Asylum seekers with income must pay for urgent dental care
Parliament decided on Thursday that adults in the asylum system who have money of their own will have to pay towards urgent dental treatment. The rule covers people applying for international protection and certain other foreign nationals, from the age of 18, who have an income or assets. They will owe the Migration Agency a reasonable charge for dental care that cannot be postponed. If you have no income and no assets of your own, your position does not change.
Alongside that, the same decision removes the subsidy for urgent dental care for adults who are staying in Sweden without the permits they need. For that group the care itself does not disappear, but the public subsidy behind it does.
The timing matters more than the headline. Most of these changes do not start until 2 January 2027, so nothing about your next dental appointment changes this autumn. One narrower part starts sooner: from 23 August 2026 certain private dental providers get a longer transition period to apply for the licence they need in order to keep operating. If your dentist is a small private practice, it is worth asking whether they are affected.
There are a few things worth doing before January 2027 if you are in the asylum system and working. Keep your payslips and any record of savings, because whether you pay at all turns on whether you are assessed as having an income or assets. Keep any invoice the Migration Agency sends you, and check what it is charging for, since the rule applies specifically to care judged as unable to wait rather than to routine check-ups. If you are unsure which category your treatment falls into, ask the clinic to tell you before the work is done.