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LIVING IN SWEDEN

Here’s what changes about life in Sweden in December

Here's The Local's regular round-up of some of the things that are changing or happening in Sweden next month.

Published: 30 November 2020 12:58 CET
Updated: 1 December 2020 18:11 CET
Here's what changes about life in Sweden in December
Applications for residence status for Brits will open on December 1st. Photo: Adam Wrafter/SvD/TT

Swedish residence applications open for Brits

The transition period following the UK's departure from the European Union is set to come to an end on December 31st, so there are a few important changes and dates to keep in mind for Brits in Sweden.

On December 1st, both online and downloadable forms will be posted to the Migration Agency's website, which British citizens who need to apply for a new residence status in Sweden should use. If you fall into that category, you should send in a copy of your passport or national ID card, and documents that show that you had a right of residence in Sweden before December 31st, 2020, and that you still have it thereafter. You can read more here.

The Migration Agency will start processing applications in January, but Brits have until September 30th, 2021, to apply for the new residence status. During the time that you are waiting on a decision, you have the same rights as EU citizens and can continue to live and work in Sweden, as long as you moved before December 31st.

Don't forget to change to winter tyres

Swedish law states that all cars must be equipped with winter tyres between December 1st and March 31st if the weather conditions require it, for example if there's snow or ice on the road. If your car doesn't have them or if they are not up to scratch (the tread depth should be at least three millimetres), you risk a fine of 1,200 kronor.

There are two categories of winter tyre: studded and stud-free. You can use either, but in general, studded tyres are better suited for icy roads or on surfaces with hard-packed snow, while stud-free tyres work better on soft snow. Note that studded tyres are illegal on some streets in major Swedish cities for air pollution reasons.


Drivers, don't forget to change to winter tyres. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

New corona Christmas guidelines?

Sweden's regionally-adapted coronavirus guidelines are currently in place until December 13th, but could be extended beyond that. What's more likely, however, is that the Public Health Agency will issue new national guidelines in the coming weeks about how people should behave around Christmas.

It is not yet clear what these recommendations will entail. At the time of writing, people in Sweden are urged not to socialise with people outside their household (people living alone may choose one or two people to meet, at a safe distance), and no public gatherings of more than eight people are allowed.

Some regions are currently urging people not to travel, but there are no nationwide recommendations against travel, although people are urged to travel responsibly and for example avoid crowded public transport.


The traditional Christmas julbord are unlikely to go ahead as normal this year. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT

Is it ok to travel from Sweden?

The Swedish foreign ministry is expected to update its advisory on international travel soon, because the current recommendations against non-essential travel to Estonia, Ireland and Latvia will otherwise expire on December 2nd.

The foreign ministry's advisory is not a legally binding ban (and is based on restrictions in other countries rather than the risk of coronavirus), but has other implications that residents in Sweden may want to take into account before deciding to travel, for example that your travel insurance may not be valid if you disregard the advice.

There are of course other reasons to avoid non-essential travel, but the foreign ministry has previously lifted the advice against travel to other countries in the EU, EEA or Schengen area, as well as the UK. Advice against travel to countries outside this region is in place until at least January 31st, 2021, based on an earlier decision.


Sweden is expected to update its advice on international travel soon. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

And what about travel to Sweden?

Sweden's entry ban from outside the EU is currently in place until December 22nd. There are several categories of travellers who are exempted from the ban, for example certain countries and people travelling to Sweden to live, work or study. You can read more about all the various exceptions on the police authority's website.

The ban is based on the EU's recommendations to member states. Border control remains a national competence and is not decided at EU level, so its decisions are not legally binding for member states, but Sweden generally follows the recommendations.

Travel within the EU is allowed for any reason. It has not yet been decided whether or not the UK will be included on the list of third countries exempted from travel restrictions after the transition period ends on December 31st.

Sweden does not have any quarantine rules in place for foreign visitors and no proof of a negative coronavirus test is required. However, everyone is expected to follow coronavirus health and safety guidelines, such as social distancing and avoiding public transport, especially at busy times.

Member comments

  1. The link on migrationsverket seems to be broken – directed me to the form for “frontier workers”, not for “E-service for resi­dence status”. I’m sure they will get that sorted soon.

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For members

LIVING IN SWEDEN

What you need to know about owning a second home in Sweden

In most countries owning a second home is a luxury reserved for the wealthy, but in Sweden it's very common to have a summer home or 'fritidshus'. Here's what you need to know.

Published: 8 February 2024 15:25 CET
What you need to know about owning a second home in Sweden

What is a fritidshus? 

In Sweden, second homes are generally either classified as a fritidshus, literally a “free time house”, or a permanenthus or permanentboende.

A fritidshus is defined as “a house which is not set up for all-year-around living”. Rather confusingly, this does not mean that you can’t live all-year-round in a fritidshus, or, indeed, that you can’t use a permanenthus as your summer house. 

The difference comes down to how the two types of property are treated in Sweden’s building code, with fritidshus allowed, among other things, to have lower ceilings, smaller bathrooms, more basic kitchens, worse accessibility for disabled people, a lower standard of insulation. 

