Can you retake the Swedish citizenship test? Yes for August, unclear after

It is the question from everyone who sat the test on 15 August and is waiting for a result in October: what happens if I did not pass? The answer so far has been UHR’s carefully hedged “you may be given the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge again”. There is now a clearer answer, and it comes in two halves that differ more than they first appear.

Bli Svensk is independent study material. For official information about the test, always go to uhr.se/medborgarskapsprovet. For your own case, see migrationsverket.se.

The August sitting: a retake is confirmed

Andreas Sandberg, head of the unit at UHR responsible for the test, told Universitetsläraren on 21 September 2026:

“Är du godkänd går processen med ansökan vidare. Är du inte godkänd kommer det den här gången bli möjligt att göra ett omprov.”

(If you have passed, the application process continues. If you have not passed, it will be possible this time to take a retake.)

That is more than UHR’s own pages say. There, it still reads only that you may be given the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge again, with a referral onward to Migrationsverket.

Read that quote once more and note “den här gången” — this time. It is not a throwaway phrase.

Future sittings: nothing has been decided

Migrationsverket is explicit in the same article:

“För framtida medborgarskapsprov finns till skillnad från vid premiärprovet i augusti inga beslut om att det ska gå att göra ett omprov för den som inte får godkänt resultat.”

(For future citizenship tests, unlike the premiere test in August, there are no decisions that it will be possible to take a retake for anyone who does not receive a pass.)

So not “retakes will exist but the rules are unclear”. Rather that no decision exists that retakes will be available at all.

Migrationsverket describes the August test as a special test occasion, and that is precisely what justifies the retake. It was a trial sitting, the first time the questions were used in earnest and the first time anyone sat the test for real. Giving those candidates a second chance under those conditions is reasonable. But it is a one-off justification, and it does not automatically carry over to the next test.

What this means for you

If you sat the test on 15 August and did not pass: you get another attempt. What you do not yet have is a date or a format. The retake is tied to when the next sitting is held, and that date is still unpublished.

If you are planning for a future sitting: assume you have one attempt, until an agency says otherwise. That is the safe planning assumption right now, and it differs from how many people are reading the August news. UHR granting a retake once is not a promise that it becomes standard practice.

Either way: the knowledge requirement can be met by routes other than the test. Grades from SFI or komvux may be enough, and Migrationsverket decides what applies in your case. We have written about it in Can grades replace the Swedish citizenship test?.

Where this comes from

This is worth being explicit about, because otherwise we become exactly the kind of third-party source we routinely warn about.

None of the above appears on UHR’s or Migrationsverket’s websites. It comes from Universitetsläraren, the trade publication of SULF, the Swedish Association of University Teachers and Researchers, which published an article about the test on 21 September 2026 quoting named officials at both agencies. That is a credible source with people speaking on the record in their own names, but it is not the same thing as published agency guidance.

In practice: plan around this, but if your caseworker at Migrationsverket tells you something different, the caseworker governs. We will update this page when the agencies publish their own rules.

Further reading

• When do the Swedish citizenship test results arrive?
• The next Swedish citizenship test: what’s confirmed and what isn’t
• Swedish citizenship test 2026: everything you need to know
• Can grades replace the Swedish citizenship test?
• (Official) uhr.se/medborgarskapsprovet · medborgarskapsprovet.uhr.se · migrationsverket.se