Moving to Sweden from Canada

Our residency index: 60/100, possible, with conditions. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in Sweden is for Canadian citizens, based on the routes Sweden publishes. Long-term residency realistically runs through skilled employment (a work permit or EU Blue Card, both requiring a job offer) or a residence permit to actively run your own business, as Sweden offers no golden visa or passive-income route.

The cheapest self-funded routes we track:

• Investment: about $22k (Sweden self-employed/own-business residence permit, SEK 200,000 self-support funds required in your bank account (converted at SEK 9.28/USD, June 2026); active business capital is additional and unspecified; as of June 2026)

Check the official requirements before you apply: amounts, conditions and exchange rates change, and what a couple needs can differ from a single applicant's threshold.

For short visits, Canadian passport holders can visit visa-free for up to 90 days, according to the passport-index dataset. Short-stay entry covers visits; living there takes a residence permit.

Ranked by our match model for a typical couple who both hold Canadian passports, using the preset answers of our best places to live list. Your own answers would change the order. We pick the cities, up to five, by how often English Wikipedia readers looked them up over the past year.

1. 1

   1. Malmö

   77% match

   Est. cost

   €3,590/mo

   Avg temp

   10°C

   Safety index

   60/100

2. 2

   2. Gothenburg

   74% match

   Est. cost

   €3,669/mo

   Avg temp

   9°C

   Safety index

   60/100

3. 3

   3. Stockholm

   71% match

   Est. cost

   €3,809/mo

   Avg temp

   8°C

   Safety index

   60/100

Our estimate for a couple living centrally runs from €3,590 a month in Malmö to €3,809 in Stockholm. For comparison, we estimate €3,991 a month in Toronto. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.

Sweden is in our high tax tier (high personal income tax); Canada is in our high tax tier (high personal income tax). Tiers describe each country's own income tax. They do not cover tax you may still owe in Canada after you leave, or the treaty between the two countries, so check both with a tax adviser before you move.

• Best places to live in Scandinavia and the Nordics
• Best cities in Europe where English is widely spoken
• Best coastal cities to live in Europe

• Moving to Sweden from the US
• Moving to Sweden from the UK
• Moving to Sweden from Australia
• Moving to Sweden from Ireland
• Moving to Sweden from New Zealand

Every country and origin we cover

Every figure here comes from the datasets behind our city and country pages:

• Short-stay entry: the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT license), which records the entry rule for short visits on each passport.
• Residency index, routes and thresholds: the OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. It is a summary, not legal advice.
• City ranking: our match model, the one behind the quiz, run with a typical couple's preset answers and both partners holding Canadian passports. It ranks up to five of the country's best-known cities: of the cities in our quiz (100,000 people or more, capitals and a few towns movers seek out, such as Faro), the five most read about on English Wikipedia over the past year. It folds suburbs into their main city and leaves out countries with a residency index under 40 and areas under a US State Department Level 4 advisory, as our best-cities lists do.
• Costs: our cost model, a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026).
• Tax tiers: three coarse bands we assign by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation.