Number of staff and nature of the first instance authority

Author

Swedish Refugee Law Center Visit Website

Source: Swedish Migration Agency, ‘Annual Report 2025’, Dnr: MVA-2026-00711, 20 February 2026, available in Swedish here.

Swedish administrative system

The administrative system in Sweden differs from most other European countries in terms of division of tasks. All Government decisions in Sweden are collective and all public agencies are subordinate to – but independent from – the Government. Unlike in other countries, Swedish Secretaries of State, or Ministers, have limited discretion to take independent decisions. All Government decisions are taken jointly by the Government. Different Secretaries of State are responsible for different areas and may also act as heads of ministries. Some tasks performed by ministries in other countries are performed by civil service departments in Sweden, which are overseen by a ministry.

As a general rule, the Ministry of Justice and other Government offices cannot intervene in individual cases concerning applicants for international protection. However, in cases concerning serious threats to national security, the Act concerning Special Controls of Certain Aliens may be used.^[1] The Act entered into force on 1 July 2022 and replaced the previous Act concerning Special Controls in Respect of Aliens (1991:572). According to Chapter 1, Section 2, the Act concerning Special Controls of Certain Aliens becomes applicable upon request of the Swedish Security Service. An expulsion decision is, however, according to Chapter 2, Section 1, always issued by the Swedish Migration Agency at first instance. According to Chapter 7, Section 1 of the Act, the Swedish Migration Agency’s decision can be appealed to the Government.

According to Chapter 7, Section 14 of the Act concerning Special Controls of Certain Aliens, an appeal of an expulsion decision issued by the Migration Agency shall be handed over to the Migration Court of Appeal, who shall submit an opinion whether there are impediments to enforce an expulsion in accordance with Chapter 12 Section 1-3a of the Swedish Alien’s Act [non-refoulement], and thereafter hand the case over to the Government for a final decision. If the Migration Court of Appeal considers that there are such impediments, the Government cannot deviate from that assessment (Chapter 7, Section 15). If the Swedish Migration Agency has decided in a case on both expulsion and regarding an application for protection status, an appeal shall, according to Chapter 7, Section 16 of the Act, instead follow the appeals procedure set out in the Aliens Act. However, this is not the case if the Security Services also appeals the Swedish Migration Agency’s decision.

The Government made six decisions under the Act concerning Special Controls in Respect of Aliens between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025, the same number as in the previous corresponding period. One of the decisions concerned a rejection of an appeal against the Swedish Migration Agency’s decision to revoke a stay of enforcement, and another concerned the revocation of a stay of enforcement at the request of the Swedish Security Service. Three of the decisions were rejections of the individual’s request for reconsideration of deportation orders, and the sixth concerned the rejection of the individual’s request for revocation of a deportation order.^[2]

Swedish Migration Agency

The Swedish Migration Agency is the central administrative authority in the area of asylum. It is responsible for examining applications for international protection and competent to take decisions at first instance. It further takes decisions on work permits, family reunification, adoption, studies, and citizenship and is also responsible for operating detention centres.

The Swedish Migration Agency is subordinate to the Government as a whole and reports to the Ministry of Justice, with which it cooperates at various levels, such as information exchange, planning and expression of needs. The Government also regulates the direction and priorities of the Swedish Migration Agency. Each year, the Swedish Migration Agency receives an appropriation direction from the Government. The appropriation direction governs the agency’s activities for the year and sets out, among other things, the objectives of the activities, the budget, and how the budget is to be allocated.[3] According to Swedish legislation, the Swedish Migration Agency, as is the case with all authorities, is fully independent from the Government as well as the Parliament in relation to individual decisions and the Government is prohibited from influencing its decisions.^[4] This also applies to the Agency’s policy on different topics. The Swedish Migration Agency coordinates and divides tasks between the divisions of Asylum, Managed Migration and Citizenship, thereby upholding due process and ensuring effective case management in line with Sweden’s Aliens Act and Citizenship Act. The Swedish Migration Agency is also responsible for third country nationals without residence permits, i.e., until they obtain a permit and have settled in a municipality. Legal provisions pertaining to the Swedish Migration Agency are found primarily in the Aliens Act and the Ordinance with Instructions for the Swedish Migration Agency.

The Swedish Migration Agency is headed by a Director General, who is appointed by the Government. The Director General is responsible before the Government for the Agency, its operations and its results. The Director General is generally not involved in individual decision making but can have an influence on policies. In 2023, Maria Mindhammar was appointed Director General (with no change in 2025). The Swedish Migration Agency’s head office consists of the Senior Management, the Director General’s staff and departments supporting the operational activities. This includes the Digitalisation and Development Department, the Planning Department, the Legal Affairs Department, the Communications Department, the Human Resources Department, and the Security Department. ^[5] The head office is located in Norrköping.

