Moving to Sweden from UK

Hey! Brit here.. I just moved here to be with my Swedish boyfriend, similar situation, he has a larger family and mine is not as close but like you not in a bad way!

I too am concerned about the brexit situation, despite them constantly saying they will try to help protect those abroad. I am trying to see if I can grab a visa to be here through migration rather than simply the right of free movement in hope that will ensure a more stable situation.

Other than that, we are engaged (been together for 6 years) so our families often joke we will get married fast if need be!

It is going to be 2 years before anything happens, so if you get your foot in the door, a job, residence etc I am sure they will do something such as state that we must apply for a visa, surely they cannot just say okay you must come back today!

Thanks very much Rhian, very reassuring and useful information. I think as you say, getting a foot in the door before the whole Brexit thing goes down will be a big help.

May I ask how you easy/difficult you found the process of moving abroad to be? We're currently looking around at moving companies to get our stuff over there, though just wondering if there's anything else that we need to consider outside of the usual house-move routine?

I didn't take much stuff really, used it as a good time for a clear out. But saying that, my partner had already got the new apartment for us ready in regards to furniture etc. And I have my family who are going to post some things over for me, as with DPD Local it cost around 40 GBP to send 20kg worth of stuff picked up from door to door.

I moved here only two weeks ago, and I don't have a job myself yet which is making things very difficult since without a personal number it is very difficult to do next to anything.

I had contacted HMRC 2 months prior to coming to ask for the E106 or E109 form and completed it, this is what is known as the S1 in sweden. As I am considering to go through migration to get a visa, which for this you need to show that you had health insurance from your own country. If you need it too you can easily find it on the HMRC site searching for E106 or E109. I'd say it is worth looking at, as the health insurance card only covers for a holiday period being the 90 days. As that is how long we can stay abroad without having the right of residence i.e. having a job, or a residence permit of some sort. Here is the link to take a look at the migration for what is needed depending on your circumstances:

https://www.migrationsverket.se/English … izens.html

Luckily as your girlfriend is swedish hopefully this will make things much easier I hope i am not wrong to assume she has citizenship in sweden? I take my partner with me to help work things out and for better translations of what is going on. I have applied for SFI, which is swedish for immigrants. The waiting list is very long though, you could be waiting one week or 9 months even. So if you plan on learning, I'd say make sure you sign up ASAP. I signed up for evening classes so I can have a day time job also. If you sign up for one type of class, but later realise you need it different it is very difficult to change and you can find yourself back at the beginning of the waiting list

Lots of useful info there, so thanks again. Sounds like lots of paperwork to keep track of, but I guess that's the same with any move. We've already begun the process of clearing out - still a lot more to go, and hopefully we can sell quite a bit. Currently looking at companies like AnyVan to move some of the larger stuff there like Sofa/Bed etc, but we're still looking around at flats at the moment, so what we can get will probably dictate how much stuff we bring across. The plan is to rent for a while, and then when we're settled, buy a place.

Good call on applying early for SFI - I'm currently learning myself online using Babbel, which seems decent, and my girlfriend is helping me to sound more casual and correct my pronounciation, but always good to supplement that with SFI. Luckily I seem to be good with learning other languages, despite almost failing English at school!

I'm expecting stressfull times ahead, but then again, it was stressful just moving 6 miles to my current place!

I hope you find somewhere! It can be pretty difficult, so buying will be a better option and then you'll be settled in better too!

Moving is always stressful, regardless if its just down the road or abroad, so moving abroad is just going to pile on top all the other stresses, even some that are tiny and otherwise meaningless but it just piles on top of one another. But it is all worth it in the end. You can find cheap things on blocket.se or on facebook groups too if you don't want to ship everything. We were very lucky, we got a dining table for free, 6 dining chairs for around 30 GBP, a very nice tv stand for free, a very large sofa for free, mirror... and many other things.

Swedish isn't too difficult thankfully! But SFI is free, so it's worth applying even if you decide to not attend in the end. And it is good to get the pronunciation in too so having that Swedish partner makes us very lucky!

Also, I thought it would be a lot of paperwork, but they're actually very small and easy forms so don't worry too much about it! The only paperwork I've had to fill out so far is the SFI .. which is simply things such as name, address, level of education (as in how long have you been in school for, including high school, primary etc..) and the HMRC health form. So, it's pretty smooth so far.

I wish you the best of luck with everything and if you ever want to ask anything just drop me a message! Lycka till!

Yeah I think we may go down the route of taking as little with us as possible and just buying everything over there. Still weighing up renting vs buying in terms of cost and what deal we can get, but we'll be buying in the long term anyway.

Really appreciate the advice, and hope things go well for you also.