Today both researchers and policymakers agree that refugees admitted to the European Union constitute a net cost and fiscal burden for the receiving countries. As is often claimed, there is a trade-off between refugee migration and the fis-cal sustainability of the welfare state. This contribution argues that the consen-sual cost-perspective on migration is built on a flawed economic conception of the orthodox “sound finance” doctrine. By shifting perspective to examine migra-tion through the macroeconomic lens offered by Modern Monetary Theory, the article demonstrates sound finance’s detrimental impact on migration policy and research. Most importantly, this undertaking offers the tools with which both migration research and migration policy could be modernized and put on a real-istic footing. Such a realistic approach perceives of refugees not as fiscal burdens but as the real resources they are. Empirically, the article attends to the case of Sweden, the country that, proportionally speaking, has received the most refugees in the EU over the years while also having one of the most comprehensive welfare states in the EU.