If you are waiting for a decision on your Swedish citizenship, one date matters more than the rest. It is 6 June 2026. From that day, Migrationsverket (the Swedish Migration Agency, which decides citizenship) assesses every open case under the new, stricter rules.
Over 103,000 cases sit in that queue. If your case was not decided before 6 June 2026, the new requirements apply to you. That holds even if you sent your application in years ago.
How long the queue is
Migrationsverket had 103,751 open citizenship cases in June 2026. An open case is an application that has come in but has not had a decision yet. In April the figure was 103,146, so the queue has grown since then.
The agency writes that of the adult cases decided recently, three out of four took at most 55 months. So it is a figure for cases that are already finished, not a promise about how long your case will take.
Migrationsverket writes that cases are not handled in order of arrival. What decides the order is the circumstances of the individual case, not when the application came in.
What the latest forecast says
Migrationsverket published a new forecast on 24 July 2026. After the stricter rules began on 6 June 2026, far fewer people applied for citizenship.
In June, 3,259 applications came in. From January to May the average was about 5,800 a month. The agency now expects about 48,000 new cases in 2026, some 12,000 fewer than in the April forecast.
The agency also expects to decide about 48,000 citizenship cases in 2026. That is around 7,000 fewer than in the April forecast. The reason it gives is that the new law requires a more thorough assessment, so productivity is expected to fall.
These figures are a forecast, not a new count. The counted figure for June 2026 is 103,751 cases. A forecast is what Migrationsverket expects, not what has already happened.
Migrationsverket itself points to the medborgarskapsprov (the knowledge test you take to become a Swedish citizen) as an uncertainty in its forecast. Universitets- och högskolerådet (UHR) is responsible for the test. Migrationsverket writes that the number of places and sittings is not yet settled.
Why 6 June 2026 changes your case
The rules that started on 6 June 2026 are the biggest change to Swedish citizenship in decades. As a main rule you now need eight years of hemvist (the time you have lived in Sweden), not five. There is a self-support requirement. And there is a knowledge requirement about Swedish society.
The list of what the new law asks for is longer than this. You can read the full set on our citizenship requirements page.
What matters for the queue is that there are no transitional rules, meaning rules that let older applications be judged by the old requirements. Migrationsverket applies the new rules the moment a case is decided after 6 June 2026.
The rules are introduced without transitional provisions. This means that Migrationsverket will assess all cases that are not decided before 6 June 2026 under the new rules.
So a case that has waited three years is judged by the same new rules as one sent in today.
What you can do now
You cannot pay to move up the queue. Migrationsverket does not speed up a case because the rules changed. What you can do is check that your application is complete, so a missing paper does not delay it further.
If you met the old requirements but perhaps not the new ones, it is worth asking Migrationsverket or a qualified lawyer. Only they can say how the new law applies to your own case.
Sources
Official details can change. Always confirm what applies to your own case directly with the responsible authority.
