About Sweden

The country and its people

Sweden is a long, narrow country in northern Europe, with Norway to the west, Finland to the north-east and the Baltic Sea to the east. The distance from Skåne in the south to Lapland in the north is great enough to hold several different climates: beech woods and farmland in the south, spruce forest and bog in the middle, mountains and midnight sun in the far north. About a tenth of the surface is lakes. Forest covers more than half the country.

The population, by contrast, is unevenly spread. Most people live in southern and central Sweden and in the cities — Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö are the three largest. Much of the north is sparsely populated. That explains a good deal of Swedish politics: questions about healthcare, schools, public transport and services look entirely different in a big-city municipality and in one with a few thousand inhabitants.

Sweden today is a multicultural country. Around a fifth of residents were born abroad. Alongside Swedish, five languages have status as national minority languages: Finnish, Meänkieli, Sami, Romani Chib and Yiddish. The Sami are additionally recognised as an indigenous people.

How Sweden became the country it is

Sweden has not fought a war since 1814. That long peace is unusual in Europe and has shaped the country: instead of spending its resources on fighting, Sweden was able to build up a society step by step. During the 1800s the country was poor, and more than a million Swedes emigrated, most of them to North America, to escape hardship and failed harvests.

Industrialisation in the late 1800s turned this around. Around it grew the popular movements: trade unions, the temperance movement and free churches that taught ordinary people to organise and press demands. Democracy grew from that soil. Universal and equal suffrage for both men and women was introduced in the early 1920s, later than in some countries but thoroughly.

From the 1930s onwards the folkhem was built — the idea of society as a shared home where no one is left outside. Sweden stayed out of both world wars and, after 1945, could use an undamaged industry to build one of the world's most developed welfare states. Labour was needed, and people came first from other European countries and later as refugees from wars in different parts of the world. That history is what made today's Sweden a country of immigration.

Democracy and how Sweden is governed

Sweden is a monarchy with a parliamentary democracy. The King is head of state but holds no political power — he does not sign laws and does not appoint the government. All public power proceeds from the people, and the people exercise it through elections.

The riksdag is the country's legislature and has 349 members. It passes laws, decides the state budget and scrutinises the government. The government runs the country, implements the riksdag's decisions and directs the state agencies — but it cannot interfere in how an agency decides an individual case. This prohibition on ministerial interference is one of the more distinctive features of the Swedish system, and it is why a minister cannot influence the decision in your citizenship case.

General elections are held every four years at three levels at once: to the riksdag, to the regional council and to the municipal council. The municipality is responsible for what is closest to daily life — schools, preschool, elderly care, social services, water and refuse. The region is responsible above all for healthcare and public transport. Both municipalities and regions levy their own tax, which is why local tax rates differ from place to place.

• The riksdag — passes the laws, 349 members
• The government — runs the country and directs the agencies
• The region — healthcare and public transport
• The municipality — schools, care and local services

Law, justice and rights

Sweden has four fundamental laws. The Instrument of Government sets out how the country is to be governed and which rights and freedoms apply. The Freedom of the Press Act and the Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression protect the right to write, publish and speak your mind. The Act of Succession governs the line of succession to the throne. Fundamental laws are harder to change than ordinary ones: the riksdag must take the same decision twice, with a general election in between.

The courts are independent. The general courts — district court, court of appeal and the Supreme Court — decide criminal and civil cases. The administrative courts hear disputes between individuals and public bodies, such as appeals against agency decisions. The police investigate, the prosecutor brings charges, the court decides. Anyone suspected of a crime is presumed innocent until guilt is proven, and has the right to a defence lawyer.

Two principles often surprise newcomers. The principle of public access gives everyone the right to read official documents held by public authorities — a level of transparency that is unusually strong by international standards. And equal treatment: the Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination on grounds including sex, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation and age. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has been Swedish law since 2020.

Media, free expression and source-criticism

Sweden passed the world's first freedom of the press act in 1766. The right to write and publish freely is not new here — it is older than in most other countries. Today it is protected by two fundamental laws, and whoever publishes bears responsibility for what is said. There is no prior review: the state does not read texts before they are printed.

Alongside commercial newspapers and channels there is public service — radio and television in the public's service. SVT, Sveriges Radio and UR are owned neither by the state nor by any company; they are run independently and funded collectively. Their remit is to scrutinise those in power and reflect the whole country, not to make money or favour an owner. Those who govern a country rarely want to be scrutinised, which is exactly why an independent public service is a deliberate safeguard.

