Housing allowance in Sweden 2027: what changes for newcomers?

Housing allowance (bostadsbidrag) is money from Försäkringskassan, the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, for people with a low income who need help paying the rent or the fee for their home. It exists for families with children and for young people under 29. From 1 January 2027, two changes apply: the allowance starts being based on your income each month, and people who move to Sweden must first qualify. Here is what changes, who can get housing allowance, how to apply, and why you should not wait to apply.

Försäkringskassan decides whether you get housing allowance, and how much. We checked the details on Försäkringskassan’s pages on 11 October 2026.

What changes in 2027?

The allowance is based on your income each month

When you apply today, you estimate yourself what you will earn over the coming year. Försäkringskassan works out the allowance from that. If you earn more than you thought, you may have to pay back allowance you have already received.

Under the new rules, Försäkringskassan instead works out housing allowance from your monthly income. Försäkringskassan sees what you earn each month and can adjust the allowance to it. The aim is that fewer people have to pay money back or end up in debt to Försäkringskassan.

• New decisions only. The new rules apply to decisions from 1 January 2027.
• If you already get housing allowance, the new rules only apply once your current decision runs out during 2027 and you apply again.
• Self-employed people and income from abroad. If you are self-employed (egenföretagare) or receive income from abroad, the change does not affect you. Keep estimating your income carefully and reporting changes.

If your income changes

Say you get housing allowance and start working in the middle of the year.

• With a decision made before 2027, the current rules apply. Report the higher income straight away, so that Försäkringskassan can adjust your payments now. Otherwise you may have to pay back the year after, possibly together with a sanction fee. If your income falls instead, report that too, so that you do not have to wait a year for money you may be entitled to.
• With a decision from 1 January 2027, Försäkringskassan sees your income each month and can change the allowance to match. That lowers the risk that you have to pay money back.

People who move to Sweden must qualify

The Riksdag (the Swedish parliament) has also decided on new conditions for people who move to Sweden. They are called kvalificering (qualification) and take effect on 1 January 2027. Until now, people who moved here could get some benefits straight away. From 2027, you must first either have lived in Sweden for a certain time or have had a certain income here. This applies to housing allowance, child allowance (barnbidrag) and parental benefit (föräldrapenning) at the basic and lowest levels, among others.

You qualify in one of these ways:

• Residence: you have lived in Sweden for a total of 5 years during the last 15 years. Time in another EU/EEA country also counts.
• Income for 6 months: you have had a certain monthly income for at least 6 months in a row.
• Income for 12 months: you have had a lower monthly income during 12 of the last 24 months.

Income from both employment and your own business counts, but only income from after you moved to Sweden. The income limits are adjusted every year and are on Försäkringskassan’s page about kvalificering. Some people with particularly strong ties to Sweden from before can get the benefits straight away, without qualifying.

If you are unsure whether the new conditions apply to you, for example because you moved here before 2027, ask Försäkringskassan.

Who can get housing allowance?

Families with children

Housing allowance for families (bostadsbidrag för barnfamiljer) is for you if you have children living at home and a low income.

• Your children live with you at least 30 days a year. If your child lives with you less than about half the time, your home must have at least 2 rooms and a kitchen and be at least 40 square metres.
• Teenagers count as children as long as they get study assistance (studiehjälp) from CSN or extended child allowance (förlängt barnbidrag). Otherwise they stop counting as children when they turn 18.
• If you are a lodger (inneboende), renting part of someone else’s home, you may be entitled to the allowance if your children live with you about half the time or more. The allowance is then lower than with a home of your own.

How much you can get depends on your income, how much your children live with you, how big your home is and what it costs.

Do you have children in preschool? What it costs is in Preschool fees in Sweden 2026 (maxtaxa): what you pay, and when it is free.

Young people under 29

Housing allowance for young people is for you if you are under 29, have no children and have low incomes, whether you work or study.

• It applies whether you rent or own your home, and also if you sublet (hyr i andra hand).
• If you are a lodger, you cannot get housing allowance for young people.
• If you live with a partner, you can apply together.

Looking for an apartment of your own? Read Housing queues in Sweden 2026: how they work in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö.

Whether you could get housing allowance, and roughly how much, you can see in Försäkringskassan’s calculator Räkna på bostadsbidrag (in Swedish). It takes about 2 minutes.

You must live in Sweden and be insured here

To get benefits from Försäkringskassan, you need to be insured in Sweden (försäkrad i Sverige), which means living or working here. Housing allowance is based on living in Sweden. If a child’s parents live or work in two different EU countries, special rules apply.

