Sweden’s parliament has passed a law allowing authorities to revoke residence permits from immigrants for “not behaving properly,” the latest in a series of moves breaking away from the country’s once-liberal immigration system.
Residency permits can now be revoked for conduct including unpaid debts, undeclared work, organizing begging, and more, even where the behavior falls short of a criminal conviction.
The law, passed on June 15, applies to pending applications and can also be used retroactively against permits already granted.
“Anyone who doesn’t make the effort to do the right thing shouldn’t be able to count on staying,” Minister of Migration Johan Forssell said when he proposed the bill in March.
In a June 15 post on X ahead of the vote, the Sweden Democrats said that one “should be able to be deported simply for not behaving properly, even if the acts aren’t illegal or don’t otherwise lead to deportation.”
It said that conduct in this context can refer to several different things, for example, “not paying debts, organizing begging, regularly breaking rules, or having an asocial behavior with disturbances of the peace.”
“With these proposals, we gain increased opportunities to deport individuals who pose a threat to public order or security, who have been convicted of crimes, or who in other ways have failed in their conduct,” it said.
“This means that even gang criminals, even if they are not convicted, can be deported, and that more of those who are in Sweden with residence permits can lose them.”
Proposed changes are to take effect on July 13.
The law was criticized by nongovernmental organizations.
“The good behavior law leaves people in uncertainty about what actions or expressions can be used against them,” Stockholm-based Civil Rights Defenders said in a statement.
“It undermines the rule of law and the principle of equality before the law.”
In the mid-1980s, about 40,000 immigrants per year arrived in Sweden, according to the national statistics office. That number rose sharply, and by 2015, more than 160,000 were arriving annually from countries such as Syria, Somalia, and Eritrea.
About 20 percent of Sweden’s 10.5 million citizens were born abroad. Almost 163,000 people, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, applied for asylum in Sweden in 2015.
Residency permits were given to 6,250 asylum seekers and their relatives in 2024, the lowest number since comparable records began in 1985.
“I think it will need to continue to decrease,” Forssell told a news conference at the time.
“We now have a historically low asylum rate, but that should be put in relation to a number of years when it has been at very high levels.”
Sweden is also preparing to change its constitution to remove citizenship from those deemed a “threat to the state,” its government said in 2025.
“The background is that Sweden is dealing with three parallel and very serious threats to our internal security,” Strommer said at a news conference in January 2025.
“Violent extremism, state actors acting in a hostile manner towards Sweden, as well as systemic and organized crime.”
The current “voluntary remigration” scheme offers 10,000 Swedish kroner ($960) per adult and 5,000 kroner ($480) per child, as well as travel costs for refugees and immigrants to leave Sweden.
Immigration policies have sparked widespread frustration throughout the EU, leading to an electoral shift to the right.
Countries such as Germany, Austria, and France have implemented stricter border controls.
In 2024, the German government ordered border controls to tackle illegal immigration and extremist threats, suspending the freedom of the passport-free Schengen zone.
This was shortly after the anti-immigration populist party Alternative for Germany made a breakthrough in state elections, emerging as the dominant political force in eastern Germany.