With that freedom comes a responsibility for the reader. Anyone can publish anything online, and not all of it is true. Source-criticism is the habit of asking who wrote something, why, and whether the claim can be confirmed elsewhere. Rumours spread especially easily around migration. Our own position is simple: always check an important detail against the authority that is actually responsible for it.

The labour market and the Swedish model

Sweden has no statutory minimum wage. Pay is set instead through collective agreements between trade unions and employers' organisations. The state does not write the pay scales — the labour market parties do, and they also take responsibility for making the agreements stick. This arrangement is usually called the Swedish model.

A trade union is an association you join voluntarily and pay a fee to. It negotiates pay and conditions, supports members in workplace disputes and can, as a last resort, take industrial action. The Work Environment Act and the Working Hours Act apply whether or not a workplace has a collective agreement, and the Work Environment Authority checks that they are followed. An employment contract should always be in writing.

Unemployment insurance, a-kassa, is a voluntary income-loss insurance, separate from the union even though many people join both. The Public Employment Service helps with matching, work placements and labour market programmes. Another defining feature of Swedish working life is the high labour force participation of women — made possible by widely available preschool, individual taxation, and a parental leave system that assumes both parents will take part of the time at home.

Welfare and tax

Swedish welfare is tax-funded and collective. School is free of charge and compulsory schooling applies to every child living in the country. Healthcare is largely publicly funded, with patient fees that are low and additionally capped — a high-cost ceiling — so that a long illness does not ruin anyone. Dental care works somewhat differently and is free for children and young people up to a certain age.

The Social Insurance Agency pays the major social insurance benefits: parental allowance, sickness benefit, child allowance, housing allowance and personal assistance. The pension system is based on what you have worked and paid tax on over your life, with a guarantee pension as a floor for those with little or no income-based pension. The municipality's social services are the final safety net, notably through income support.

All of this is paid for through tax, and the tax level is high by international standards. Municipal tax is deducted directly from your pay, the state takes additional tax on higher incomes, and VAT is included in the price of almost everything you buy. The idea behind the system is that risks — illness, unemployment, old age — are carried collectively rather than by the individual family. The Tax Agency collects the tax and also keeps the population register, which is why you go there when you move.

Sweden and the wider world

Sweden is part of several larger communities. Since 1995 it has been a member of the European Union. EU membership affects daily life more than many people realise: free movement to live and work in other member states, shared rules for trade and the environment, and the right to vote in the European Parliament election. Sweden has, however, kept its own currency, the krona, and has not adopted the euro.

Nordic cooperation is older and close. Between Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland there has long been free movement: you can travel, live and work in the neighbouring countries without the barriers that otherwise apply between states. It shows most clearly in the border regions, where people commute across a national border to work every day.

Sweden has been a member of the United Nations since 1946 and has long been active in international aid and peacekeeping. For a long time the country was militarily non-aligned, a line tied to its long peace. That changed in 2024, when Sweden joined the defence alliance NATO. It was one of the largest shifts in foreign policy in modern Swedish history.

Everyday life, religion and traditions

Sweden is one of the most secular countries in the world. The Church of Sweden separated from the state in 2000 and is today one religious community among others. Freedom of religion is protected by the constitution: you may believe what you wish, change belief, or belong to no community at all. Many Swedes are formally members of the Church of Sweden without being believers, and the church festivals survive more as markers of the seasons than as worship.

The traditions follow the light. Midsummer is celebrated around the solstice with flower crowns, herring and dancing; Lucia in December with candles and singing in the winter dark; Christmas with food, family and time off. Walpurgis Night, crayfish parties and the national day on 6 June also belong to the yearly cycle. Holidays cluster in July, when much of the country runs at half speed.

Socially, Sweden is marked by punctuality, fairly flat hierarchies and a habit of using first names regardless of age or position. You arrive on time, you take your shoes off indoors, you queue, and you are expected to state your view directly but calmly. The right of public access, allemansrätten, lets you walk, camp briefly and pick berries in the countryside even on someone else's land — against a clear duty of care: do not disturb, do not destroy.

What does it cost to live here?

One of the first practical questions for anyone moving here is what life actually costs. Sweden is an expensive country, but much of what is costly elsewhere — healthcare, school and preschool — is subsidised and capped. What weighs most in the budget is instead the rent, and it differs a great deal between cities.

We have gathered current figures in a dedicated section on the cost of living in Sweden, with detailed guides for Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Uppsala, Södertälje and Örebro.