Hi,
I am 2nd year Master’s student who will graduate in July 2021. My husband accompanies me since 2 years ago, and he has been working in Sweden with a dependant residence permit since November 2019.
His company is not registered under the immigration agency so last year he applied for a work permit, and at the same time, we informed the immigration office that my study has not yet finished so if he is not granted a work permit, just extend his dependant residence permit.
Anyway, he granted a dependant visa for these reasons:
1- immigration office did not find any reason to grant you an independent work permit.
2- you applied soon.
First of all, I can not understand their reasons, can you elaborate more?
Secondly, Can he apply in July 2021 before the expiring date of our residence permit for a work permit? In other words, can a dependant of a master student can apply for a work permit after graduation of the student?
Finally, does these 2years of his working experience accounts when it comes to permanent resident permit? or it is only considered for the work permit resident holders?
Regards
Emilia
Hi Emilia,
To answer your question, the reason why the Migration Agency could not approve a work permit at the time of applying is because a dependent permit cannot be withdrawn once the applicant is in Sweden. This means that, even if all the requirements had been met, the Migration Agency has no legal means to approve a work permit for someone who is in Sweden with a valid dependent permit.
It is, however, possible to apply for a work permit in connection with the expiry of the permit. What this means is that if your dependent permit is expiring shortly it is possible to apply for a work permit instead of an extension of the dependent permit. In order to switch to a work permit all of the work permit requirements will need to be fulfilled (offer of employment needs to be completed, salary must be in line with the standard within the industry, advertisement of the position may be required, the mandatory insurances must be in place).
It is important to note that if you wish to switch from dependent permit to a work permit that the application should not been submitted too early. It can therefore be good to have a look at the current processing times on the Migration Agency’s website and time the submission accordingly. You can find the processing times here:
https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Contact-us/Time-to-a-decision.html
As for your question about permanent residence, time spent on a dependent permit is currently not counted towards permanent residence once you have switched to a work permit. As such, your partner would need to stay in Sweden for 4 more years on a work permit in order to be granted permanent residence.
Kind regards,
SwedishImmigration.se