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EXPLAINED: Can non-EU travellers get to Sweden via Denmark?

Sweden has extended its non-EU entry ban until October 31st. But there may be ways for you to travel to Sweden regardless.

Published: 10 June 2021 15:12 CEST
Updated: 2 September 2021 14:00 CEST
EXPLAINED: Can non-EU travellers get to Sweden via Denmark?
A stop in Denmark could be the way to get to Sweden if you need to travel from a non-EU country. Photo: Silvia Man/imagebank.sweden.se

At the moment, Sweden has entry bans in place that affect most non-EU countries. This means that if you are travelling to Sweden from a non-EU country that’s not on the short list of exempted countries, you need to fall into a category that is exempt from the ban.

These categories include, among others, Swedish residents, EU citizens, and people travelling for essential work or urgent family reasons. You can find a full list on the Swedish Police Authority’s website. Exemptions do not extend to tourists nor in general to people travelling to visit friends or family (unless you can prove that there are specific urgent reasons).

So if you want to travel from for example the UK, US or India to visit, say, friends or your adult children in Sweden, you cannot enter Sweden directly, and that entry ban is in place until at least October 31st. At the time of writing, that’s irrespective of your vaccination status, so having had both jabs makes no difference.

But there may be ways for you to get to Sweden if you need to.

Sweden’s entry ban is based on the country you travel from. This means that if you travel to Sweden via a country exempt from the ban (including all EU/EEA countries), you will be able to enter. This however of course also depends on the travel restrictions in that country.

Sweden currently requires people who enter from most countries, including from most EU countries (unless you have an EU Digital Covid Certificate that shows you are vaccinated or have recovered from Covid in the past six months), to present a negative Covid-19 test on the border (there are exemptions from this too), so if you travel to Sweden via one of these countries you need to be aware of that.

But if you travel via one of the Nordic countries – this includes Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland – it is possible to enter Sweden freely without even showing a negative test.

Travelling via Denmark is likely the easiest option, as Copenhagen Airport has a lot of international connections and it is relatively easy to travel onwards to Sweden by train or air. And if you’re travelling from a country such as the UK, you may be able to drive to Sweden.

Again, please note that this depends on the travel and testing rules in the countries you have to travel through in order to reach Sweden, and this article does not focus on those rules.

But take Denmark as an example. Denmark has dropped its most restrictive “red” travel classification for all countries, including all non-EU countries. And unlike Sweden, Denmark does differentiate between non-vaccinated and fully vaccinated non-EU travellers, so depending on where you’re travelling from, it is much easier for fully vaccinated people to get into Denmark. You can read more on the official Danish site or our sister site The Local Denmark.

In order to travel from Denmark to Sweden, there are currently no requirements in place either to show a negative Covid-19 test or to prove a worthy purpose of travel, regardless of your nationality or where you were prior to your stay (however brief) in Denmark.

Do keep up-to-date with coronavirus guidelines in Sweden as well as the countries you travel through. And another thing to note: There is no legally enforced quarantine in Sweden, but the Public Health Agency has issued recommendations regarding self-isolation and testing to people who have been to a country outside the Nordics in the past week and are not fully vaccinated. You can read more on its website.

Travellers should note that entry to Sweden is always at the discretion of the individual border officer, and entry rules may change at short notice. The Local cannot guarantee you will be granted permission to cross the border into Sweden. You are welcome to email our editorial team at [email protected] if you have questions, but please be aware that we cannot confirm that you will be able to travel to Sweden, and we may not be able to reply to every email.

Member comments

  2. Your article states that it’s up to the border police to decide if you get in . How can Sweden refuse entry to people from the US if their own stated Covid policy says specifically that anyone can enter from Denmark regardless of nationality?

  3. This article is just about tourist ( without a “worthy purpose” of travel), right? I would like to see the same subject for people who have a residence permit but are not yet in Sweden.

  4. Hej, can anyone advise me. You can enter Sweden from the UK if you have an ’urgent family matter.’ Can anyone confirm what constitutes as ’urgent’? We had a baby in April and are very ready for grandparents to visit but can’t find anywhere if this constitutes as urgent.

  5. The article says “But there may be ways for you to get here if you need to, as Sweden’s travel ban is based on the country you travel from.”

    Do you have a reliable source for this?

    Thanks

  6. I am a Uruguayan national and will be starting my studies in Copenhagen in September.
    Currently i can only enter Spain within the EU. I had many people tell me that i can fly to Spain and then drive or take a bus to Copenhagen as there is border controls. Anybody knows if this is true?

    Thanks!

  7. Has anyone flown from U.K. recently via Denmark?
    I have parents who have changed flights twice now because of Sweden extending silly ban for U.K.

  8. I live in Denmark. I have crossed both to and from Denmark more than once without anyone checking anything. Other times, I have been checked… more often on returning to Denmark. It appears to depend on the time of day. It seems that during certain hours, the checkpoints simply aren’t manned.

    Of course, I will not publicly identify the locations or times of my crossings. I doubt that the above is true for all of them. The purpose of this comment is just to note that the authorities don’t consistently follow their own governments’ rules. It is not to suggest to others ways to evade those rules.

  9. Would be interested to know the experience of any US citizen who has tried to enter Sweden after a connection in Iceland.