• Folkbokförd at the home. The main rule is that you live, and are folkbokförd, at the home you apply for. Folkbokförd means that you are in the register Skatteverket (the Swedish Tax Agency) keeps of people who live in Sweden, with your address. There are exceptions if you have protected registration (skyddad folkbokföring), or if you are living temporarily in another home and will move back within a year, for example because you are studying for a term in another town.
• Give details about your move. If you have moved to Sweden, you give details about the move when you apply. You do this in the e-service Lämna uppgifter vid flytt till eller arbete i Sverige (details when moving to or working in Sweden) on Mina sidor, or on form 5456. If you come from a country in the EU/EEA or Switzerland, you send a certificate from that country’s authority about your social insurance there. If you need a residence or work permit, you send copies of all your permits.
• Your first application can take longer, because Försäkringskassan then checks whether you are insured in Sweden.
• Residence permit. You can be entitled to benefits once you have a residence permit, but usually not while you are waiting for one. With a temporary permit, you can get benefits in the same way as others who are insured here. Apply for a new permit before the old one runs out. Otherwise you have to wait until you have the new one before you can get benefits again. Read When should I apply to extend my residence permit in Sweden?
• Temporary protection. If you have a residence permit under the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive (massflyktsdirektivet), it depends on when you became folkbokförd. If you became folkbokförd on 1 November 2024 or later, you are not entitled to housing allowance. Nor are you if you cannot be folkbokförd.

Waiting to be folkbokförd? Read How long does it take to get a personnummer in 2026?

How to apply

This is how an application works in October 2026.

1. Check what you might get. Use the calculator Räkna på bostadsbidrag. It shows whether you could get housing allowance, and roughly how much.
2. Estimate your yearly income. Add up what you think you will earn before tax over the whole year, from January to December. Include your salary and other income, such as unemployment benefit (a-kassa), parental benefit, sick pay (sjukpenning), activity support (aktivitetsstöd), study grants or study start grants from CSN, introduction benefit (etableringsersättning), scholarships and income from your own business. Interest, share dividends and income from renting out a home also count, and so do assets above a certain limit, such as property, securities or money. If you get social assistance (försörjningsstöd), send a current document that shows it.
3. Prepare documents about your home. Which ones depends on how you live, see the table below.
4. Apply on Mina sidor. Log in to Mina sidor (My pages) at Försäkringskassan and apply in the e-service. If you are married or cohabiting and have children, you must apply together. Young people who live with a partner can apply together: one fills in the application for both, signs it and receives the money, and the other approves it within 10 days. If you cannot use Mina sidor, there is form 5096 Ansök om bostadsbidrag (apply for housing allowance).
5. Send the documents and wait for a decision. Upload the documents when you apply, or send them afterwards. Young people under 29 can also upload them within 7 days of applying. If the documents are late, the decision takes longer. If your application is complete, the decision takes about one month. A decision applies for at most 12 months, then you apply again.
6. Report changes straight away. If your income, your rent or your household changes, you tell Försäkringskassan, see further down.

Do you work irregular hours, or only in the summer? Write what you think you will earn over the whole year, and report a change if it turns out to be more or less.

Mina sidor is only in Swedish, and you need an e-ID (e-legitimation) to log in. Don’t have one yet? Read New in Sweden: your first steps, from personnummer to BankID. If you need help with your application, you can visit one of Försäkringskassan’s service offices (servicekontor). There you can get help finding out what you are entitled to and how to apply. Customer centre: 0771-524 524, Monday to Friday, 8:00 to 16:00.

Documents about your home

If you have a loan on the apartment or the house and pay more than 3 percent interest, you also need your latest loan statement and a document showing that the home is security for the loan.

A rent invoice is not enough. Försäkringskassan needs a rent specification (hyresspecifikation), which shows what the rent is made up of, for example whether a parking space is included. The application tells you exactly which documents you need.

The allowance is checked afterwards

Under the current rules, what you get each month is based on the income you estimated. Whether the amount was right only becomes clear afterwards. The year after, Försäkringskassan checks, for example with Skatteverket, what income you actually had while you received the allowance.

• If your income was higher than you wrote in your application, you may have to pay money back, together with a sanction fee.
• If your income was lower, you may get an extra payment (tilläggsutbetalning), that is, extra money afterwards.

Sanction fee since 1 July 2026

Since 1 July 2026, Försäkringskassan can decide on a sanction fee (sanktionsavgift), an extra fee, when someone has given incorrect information or has not reported a change, so that too much money has been paid out. It also applies to people who made a mistake by accident, for example by not reporting a new salary or a move.

