A new report from Swedish state agency Statistics Sweden shows that two out of three newly arrived refugees are still living in the same municipality to which they first arrived, three years after reaching Sweden. 

Other key findings of the report include:

• Almost every third refugee and relative of a refugee who settled in one municipality in 2016 had moved to another municipality by 2019;
• People who initially arrived to a larger city or municipality were much more likely (82%) to still be there three years on;
• When newly-arrived migrants move, the most common destination is a larger city or a municipality near to a large city.
• Only 50% of people newly arrived to small towns close to larger cities remained there after three years. 

In Sweden, refugees who have received a residence permit can either arrange their own housing and choose where to settle, accept to settle in a municipality designated by the Swedish Migration Board. The report does not find any major differences in migration patterns between those who had arranged their own housing and those who had been assigned housing.

Read more about the report.

Access the full report (in Swedish).