    1. We did it! However; it is important to note that IcelandAir would not board us on September 16 in Newark, NJ with a round trip ticket to Stockholm with a connection in Iceland (Keflavik airport). Fortunately, we had time in Newark to buy a ticket just to Keflavik. Then at Keflavik, we went through passport control, claimed our bags, showed our test results and vaccination records, bought a ticket to Stockholm online, checked our bags, and boarded. The last minute tickets cost extra. We bought our round trip tickets to Stockholm after September 6, and IcelandAir should have informed us earlier if those tickets were invalid. The agents at the counter in Newark had a notice that said ARN is a “no-go” for Americans. They understood nothing about transit countries.

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For members

TRAVEL NEWS

How do the EU’s new EES passport checks affect the 90-day rule?

As European travellers prepare for the introduction of enhanced passport checks known as the Entry & Exit System (EES), many readers have asked us what this means for the '90-day rule' for non-EU citizens.

Published: 1 May 2024 07:18 CEST
How do the EU's new EES passport checks affect the 90-day rule?

From the start date to the situation for dual nationals and non-EU residents living in the EU, it’s fair to say that readers of The Local have a lot of questions about the EU’s new biometric passport check system known as EES.

You can find our full Q&A on how the new system will work HERE, or leave us your questions HERE.

And one of the most commonly-asked questions was what the new system changes with regards to the 90-day rule – the rule that allows citizens of certain non-EU countries (including the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to spend up to 90 days in every 180 in the EU without needing a visa.

And the short answer is – nothing. The key thing to remember about EES is that it doesn’t actually change any rules on immigration, visas etc.

Therefore the 90-day rule continues as it is – but what EES does change is the enforcement of the rule.

90 days 

The 90-day rule applies to citizens of a select group of non-EU countries;

Albania, Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, El Salvador, Georgia, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Kiribati, Kosovo, Macau, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, New Zealand, Nicaragua, North Macedonia, Palau, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Serbia, Seychelles, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Taiwan, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Vatican City and Venezuela.

Citizens of these countries can spend up to 90 days in every 180 within the EU or Schengen zone without needing a visa or residency permit.

People who are citizens of neither the EU/Schengen zone nor the above listed countries need a visa even for short trips into the EU – eg an Indian or Chinese tourist coming for a two-week holiday would require a visa. 

In total, beneficiaries of the 90-day rule can spend up to six months in the EU, but not all in one go. They must limit their visits so that in any 180-day (six month) period they have spent less than 90 days (three months) in the Bloc.

READ ALSO How does the 90-day rule work?

The 90 days are calculated according to a rolling calendar so that at any point in the year you must be able to count backwards to the last 180 days, and show that you have spent less than 90 of them in the EU/Schengen zone.

You can find full details on how to count your days HERE.

If you wish to spend more than 90 days at a time you will have to leave the EU and apply for a visa for a longer stay. Applications must be done from your home country, or via the consulate of your home country if you are living abroad.

Under EES 90-day rule beneficiaries will still be able to travel visa free (although ETIAS will introduce extra changes, more on that below).

EES does not change either the rule or how the days are calculated, but what it does change is the enforcement.

Enforcement

One of the stated aims of the new system is to tighten up enforcement of ‘over-stayers’ – that is people who have either overstayed the time allowed on their visa or over-stayed their visa-free 90 day period.

At present border officials keep track of your time within the Bloc via manually stamping passports with the date of each entry and exit to the Bloc. These stamps can then be examined and the days counted up to ensure that you have not over-stayed.

The system works up to a point – stamps are frequently not checked, sometimes border guards incorrectly stamp a passport or forget to stamp it as you leave the EU, and the stamps themselves are not always easy to read.

What EES does is computerise this, so that each time your passport is scanned as you enter or leave the EU/Schengen zone, the number of days you have spent in the Bloc is automatically tallied – and over-stayers will be flagged.

For people who stick to the limits the system should – if it works correctly – actually be better, as it will replace the sometimes haphazard manual stamping system.

But it will make it virtually impossible to over-stay your 90-day limit without being detected.

The penalties for overstaying remain as they are now – a fine, a warning or a ban on re-entering the EU for a specified period. The penalties are at the discretion of each EU member state and will vary depending on your personal circumstances (eg how long you over-stayed for and whether you were working or claiming benefits during that time).

ETIAS 

It’s worth mentioning ETIAS at this point, even though it is a completely separate system to EES, because it will have a bigger impact on travel for many people.

ETIAS is a different EU rule change, due to be introduced some time after EES has gone live (probably in 2025, but the timetable for ETIAS is still somewhat unclear).

It will have a big impact on beneficiaries of the 90-day rule, effectively ending the days of paperwork-free travel for them.

Under ETIAS, beneficiaries of the 90-rule will need to apply online for a visa waiver before they travel. Technically this is a visa waiver rather than a visa, but it still spells the end of an era when 90-day beneficiaries can travel without doing any kind of immigration paperwork.

If you have travelled to the US in recent years you will find the ETIAS system very similar to the ESTA visa waiver – you apply online in advance, fill in a form and answer some questions and are sent your visa waiver within a couple of days.

ETIAS will cost €7 (with an exemption for under 18s and over 70s) and will last for three years.

Find full details HERE. 

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