News · Work & labour · Published 17 July 2026
Sweden’s top migration court declines to hear Kiruna pharmacists’ case—the 10-day job-ad rule behind their removal
DailySweden
Updated 15:14 · 1 min read
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Sweden’s Migration Court of Appeal has declined to hear the case of pharmacist Zaib Ansari and her family, leaving a lower-court removal decision final. SVT reported on 16 July that Ansari stopped working the day the decision arrived and the family will leave Sweden for Pakistan.
Ansari moved to Kiruna for a vacancy at Kronans Apotek after the job had reportedly been hard to fill for two years. The Migration Agency said the vacancy had not appeared through Arbetsförmedlingen for the required ten days. Ansari says it was one continuously refreshed listing with different IDs; the lower court accepted the agency’s view.
The current official rule requires employers recruiting a non-EU/EEA citizen to make the vacancy available for at least ten days to residents of Sweden, the EU/EEA and Switzerland. Platsbanken listings also appear in EURES; another channel counts only if the employer can prove equivalent Europe-wide access. Migrationsverket says LinkedIn alone is usually insufficient.
Employers must wait until the advertising period ends before signing the employment contract. The rule applies to new recruitment, not an overseas assignment or intra-group transfer while the post itself remains abroad.
Svensk Farmaci reported that Ansari’s identity and salary otherwise met the requirements. That made the advertisement record—not Kiruna’s pharmacist shortage—the decisive boundary. Employers must retain the current Platsbanken ad ID or EURES reference for the permit application.
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