If you decide to live permanently in a fritidshus, you do not need to get approval to do so, but the building committee at your local council can, if they learn of what you are doing, demand that the building be changed to meet the requirements of a permanenthus (although this rarely happens).

There is also a subgroup of fritidshus, kolonilott, which are houses with a small amount of land which should be used for growing food (although lots of people just use them as attractive gardens). This is different from an odlingslott, which is just an allotment, essentially a kolonilott without the house.

These are usually in designated kolonilott areas close to or in cities, and are not intended for year-round living. In most kolonilott areas, water supply and drainage is cut off outside of the growing season, and you’re not allowed to register them as your permanent address, for example.

Relaxing outside a summer house. Photo: Doris Beling/Imagebank Sweden

How much does a second home cost? 

The average price of a fritidshus fell by about 6 percent in 2023, following a 1 percent fall in 2022, and now lies at about 2.2 million kronor.

But a search on the Hemnet website for fritidshus under 1 million kronor shows that many sell for a lot less, particularly outside the most popular areas. 

As a rule of thumb, anything within an hour’s drive of Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö is likely to be more expensive, as is anywhere on the coast (particularly on Gotland), next to a lake, or near one of Sweden’s more popular skiing areas. 

A report from Länsförsäkringar Fastighetsförmedling, out in mid-2023, found that summer houses were cheapest in Kronoberg country (the southern bit of Småland), followed by Örebro, Värmland, Norrbotten and Västernorrland, and most expensive in Gotland, Stockholm County and Halland. 

What’s the point of having one? 

Despite its vast expanses of unspoiled nature, Sweden is very urbanised, with nearly 90 percent of people living in built-up areas and 63 percent in the biggest few cities. It’s much more common to live in an apartment in a city than in the sort of suburban sprawl of houses with their own gardens so common in countries like the UK and US.

This means that most urban Swedes leave any gardening to their summer houses or allotments.

Given the cold, dark winters, that probably makes sense. 

Fritidshus and other second homes are also at the centre of the long Swedish summer break, when people often take three, or even four, weeks off back-to-back. If you don’t have your own fritidshus, you can spend much of the summer visiting people who do. 

What’s the downside? 

Aside from the cost, it’s a lot of work. Owning a fritidshus means weekends spent at out-of-town building supply shops, and brings a whole new list of chores like cleaning the gutters, mowing, trimming hedges, raking leaves and chopping wood.

If you like foreign travel, and have a lot of other passions and hobbies, you may find owning a summer house squeezes them out. 

A summer house in the Stockholm archipelago. Photo: Sara de Basly/Imagebank Sweden

How common is it to have a fritidshus? 

There are about 607,000 fritidshus in Sweden, and according to Statistics Sweden, about one in three children (35 percent) have access to one.

It most common to have access to a fritidshus in the north of Sweden, with more than half of children having access to one in 51 municipalities north of Dalarna, and it is least common in Skåne, where in some municipalities only 10 percent of children have access to a fritidshus. 

Is it best to have a second home in a fritidsområde or on its own? 

Many municipalities in Sweden have set aside areas, often near a lake or by the sea, specifically for the building of fritidshus, selling off plots, or tomter, on which people can either build a holiday cottage themselves or get a builder to do it.

According to Statitsics Sweden, about a quarter of fritidshus are in such an area, with Stockholm County boasting the most fritidsområde, or holiday home areas, followed by Västra Götaland (near Gothenburg) and Skåne (near Malmö and Helsingborg). 

If you are building your own summer house, the advantage of doing so in a fritidsområde is that electricity, water and sewage has normally already been run along the edge of the plot, making these services cheap and easy to connect. 

If you want to get a summer house near the coast or a lake, it is also cheaper if you buy one in a fritidsområde. 

On the downside, they can feel a little like living in a housing estate, you have to be careful not to make too much noise, and can end up getting complaints from the local neighbourhood committee if you don’t maintain your property in the way they expect. 

As many fritidsområde were set up the 1960s and 1970s, with a lot of the houses then built by enthusiastic amateurs, they can also be in desrepair and have structural problems. 

The plots that have yet to be built on, meanwhile, are often the worst, for instance with ground that is damp or prone to flooding. 

Renting out your second home

One of the advantages of your second home being classed as a fritidshus is that – so long as you’re only renting it out short-term — you are not covered by Sweden’s strict rental law or hyreslagen.

This means whatever rent you agree with the tenant is valid, there is no requirement to ask for a “reasonable” rent, and tenants cannot contest the rent with the regional rent tribunal.  

Airbnb makes renting out your fritidshus extremely easy and on the other side makes it a lot cheaper and easier to rent a summer house for three weeks in the summer than to own one all year around.  

If you earn more than 40,000 kronor in a year from renting out your fritidshus, though, you are required to declare it to the Swedish Tax Agency. 

You can then subtract a 40,000 kronor ‘standard deduction’ from your rental revenue and a further 20 percent deduction for rental income, before it gets taxed. See the guide from the Swedish Tax Agency here. 

This means if you receive 60,000 kronor in rent, you subtract first 40,000 kronor, then 20 percent of the 60,000 kronor, which comes to 12,000 kronor.

This leaves you with 8,000 kronor to be taxed as capital income at 30 percent, leaving just 2,400 kronor in tax due. 

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