Sweden Granted Citizenship in Just One-Third of June Decisions

Sweden granted citizenship in just 1,602 of 4,905 cases decided in June: a 32.7% grant share, according to the Migration Agency’s monthly statistics.

That marks a sharp break from the first five months of 2026. Before June, the agency had granted 16,632 citizenships across 23,324 decided cases, a 71.3% share. The June table leaves 3,303 decided cases without a grant but does not separate refusals from withdrawals or other closures.

June was the first monthly snapshot to cover Sweden’s new citizenship rules, which took effect on 6 June without transitional provisions. All pending applications are now assessed under the new requirements, including cases submitted earlier.

The Riksdag-approved changes raised the general residence period from five to eight years, added a self-support requirement, expanded the good-conduct test and introduced knowledge requirements. The monthly data does not identify why each case ended as it did, so it cannot show how many outcomes were caused by any single rule.

At the end of June, 103,751 citizenship cases remained open, more than 21 times the number decided that month. The agency’s latest citizenship explainer says grants had already fallen from 65,600 in 2024 to 38,800 in 2025, mainly because additional security checks added processing steps.

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