(SWEDEN) — Sweden’s Liberal Party on Monday called for creating a new government agency dedicated to handling work permits, arguing Sweden needs a more service-oriented system to attract global talent.
Johan Britz, Swedish Minister for Employment from the Liberal Party (Liberalerna), said the proposed body would take labor-migration work away from the Swedish Migration Agency, known as Migrationsverket, which he argued focuses on asylum and enforcement.
“This is an agency which, unlike the Migration Agency, would be responsible for making it easier for people to come to Sweden. Their [the Migration Agency’s] task is not to attract people to Sweden,” Britz said, in remarks attributed to Svenska Dagbladet/The Local Sweden.
Proposal and Rationale
Britz framed the plan as a way to marketing Sweden as a great place to work and to recruit more actively from top universities and global knowledge clusters.
The proposal matters for employers and prospective hires because it would redraw the administrative map for labor migration, shifting responsibility for work-permit handling away from the Swedish Migration Agency as it operates today.
Britz also pitched it as a way to make Sweden more competitive in attracting highly skilled workers.
Britz pointed to political headwinds inside Sweden’s governing coalition, blaming “harsh immigration rhetoric” by coalition partners the Moderates and the Sweden Democrats for deterring highly skilled workers.
The Liberals’ argument rests on an administrative separation: a work-permit system designed around service, predictability and recruitment, rather than suspicion or enforcement. Britz’s comments described Migrationsverket’s mission as fundamentally different from talent attraction.
Supporters of the idea portray it as a way to improve employer experience and add clarity, with a single agency built around labor migration rather than a broader migration and asylum mandate.
The plan also aims to make decision-making more predictable for those applying to work in Sweden and for Swedish employers trying to recruit internationally.
For applicants and companies, “marketing Sweden for talent” could include more active outreach and a clearer user-facing approach to labor migration, based on the Liberals’ description.
Britz’s proposal did not describe operational details beyond the agency’s focus on work permits and recruitment.
Legislative context and reforms
The announcement comes amid a broader overhaul of Swedish immigration policy moving through Bill Prop 2025/26:87. That bill includes raising the minimum salary for a work permit to 90% of the Swedish median wage, approximately SEK 34,200, effective June 1, 2026.
As Sweden moves from proposal to debate, legislative action and later implementation guidance, the Liberal Party’s call adds another layer to a reform pipeline already underway.
The Liberals have linked their agency proposal to concerns that changes intended to tighten parts of the system could also reduce Sweden’s appeal to skilled workers.
EU rules also shape the debate. The Liberal Party’s proposal arrives after the 2024 EU Single Permit Directive, which requires member states to simplify work and residence permits, and it has fed into arguments in Sweden about how much flexibility workers should have within the permit system.
One reform area raised in the discussion involves employer-change flexibility. Sweden’s proposed reforms for May 2026 would allow workers to change employers without a new permit, and the Liberals said they want to safeguard a talent-friendly approach through a dedicated agency focused on labor migration.
Relation to U.S. statements and international context
The Swedish Liberal Party’s proposal is separate from U.S. immigration administration, and it does not involve U.S. agencies. It nonetheless lands on a day when U.S. agencies issued immigration-related statements with an “America First” frame that emphasised enforcement and tighter scrutiny.
U.S. agencies did not issue any official statement addressing Sweden’s proposal, and no U.S. agency indicated it would treat Swedish work-permit changes as relevant to U.S. visa processing. The Swedish system and the U.S. system operate under different laws, agencies and eligibility bases.
Still, cross-country comparisons often appear in political debate because both systems influence where global workers choose to go. Sweden’s proposal targets service and attraction, while U.S. statements released this month highlighted enforcement and vetting, reflecting different political narratives rather than interchangeable policies.
In Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio described a tougher approach connected to a new pause on immigrant visas. “The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America’s immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people. Immigrant visa processing from these 75 countries will be paused while the State Department reassesses procedures to prevent the entry of foreign nationals who would take welfare and public benefits,” Rubio said in a statement dated January 14-15, 2026, attributed to state.gov.
Rubio’s statement concerned U.S. immigrant visa processing and did not address Sweden. Its relevance for readers tracking Sweden’s labor-migration debate lies mainly in how political framing can influence the tone of labor-migration policy, even when the legal systems differ.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem also defended the administration’s approach in a statement dated Jan 14, while facing impeachment inquiries from House Democrats over ICE enforcement tactics. “Our focus remains on the integrity of our borders and the removal of those who exploit our laws. We are not interested in creating ‘marketing’ agencies for immigration; we are interested in enforcement that protects the American worker,” Noem said, in remarks attributed to dhs.gov / Newsroom.
U.S. operational guidance can also shape expectations about timelines and scrutiny, though it does not govern Swedish permits. A USCIS policy memo dated December 2, 2025 underscored a vetting-first approach that can slow decisions even when demand for visas remains high.
“USCIS has determined the operational necessity to ensure that all. aliens from high-risk countries of concern. do not pose a threat to national security. regardless of potential delays to the adjudication of pending applications,” the memo said, attributed to https://www.uscis.gov.
Impacts, uncertainties and timeline
In Sweden, the Liberal Party framed its proposal as a competitive response to what it called deterrent effects on highly skilled workers, tied to rhetoric and administrative posture.
Britz argued Sweden should actively recruit and make it easier for people to come to Sweden for work, rather than folding labor migration into an agency that also manages asylum and enforcement.
The party also linked the debate to pressures on individuals already in the system. Current permit holders, the Liberals said, include people facing deportation after the retroactive abolition of the “track change” (spårbyte) law in April 2025, a development they argued increased uncertainty around renewals.
The Liberals said a dedicated agency could improve predictability for renewals and make labor migration more service-oriented, though the proposal remains political and would require follow-through in legislation and implementation.
They also argued the approach could help protect reforms that increase flexibility for workers and employers, such as allowing job changes without a new permit.
Potential impacts described by the Liberals include a 90-day processing guarantee for highly skilled workers and an emphasis on “service” rather than “suspicion,” if adopted.
The proposal did not set out transitional rules, compliance mechanisms, or how it would coordinate with existing enforcement responsibilities.
The debate also plays out within coalition dynamics, with the Liberals presenting talent attraction as distinct from a tighter asylum and enforcement posture pursued elsewhere in government.
Britz’s comments explicitly pointed to tension inside the coalition, placing responsibility for deterrence on the coalition’s rhetoric rather than on applicants or employers.
Official sources and references
Readers tracking the proposal can follow Swedish policy updates through the Swedish Government Offices migration policy page and existing Migrationsverket guidance for current rules and application steps, while EU context comes from the 2024 EU Single Permit Directive referenced in the political debate.
For U.S. context cited in today’s statements, official updates are available on the U.S. Department of State press releases page, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security news page and the USCIS newsroom page.
The sections on Legislative context and reforms and Official sources and references have interactive tools planned to provide visual timelines and source navigation. Below is explanatory prose to lead into those tools.
The legislative context tool will map the stages of Bill Prop 2025/26:87, the timing for the SEK 34,200 minimum salary change effective June 1, 2026, and proposed May 2026 employer-change reforms.
The sources tool will provide direct access to primary documents and official pages, including the Swedish Government Offices migration policy page and the U.S. agency pages cited above.
“Our focus remains on the integrity of our borders and the removal of those who exploit our laws. We are not interested in creating ‘marketing’ agencies for immigration; we are interested in enforcement that protects the American worker,” Noem said.
