Sweden has an extremely high rate of refugee acceptance by its citizens. 81% of Swedish people support refugee admissions. Sweden also has the highest number of refugees per capita of any western country, and in 2018, had the seventh highest number of refugees per capita in the world. That year Sweden resettled 493 refugees for every million of its own residents, compared to the U.S. which resettled 70 refugees for every million residents.

Sweden has an strong history of accepting refugees, but that tradition is declining. In response to Europe's 2015 refugee crisis, a year in which Sweden accepted roughly 160,000 refugees, there was a major far-right backlash. Since then, Sweden, like many other countries, has been experiencing a rise of a far-right, anti-immigration party. The constituency of this party, the Democrats, has risen from 5.7% in 2010 to 17.5% of the population in 2018.   

In November of 2015 Sweden’s policies changed from open-border to tightly restricted borders. Refugees’ rights were reduced and from then forward would only be granted temporary residence, rather than permanent residence, which refugees had been granted for decades. However, asylum-seekers are still granted free housing, health care, and free education.