What are teen deportations?
Since the Aliens Act of 2021 came into force, adult children of people living in Sweden with permanent residence permits have no longer been eligible to receive residency permits as a dependent.
This means that people who have come to Sweden for work or other reasons who have applied for permanent residency are discovering that their 18-year-old children, many of whom are still studying in upper secondary school (gymnasium), can only get permanent residency if they can earn enough to support themselves.
"What happens is that the family applies for permanent residency and then they realise, 'oh, we have a kid here that's 18', and we find that it's very, very difficult for these children to stay," said Elin Harrysson, lead of EY's immigration practice in Sweden.
There is no legal ground to approve an application for permanent residence as a dependent once a child is 18 years old or over. If they apply for a work permit as a first-time applicant, they then need to meet the maintenance requirement, which for children still at upper secondary school is usually impossible.
"When I went to gymnasium, I had extra work as well, but I could never have had a permanent job that met these maintenance requirements," Harrysson continued.
The results can be devastating for families.
"Often the child came here when they were 13 and risks being separated from their parents and their siblings," Bråthe said. "They say 'you need to return back to your home country', when you don't even have a strong connection to that former home country, so it's sad to see, actually, especially when they have the possibility of making their life here in Sweden, and both of their parents qualify for permanent residence."
How common is the problem?
The Migration Agency told The Local that they have no statistics on the number of teen deportations, but Andreas Bråthe, the partner who oversees EY's global immigration practice, said it affected many clients.
"This is one of the main topics our clients are bringing up as a problem for their employees when they are filing for extensions," he told The Local.
"The big problem is the period between when they're 18 and 19. Once they finish high school, they can either go to university and then they can get a study visa, or they can start working and then, of course, they can get a work permit for that."
What is the solution?
There is a relatively simple way to avoid this, but many foreign workers fall into the trap, either through their own ignorance or that of their advisors.
The new work permit rules which came into force in 2022 allow foreigners working in Sweden to renew their work permit an unlimited number of times without being required to apply for permanent residency. A work permit allows you to bring dependent children of 21 years old and under to Sweden.
So the solution is to keep applying for a succession of work permit extensions giving temporary residency until your children are no longer at risk.
"There is a kind of solution but even some companies that assist with work permits are not aware of this, so their clients have been applying for a permanent residence permit when they should have applied for a temporary one," Bråthe said.
Parents who do this pay the price, however, of not being able to travel (unless for business reasons) while they wait for work permits to be processed. They are also barred from applying for Swedish citizenship while they lack permanent residency.
What can you do if you've already fallen into the trap?
Short of the 18-year-old somehow getting a job at short notice, not much.
Once the application for permanent residency has been submitted there is very little that can be done to stop the child who is over 18 from being refused residency and asked to leave the country.
"We also have seen new clients coming to us where they've had help from someone that has missed this, and they call us and say, 'Oh, now my son or daughter is getting deported'," Harrysson explains. "But it can be difficult to help when it's gone that far. So it's important to know how to deal with it when you submit your application."
It is possible in some cases to stop the 18-year-old being forced to return to their home country by pleading "special circumstances" so that the Migration Agency allows them to apply for a work or study permit from within Sweden.
"The Migration Agency is very strict when they apply that section of the law. You can always use that right if it's a country where there's a war but if, say, it's an 18-year-old from India, that would not be special circumstances. You would have to go home and apply from there."
Another possible solution is that after five years with a residence permit in Sweden, the family and main applicant may be able to apply for long-term residence permits. As this is based on EU legislation the limit of a dependent child is 21 years old instead of 18 years old. Hence, the 18 year old child would be able to apply as a dependent.
What can be done to get the government to change the law?
Companies lobbying the government on changing the law have asked EY for possible solutions to the problem and it has proposed two potential law changes.
"One would be to extend the maintenance requirement that you already have as a parent in Sweden - so are supposed to support your child until they turn 18 or until they finish upper secondary school. So that could be the age of 18 or 19. That could be one solution," Bråthe explained. "And the other one would be to allow the parent to apply for a permanent residence permit and the child to apply for a temporary one, until they have finished upper secondary school."
Article originally published in August 2025, updated by The Local's editorial team in February 2026.
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