Registration, banking and utilities in Stockholm

Who can be registered, and in what order

Folkbokföring, registration in the Swedish population register, is what produces the personnummer, and it normally requires that you intend to stay a year or more. A shorter stay does not qualify, and if you are employed here you apply for a coordination number, samordningsnummer, instead. The order of qualification is fixed. Non-EU and non-EEA citizens must already hold a residence permit from Migrationsverket before Skatteverket will register them, EU and EEA citizens qualify by working, studying or supporting themselves from their own assets, and Nordic and Swedish citizens qualify by intending to live here for at least a year.

• EU, EEA and Nordic citizens need no residence permit to live, work, study or run a business here. The right of residence, uppehållsrätt, is automatic and there is no longer a registration step with Migrationsverket.
• After five years of continuous residence you can apply for a certificate of permanent right of residence.
• Non-EU family members of an EU or EEA citizen apply for a residence card, and non-EU spouses of Nordic citizens apply for residence documentation. Both are separate applications from the EU citizen's own arrival.
• British citizens have their own Migrationsverket route, separate from the EU and EEA pages. Check that one rather than assuming EU rules carried over.

The application and the identity check

Registration runs through Skatteverket's Flytta till Sverige e-service, available in English, Arabic, Ukrainian and Swedish. You can submit the notification up to 14 days before you arrive, upload copies of your passport and residence permit, then book an in-person identity check at a state service centre, a servicekontor, and bring the original documents to it. Skatteverket says it takes about three weeks just for a move-to-Sweden case to be assigned to a caseworker, so treat the personnummer as a month or more rather than a same-week document. How long the appointment slot itself takes to come up is a separate question, and one to ask when you book.

The Skatteverket ID card

The ID card is a second application and cannot be made until you are already registered with a personnummer. It costs SEK 400, the fee must be paid before the appointment, you must be at least 13, and you attend a state service centre in person. Booking goes through the state service centres' system at ssc.nemoq.se. The card takes about two weeks to produce and is valid for five years.

• Accepted proof of identity includes a valid Swedish passport, driving licence or police-issued ID card.
• Also a valid Icelandic, Liechtenstein, Norwegian or Swiss passport issued after 1 September 2006, or an EU passport that meets the security requirements and was issued after the same date.
• Failing those, an approved attestor, intygsgivare: a family member or someone with a professional relationship to you.

Försäkringskassan, banking and the waiting

Being in the population register is not the same as being insured in Sweden, which Försäkringskassan decides separately. Some benefits attach to living here and others to working here, so ask which of them apply to you rather than assuming the personnummer settled it. Their published customer line is 0771-524 524, Monday to Friday between 08:00 and 16:00. Banking and BankID are the other thing everyone waits on, and what a bank will accept from a foreign national is not published by any authority, so ask your intended bank directly what it needs and how long BankID follows.

In order

1. 1Establish your route first: non-EU and non-EEA citizens need the Migrationsverket residence permit before Skatteverket will do anything.
2. 2Submit the Flytta till Sverige notification, which you can do up to 14 days before you land.
3. 3Upload copies of the passport and, where relevant, the residence permit.
4. 4Book the identity check at a servicekontor and take the original documents to it.
5. 5Allow about three weeks before the case reaches a caseworker, and plan the rest of the move around that.
6. 6Register with Bostadsförmedlingen the day the number is issued.
7. 7Apply for the Skatteverket ID card, paying the SEK 400 before the appointment and booking through ssc.nemoq.se.
8. 8Put in any family member's residence card or residence documentation as its own application.
9. 9Ask Försäkringskassan on 0771-524 524 which benefits you are insured for, since living here and working here are counted differently.