Stand-alone functions are internal audit, internal investigations and the agency’s EU fund management, which all report directly to the Director General. There is also a dedicated unit for Dublin procedures and a separate country of origin unit (LIFOS). LIFOS produces reports and conducts missions to certain countries in order to assess and analyse the political situation in a particular country or region. The Swedish Migration Agency has access to a variety of country of origin information reports issued by other countries and organisations which is published on its country of origin and case law database (also named LIFOS).[6] It is the caseworkers’ duty to regularly update themselves on relevant country of origin information. Caseworkers are generally required to hold a degree in law and/or political science to be working on asylum-related matters. Regarding other training of staff, some specialised training is offered for caseworkers who interview children, based on the EUAA Training Curriculum (ETC) module ‘Interviewing Children’.[7] Also, webinars were developed for case officers and other employees at the Swedish Migration Agency, which are available after the live transmission. The “focus country pages” on the LIFOS website were also enhanced by including recommended reading on various topics and main countries of origin.^[8]

The Migration Agency’s regional division:[9]

Quality control and assurance within the Swedish Migration Agency

According to the Agency’s Instructions,[10] the Swedish Migration Agency shall ensure predictable and consistent decision-making of high legal quality. According to the Agency’s definition of high legal quality,[11] this requires that decisions are formally and substantively correct, that the application of the law is consistent, and that case processing is carried out in accordance with applicable legislation and based on the individual circumstances of the applicant. In 2025, the Swedish Migration Agency introduced a new method for systematic national quality monitoring to assess the legal quality and consistency of asylum decision-making. Responsibility for national quality monitoring is now centralized, with the Legal Affairs Department coordinating the work and ensuring that monitoring is conducted on a regular basis, in collaboration with the Planning Department and the regional offices. The new method combines quantitative and qualitative analyses and compares outcomes across regions and applicant groups in order to identify differences in consistency. The first review, conducted in autumn 2025, covered approximately 800 first-time asylum decisions on protection grounds from 2024–2025, including both positive and negative decisions.

Staffing within the Migration Agency

The Swedish Migration Agency had an average of 6,054 employees in the year 2025.[12] Out of the total number of employees in 2025, 240 were working as case officers and 131 as decision makers in asylum cases.^[13]

The Swedish Migration Agency have an obligation to report suspected war crimes. In 2020, the Agency reported 86 suspected war crimes to the police, and 74 in 2021. In 2022 the Agency reported 37 cases of suspected war crimes.^[14] In 2023, the Agency reported 48 cases.[15] In 2024 the number of reported cases was 67.[16] In 2025 the Agency reported 69 cases.[17] To the authors’ knowledge, no such reports have led to an indictment (yet). It is not possible to know how many criminal investigations on the basis of these reports are ongoing as they are confidential until the indictment.

^[1]          Act concerning Special Controls of Certain Aliens (2022:700), available in Swedish here.

^[2]          See: Government, Skrivelse från Justitiedepartementet, Skr. 2025/26:74, 2025 års redogörelse för tillämpningen av lagen om särskild kontroll av vissa utlänningar, available in Swedish here.

[3]          The latest appropriation direction from the Government may be found here. See also The Migration Agency, ‘Laws and regulations’, available here.

^[4]          Instrument of Government, Chapter 12, Section 2, available in Swedish here.

^[5]          The Swedish Migration Agency, ‘Our organisation’, available here.

[6]          The database is available here.

[7]          The Swedish Migration Agency, Tematisk kvalitetsuppföljning avseende asylsökande barn i familj, Dnr: 1.3.4-2022-26331, December 2022.

^[8]          EUAA, Asylum Report 2022: Annual Report on the Situation of Asylum in the European Union, June 2022, available here.

[9]          Geographical overview of Migration Agency’s regional divisions, available in Swedish at Migration Agency website available here.

[10]         Ordinance (2019:502) with Instructions for the Swedish Migration Agency, available in Swedish here.

[11]         Swedish Migration Agency, RA/018/2021, available upon request from the Swedish Migration Agency via email

[12]         Swedish Migration Agency, ‘Annual Report 2025’, Dnr: MVA-2026-00711, 20 February 2026, available in Swedish here.

^[13]         Information provided by the Swedish Migration Agency by the statistics unit via email in January 2025.

^[14]         Swedish Migration Agency, Annual Report 2022, Dnr: 1.3.2-2022-2199, available in Swedish here.

[15]         Swedish Migration Agency, ‘Annual Report 2023’, Dnr: 1.3.2-2024-2238, page 110, 22 February 2024, available in Swedish here.

[16]         Swedish Migration Agency, Annual Report 2024, Dnr: 1.3.2-2025-1844, p, 106, 21 February 2025, available in Swedish at:, Årsredovisning 2024.

[17]         Swedish Migration Agency, ‘Annual Report 2025’, Dnr: MVA-2026-00711, 20 February 2026, available in Swedish here.