Study allowance
– grants for studies in upper secondary school in Sweden

The student grant is money that you receive, but in order to be entitled to it, you must be studying full-time. In the event of invalid absence, your student grant may be withdrawn. You may also need to pay back money if you have received a grant you were not entitled to because you were skipping school.

Once you turn 18, you will receive your student grant yourself. Until then, we will usually pay it out to the guardian who last received the child allowance for you. At most, you can receive student grants until the spring semester of the year you turn 20.

More grants you can apply for

There are also three other grants that you can apply for at CSN during your time at upper secondary school.

Supplementary allowance

If your family has an income of less than SEK 125,000 per year before tax, you can apply for a grant known as supplementary allowance. The amount of money you can receive depends on your family’s level of income and wealth during the current academic year (1 July–30 June).

Boarding supplement

If you are studying at an independent upper secondary school or folk high school and need to live in a different location during your study period, you can apply for a grant from CSN known as a boarding supplement. In this case, the programme and the national specialisation you are going to study must not be available in your home town. The amount you can receive depends on the distance between your home and the school you are attending.

If you are studying at a municipal upper secondary school, you can apply for travel and lodging assistance from your home municipality.

Apprenticeship allowance

If you are attending an upper secondary apprenticeship programme or apprenticeship-related course within an introductory programme where part of the training is based in a workplace, you can apply for a grant for meals and travel. The grant is known as an apprenticeship allowance and totals SEK 1,000 per month during the time you are studying.

Requirements and conditions

Various requirements and conditions must be satisfied in order for you to be entitled to study allowance.

• The training you will be attending must be at upper secondary level and grant the entitlement to study allowance.
• You must be studying full-time.
• At most, you can receive study allowance until the spring semester of the year you turn 20. You can receive a student grant at the earliest from the quarter after you turn 16. For the other grants, there is no lower age limit.
• You cannot receive study allowance at the same time as receiving activity support, development benefit or introduction benefit.
• You cannot receive study allowance if you have unpaid repayment claims for more than one calendar half-year.

Additional terms and conditions for foreign citizens

If you are a foreign citizen, you also need to satisfy special conditions in order to be entitled to Swedish student finance. Different rules apply depending on whether you are a citizen of a country within or outside the EU/EEA or Switzerland.

If you have a permanent residence permit and live in Sweden, you will usually be entitled to Swedish student finance.

If you have received a temporary residence permit from the Swedish Migration Agency because you have refugee status or similar, you are also usually entitled to Swedish student finance. This also applies if you have received a residence permit according to the Upper Secondary School Act.

Study in Sweden as a foreign citizen

How does Brexit affect my student finance?

Application

You do not need to apply for a student grant if you are going to study in Sweden. In this case, we will receive the information we need from your school.

If you are a foreign national, we must also assess if you are entitled to Swedish student finance. We usually get the information we need from the Swedish Migration Agency, but in some cases, you need to submit a form. If this applies to you, we will send you the form. This is a change that applies from the academic year 2022/23, previously all foreign nationals had to send in a form.

If you would like to receive a student grant but don't have a Swedish personal identity number you need to contact us.

Everyone needs to apply for the other grants each academic year. The application must have been received by CSN no later than 30 June of the academic year to which your application applies.

Application forms can be found under Blanketter (available in Swedish only). They are often available at the school as well.

Payouts

The student grant is paid out on the last weekday of the month. You will not receive any payouts during July and August.

The date you turn 16 determines when the first payout will be made. If your birthday falls during the period January to June, you will receive the first payout in September, once you have started at upper secondary school. If your birthday falls in July, August or September, you will receive the first payout in October, and if you turn 16 later in the year, you will receive the first payout in January of the following year.

Until you turn 18, your guardian will normally receive the payouts from CSN. Once you have turned 18, you will receive the payouts yourself. In order for us to know which account we should pay the money into, you must register your account with Swedbank’s account register. Swedbank is responsible for managing CSN’s payouts, but you do not need to have an account with them.

Swedbank’s account register

View your payouts in Mina sidor (My Pages)

You who are studying and you who are the recipient of payouts for an underage student can see your payouts on My pages.

The payouts shown are the ones we have decided on. If you can’t see a payout, it is probably because we haven’t made a decision yet.

In the event of unauthorized absence

If you are absent from upper secondary school without a valid reason, your student grant may be stopped. This also applies to other allowances, such as supplementary allowance from CSN or housing allowance from Försäkringskassan. Here you can read about how allowances from CSN will be affected if you have unauthorized absence.

If you get sick

When you study at a Swedish upper secondary school, you must report sick to your school. The school may require a medical certificate showing that you have been sick. If the school approves your sick leave, you can keep the grants from CSN.

If you don’t report sick or if you can’t prove your absence due to illness when the school asks for it, your absence can be considered unauthorized and your grants may be affected.

Important to notify CSN if something changes

It is important to notify CSN if something changes. If you don’t notify us you may have to pay back money you were not entitled to. Sometimes it is enough for you to report the change to your school and they will notify CSN.

Changes that may affect your grants from CSN:

• You change your study tempo from full-time to part-time.
• You change type of education or school.
• You are absent from your studies.
• You drop out of school.
• You have boarding supplement but choose to move back home.
• You have supplementary allowance and your or your custodians’ income changes.