A 78-year-old British widow has told the BBC she is struggling to eat or sleep as the Swedish government threatens to deport her over a late post-Brexit residence application.

Joyce Thomas, a retired nurse, moved to Sweden 22 years ago with her husband, who passed away from cancer three years ago.

The threat of deportation came after Swedish authorities said they should have made a formal application to stay in the country after Brexit.

Thomas has since had numerous applications and appeals rejected, and Tuesday marks the latest deadline for her to leave voluntarily.

“This is absolute hell,” she said from her home in Sweden.

“I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. You get up in the morning, you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

The Swedish migration minister told the BBC that the government would “examine whether there are measures we can take to make the process easier for those affected” by some consequences of the EU-UK withdrawal agreement.

When the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020, British citizens stopped being EU citizens, which meant they could no longer stay in Sweden with right of residence status.

During a transitional period, British citizens could apply for residence status under the withdrawal agreement between the UK and the EU – which ended on 31 December 2021.

Thomas said she and her husband were unaware that they needed to submit an application and she was only informed of the rule once she attempted to re-enter the country in 2023.

After years of appeals, the Migrationsverket, the Swedish government agency responsible for migration, told her last month that her voluntary departure deadline was 8 September.

Her lawyers are arguing against the deportation, but she is still waiting to hear from the government.

Thomas said the possibility of having to leave her son, grandchildren, friends and husband’s grave has become too much to bear.

“I’m tired, I really am tired and I’m not young anymore,” she said.

“Where is the empathy? I’ve lived here for more than 20 years – I’ve got friends, I’ve got family.”

According to Eurostat data, between 2021 and 2025, 2,490 UK nationals were ordered to leave Sweden. This is almost a third of more than 7,500 UK nationals ordered to leave the 27 EU Member States over this time period.

The Migrationsverket said it could not comment on Thomas’s case without her consent and did not respond to a question about how many British nationals are at risk of deportation.

However, it told the Guardian last week that 458 British citizens had been deported or forcibly removed since Brexit.

Last month, a family told the BBC how their father, who has dementia and vascular parkinsonism and is living in full-time care in Sweden, was also threatened with removal after more than two decades in the country.

Swedish Minister for Migration, Johan Forssell, told the BBC that the current framework was implemented by a previous government and that it “will therefore look closely at the situation and examine whether there are measures we can take to make the process easier for those affected”.

He did not address Thomas’s case directly but said “the government believes the rules should be applied generously”.

“The UK is a very important partner for Sweden, and we want British citizens who live and work in Sweden to be able to remain here,” he said.

“We are currently in dialogue with the relevant Swedish authorities to get a clearer picture of what measures may be possible,” he added.

Håkan Svenneling, Thomas’s MP from the opposition Vänsterpartiet (The Left Party), has criticised the government’s “inhumane migration policy”.

“That is why I hope that Sunday’s election in Sweden will be a turning point where the opposition can form a government and change migration policy so that Joyce and other Britons with strong ties to Sweden can stay here,” he told the BBC.

A spokesperson from the the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said: “We welcome the statement from the Swedish authorities that they will look at this issue. We are ready to support them in doing so.”