After a long history dominated by out-migration, Denmark, Norway and Sweden have, in the past 50 years, become immigration societies. This article compares how these Scandinavian welfare societies have sought to incorporate immigrants and refugees into their national communities. It suggests that, while the countries have adopted disparate policies and ideologies, differences in the actual treatment and attitudes towards immigrants and refugees in everyday life are less clear, due to parallel integration programmes based on strong similarities in the welfare systems and in cultural notions of equality in the three societies. Finally, it shows that family relations play a central role in immigrants’ and refugees’ establishment of a new life in the receiving societies, even though the welfare society takes on many of the social and economic functions of the family.