawline.se's analysis of 49 § förvaltningslagen.
A Justitieombudsmannen decision dated 20 October 2020 shows what that gap can look like in practice. In that case, Migrationsverket took roughly two weeks to register a court's order to decide snarast möjligt, then took about three months to send an investigation summons despite the order already sitting on file. JO criticized Migrationsverket for failing to prioritize the cases as the court had required. A second dröjsmålstalan on the same case is not available once one such appeal has already been decided, so if you reach this stage, the court order is the last formal lever available for your case.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can dröjsmålstalan be filed more than once on the same case?
No. Migrationsverket's own guidance states the request may be submitted only once, on a single occasion, while the case is being processed.
Does a rejected dröjsmålstalan request stop the application from being processed?
No. Migrationsverket continues handling your application under its normal queue regardless of whether the request is rejected.
Which court hears an appeal against a rejected dröjsmålstalan request?
Usually Migrationsdomstolen. Migrationsverket's appeal-process page notes that some decisions are instead reviewed by Förvaltningsrätten.
What does a court order to decide snarast möjligt actually force Migrationsverket to do?
It requires the agency to prioritize that specific case ahead of others, per lawline.se's analysis of 49 § förvaltningslagen, though the order does not carry a fixed calendar date and depends on the agency to act on it.
File Once, After the Threshold, Not Before
The threshold to file dröjsmålstalan depends on your case: 4 months for a first-time work permit, 90 days for an EU Blue Card, and 6 months for a partner, family residence, or citizenship case. The request itself is a one-time, form-based, mailed submission, and it produces one of two results within four weeks: a decision, or a written refusal you can appeal. A court win obliges Migrationsverket to prioritize your case, but does not guarantee a specific date, as the 2020 JO decision shows. Identify which case type applies to you, confirm the published waiting time on the relevant page has actually passed, and file the correct form before considering an appeal. The same delay-remedy pattern applies to a-kassa decisions, where a comparable reconsideration-then-court sequence runs on its own two-month deadlines instead of a four-week window.
