The Swedish Migration Agency has rejected almost all applications for berry pickers for 2025. As recently as 2023, 5,000 permits were granted.
Citing years of indications that employment conditions in the berry industry are not being upheld, the Migration Agency has granted only 89 permits for berry picking this year. A total of 2,397 applications for berry pickers have been received for 2025.
Last year, the Migration Agency rejected all applications for berry pickers, but 1,272 applications were subsequently approved after court review.
– The Migration Agency has also this year assessed that workers in the berry industry risk not having their employment conditions met. Therefore, the agency has decided to reject most of the applications for Thai berry pickers, says Hanna Geurtsen, Deputy Project Manager for Work Permits at the Migration Agency, in a press release.
This year, the Migration Agency explains, all employers active in berry picking have chosen to apply for permits via the EU’s Seasonal Workers Directive. The difference when applying for a work permit as a seasonal worker, compared with the national main track for work permits, is among other things that the berry pickers this year are directly employed by a company in Sweden and not via a foreign staffing agency.
– It’s partly about having an employment contract signed by both parties and that the employment conditions must be in line with Swedish collective agreements. For the majority of the applications received this year, these requirements have not been met, says Hanna Geurtsen.
The berry companies that have been rejected have the possibility to appeal these decisions in court, the agency adds in its press release.
Number of berry picking permits granted by the Migration Agency in recent years:
2025: 89
2024: 0 (1,272 were approved after court review)
2023: 5,372
2022: 6,594
2021: 5,175