Migration flows are frequent topics of research in different disciplines. Focusing on the Swedish municipality level, we complement such earlier studies’ macro perspective with an intensive examination of how a few Swedish municipalities design their local refugee policy and thereby either accept or do not accept refugees. Combining this local perspective with micro theory, we derive from rationalistic premises of how political leaders and bureaucrats act to maximize their interests. By selecting municipalities that share several important characteristics except their attitude towards the reception of refugees, we can, through analyzing interviews and documents, show how a pragmatic view and internal constraints often shape local decision making in terms of outlining refugee policy.Doing this makes it possible to connect the actors’ behavior with structures forming the society and the municipality’s organization in which they are embedded.