• The fee is 25 percent of the amount you have to pay back, but always at least 4 percent of the price base amount (prisbasbelopp), an amount the government sets every year. For 2026 this is SEK 2,368.
• If Försäkringskassan made the mistake, you pay no sanction fee, but you pay back what you received too much.
• If Försäkringskassan finds that someone else caused the mistake, for example your employer, you get no sanction fee.

If you have to pay back

• You get a decision that says the last day to pay. If Skatteverket’s income figures are right, you only need to pay.
• If they are wrong, contact Skatteverket. If they change the figures, Försäkringskassan is told and changes your decision.
• If you cannot pay it all at once, you can get a payment plan (avbetalningsplan). The whole debt must then be paid within 12 months, and you pay interest.
• If you do not pay on time, you get a reminder. If you still do not pay, and do not apply for a payment plan either, Försäkringskassan passes the debt to Kronofogden (the Swedish Enforcement Authority), the agency that collects debts.
• As a rule, you must pay back. In some exceptional cases, Försäkringskassan can decide that you do not have to. That requires that all the information in your application was correct, that you reported the higher income during the year or it is excusable that you did not, and that you cannot pay for a long time to come.

If you forgot to report a higher income, you can pay back in advance. How to do it is on Försäkringskassan’s page Meddela ändringar om bostadsbidraget (in Swedish). You can get housing allowance even if you owe Försäkringskassan money.

Report changes straight away

Tell Försäkringskassan straight away when you know that something has changed, or is going to change. This applies, for example, if:

• your income goes up or down,
• you move out of the home,
• someone moves in with you or moves out,
• a child lives with you more or less than before,
• a child over 18 who lives with you stops getting study grants (studiebidrag) or child allowance,
• your rent or your other housing costs change.

If you get housing allowance on your own, you report changes in the e-service on Mina sidor. If you have the allowance together with someone, you use form 5098. If your rent was raised retroactively, the allowance can also be raised retroactively, if you report the rent increase within 31 days of finding out about it.

Apply early: no allowance for past months

Housing allowance is only paid from the month you apply. You cannot get it for months before you applied. So:

• Apply as soon as you think you may be entitled to the allowance. If you cannot attach all the documents straight away, you can send them afterwards, but then the decision takes longer.
• Expect it to take time when you are new. Your first application can take longer, because Försäkringskassan checks whether you are insured in Sweden. Apply straight away anyway.
• Keep track of when your decision runs out. A decision applies for at most 12 months. Apply again in time, so that you do not miss a month.

It is always Försäkringskassan that decides whether you get the allowance. Applying is no promise of money, but waiting can cost you months.

More benefits for newcomers

Housing allowance is one of several benefits from Försäkringskassan. In our Försäkringskassan tool we go through the benefits you may be entitled to as a newcomer to Sweden, and when you must apply.

Summary

• Housing allowance exists for families with children and for young people under 29 with a low income. Försäkringskassan decides whether you get it.
• The allowance is only paid from the month you apply, never backwards in time. Apply early.
• Today the allowance is checked the year after. If you earn more than you estimated, you may have to pay back, sometimes with a sanction fee. Report changes straight away.
• For decisions from 1 January 2027, the allowance is based on your income each month. Self-employed people and people with income from abroad are not affected.
• From 1 January 2027, people who move to Sweden must qualify: 5 years in Sweden during the last 15 years, or a certain income here.

Sources

• Försäkringskassan: Ansök om bostadsbidrag för barnfamiljer (in Swedish)
• Försäkringskassan: Bostadsbidrag till unga (under 29 år) (in Swedish)
• Försäkringskassan: Bostadsbidrag, nya regler från 1 januari 2027 (in Swedish)
• Försäkringskassan: Kvalificering till socialförsäkringen (in Swedish)
• Försäkringskassan: Meddela ändringar om bostadsbidraget (in Swedish)
• Försäkringskassan: Betala tillbaka bostadsbidrag (in Swedish)
• Försäkringskassan: Sanktionsavgift för den som ska betala tillbaka (in Swedish)
• Försäkringskassan: Aktuella belopp (in Swedish)
• Försäkringskassan: Räkna på bostadsbidrag (in Swedish)
• Försäkringskassan: Försäkrad i Sverige (in Swedish)
• Försäkringskassan: Flytta till Sverige (in Swedish)
• Försäkringskassan: När du har fått uppehållstillstånd i Sverige (in Swedish)