SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

HEALTH

Healthcare: What you need to know when moving to Sweden with children

Sweden is often cited as one of the best countries in the world for raising children, but what do international parents need to know when planning a move here? And can your children access healthcare without a Swedish personal number?

Healthcare: What you need to know when moving to Sweden with children
If your child is under 6 years of age, they will attend a child healthcare centre or BVC. Elisabeth Edén/imagebank.sweden.se

In Sweden, there are two types of healthcare which are relevant if you have children. Children under 6 should be signed up to a vårdcentral (healthcare centre) and a barnavårdscentral or BVC (child healthcare centre). Children over 6 only need to be registered to a vårdcentral.

Your child’s barnavårdscentral will be in charge of routine child healthcare services such as growth and development checks and vaccinations and can also provide support to parents via parent groups and discussions with parents about any difficulties they may be facing. Their vårdcentral will help you if your child gets ill.

Children who move to Sweden join the BVC programme when they move to Sweden. Staff will go through the healthcare and vaccinations your child has already received, so it is a good idea to bring copies of vaccination records and your child’s health records to your first meeting.

How much does it cost?

According to the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), all children under 18 years of age must be offered healthcare and dental care to the same extent and on the same terms as children living in Sweden who are listed in the Swedish population register. This does not apply to children who are considered to be in Sweden temporarily.

This means that your child is still eligible for free healthcare in Sweden on the same terms as Swedes, usually meaning you will only have to pay a patient fee (patientavgift) – between 100-400 kronor depending on your municipality – when seeing a doctor.

If you are from the EU, make sure you and your children have valid European Health Insurance Cards before you leave your home country – you shouldn’t need them, but it may make life easier if you need to access healthcare.

How do I apply?

If you’ve recently arrived in the country and didn’t have to apply for residence permits before entering, you and your family may not yet have their Swedish personnummer the 10 or 12-digit personal number linked to everything in Sweden from healthcare to gym memberships.

If you do have a personnummer, your child will automatically be assigned a BVC and a vårdcentral.

If you are still waiting for a personnummer, you should be able to call your local vårdcentral and BVC and ask for your child to be registered there under a reservnummer or samordningsnummer while you wait for their personnummer to be issued. You may need to provide documentation to show that your family are planning on staying in Sweden long-term – this could be a copy of your rental contract or an application for your personnummer – your municipality will be able to help you with this if you have questions.

This is the first article in a series about what you need to know when moving to Sweden with children. If there are any particular topics you would like us to cover next, you can always email our editorial team at [email protected]. We may not be able to reply to every email, but we read them all and they help inform our coverage.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

HEALTH

Who should get vaccinated against TBE in Sweden?

Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) has more than doubled in Sweden in the past decade. Who should get vaccinated against it and how much does it cost?

Who should get vaccinated against TBE in Sweden?

TBE, or Tick-borne encephalitis, is one of the two main tick-borne diseases in Sweden (Lyme disease is the other one).

It is a viral brain infection, which can cause a range of symptoms, usually starting with typical flu-like symptoms and then developing to include nausea, dizziness, and in around a third of cases, severe problems.

Symptoms usually appear around a week after the bite, but can take longer. There is no cure, but it can be treated, and there is a vaccination too.

The tick season tends to last from March to November, peaking in April to mid-June. According to the Public Health Agency, most TBE cases however tend to be recorded during the summer, as that’s the period when people spend the most time outdoors.

TBE is relatively rare, but has been on a fairly steady increase in Sweden in the past decade, from 178 confirmed cases in 2014 (or an incidence rate of 1.83 per 100,000 people) to 595 cases in 2023 (incidence rate 5.64), according to the Public Health Agency’s statistics.

Who should get vaccinated?

Because the infection can in a few cases lead to serious consequences, anyone who lives in an area where there’s a high concentration of ticks carrying TBE is recommended to get vaccinated.

That includes people who live there permanently and who have temporary summer homes, as well as people who spend a lot of time outdoors in these areas, but there’s no strict cut-off point.

Not all ticks carry TBE, and they have historically been concentrated in southern parts of Sweden and the Stockholm archipelago, but have been spreading across the country in recent years.

The regions that recorded the most number of cases last year were Stockholm (160, or an incidence rate of 6.52 per 100,000 people), Västra Götaland (121, or 6.85), Södermanland (55, or 18.22), Uppsala (52, or 12.85), Västmanland (33, or 11.75) and Värmland (31, or 10.93).

The only region that didn’t record a single case of TBE in 2023 was Gotland. Jämtland, Västerbotten and Västernorrland recorded one case each, and Norrbotten two cases.

You may want to contact your regional health services for specific information. Skåne, for example, only recorded 21 cases last year (an incidence rate of 1.48), but TBE is more common in certain parts of the region than others, and the region recommends that people living in these parts get vaccinated – there’s more information to be found on the region’s TBE vaccine page.

You can of course also get vaccinated even if you don’t live in a high-risk area, especially if you spend a lot of time in the forest or tall grass.

How can I get vaccinated?

You can search for healthcare centres near you through 1177.se or the website Fästing.nu (fästing is the Swedish word for tick – don’t confuse it with fästning, a fortress). To view regional information on 1177, go to the top of the page and click välj region (choose region).

The vaccine is not part of Sweden’s national vaccination programme, so you have to pay for it.

In Östergötland, the vaccine is subsidised by the region, so each dose of the initial three doses costs 200 kronor for adults. In a lot of other regions, including Stockholm, it costs around 400 kronor.

Only Sörmland, Uppsala, Västmanland, Östergötland and Jönköping offer the vaccine for free to children and teenagers, at least the basic vaccination schedule of the initial three doses.

How does the vaccine work?

You start with three doses (or four if you’re over 50), usually the first two within the space of one to three months and the third dose ahead of the next season, no more than a year after the second dose.

Each of these doses increases your level of protection, but because you need several to be fully protected, it’s recommended that you begin the vaccination programme well ahead of tick season.

You then get a fourth (or fifth if you’re over 50) top-up dose after three years, and will need top-ups every five years.

Children under the age of 15 are recommended to get the second dose one month after the first dose, then the third dose after 5-12 months. After that they follow the same schedule as adults, so a fourth dose after three years followed by top-ups every five years.

People with an impaired immune system due to underlying health issues are recommended to follow the same schedule as over-50s. They may not be able to reach a full level of defence against TBE, but the vaccine will offer enough protection that they are still recommended to get it.

SHOW COMMENTS