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Practical information
Visa and residence permits
Citizens of non-Nordic and non-EU/EEA countries
If you are a citizen of a country other than a Nordic or EU/EEA country and intend to study in Sweden you must apply for a residence permit for visiting students. Permits are issued by the Swedish Migration Board, and must be granted before you arrive in Sweden.
You can apply for visas and permits at the Swedish embassy or consulate in your home country.
Please note that these are minimum amounts. If you can prove to the Board's satisfaction that you will receive free board and lodging during the whole or part of your study period this sum will be correspondingly reduced. Students who have been awarded a scholarship through the Swedish Institute, an EU or other programme, should supply proof of this. You will also need to show a valid passport and a letter of admission from the institution at which you will be studying, and bring two passport photos. To be sure of obtaining your permit in time you should submit your application 6-8 weeks prior to your departure for Sweden.
Please note that residence permits are limited to the duration of the study period, or to one year, whichever is the shorter. Your permit will be renewed annually provided you receive the number of credit points required and can produce evidence of continued financial support. If you have any questions please contact the Swedish embassy or consulate in your home country or country of domicile. You can also contact the Swedish Migration Board.
Citizens of non-Nordic EU/EEA countries
Citizens of non-Nordic EU/EEA countries (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the United Kingdom) only require a residence permit to study in Sweden. The same applies to citizens of Switzerland.
(Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the United Kingdom)
You can apply for a permit at one of the Migration Board offices in Sweden, but please note that you must do so within three months of your arrival in the country. You may also apply via a Swedish embassy or consulate before travelling to Sweden. To obtain a residence permit as a student, you must show that you have been admitted to a course or a programme of study in Sweden, and provide assurances that you can support yourself. If you are planning to stay in Sweden for less than a year, you must also have comprehensive health insurance, which is valid in Sweden, e.g. form E128 or a private insurance policy. You will need to present a valid identity card or a passport when applying. Residence permits for studies are granted for maximum one year at a time, but are renewable.
For more information, see the Swedish Migration Board.
Citizens of Nordic countries
Citizens from Nordic countries do not need a permit to study in Sweden.
On arrival
Accommodation
Most student dormitories are owned by the student unions. Most of them are situated on the outskirts of towns/cities. In most halls of residence there are 10-15 single rooms in each corridor. Kitchens are shared by 4-15 students. Female and male students have rooms along the same corridor.
A single room must not be occupied by more than one person-a rule that is strictly enforced. Students are required to clean their rooms and the communal kitchen themselves.
The rooms have basic furniture but the occupant must provide blankets, pillows, sheets, towels and light bulbs. In the communal kitchen some utensils may be available but you will usually have to bring your own plates, cutlery, pots and pans etc. Most student housing has self-service laundry facilities. There is a booking list and you may have to pay a small fee for the use of a washing machine.
The cost of a student room varies between locations, but is usually around 2,000-3,500 kronor a month. Rent is paid in advance on a monthly basis. In some locations, there is a waiting list, so contact the student union as early as possible to put yourself on the list.
Visiting students arranging their own accommodation have to contact a student union directly. In order to sign a lease for a room or a flat, you must be able to prove that you are already studying or that you have been admitted to the institution of higher education. When you want to move out you must give at least one month's written notice.
In some cases special accommodation is available for international students. Housing for families can also be arranged for postgraduate students.
Work
You may work and you do not need a work permit to do so during your stay in Sweden as a student or a postgraduate student. For information on taxes, see Swedish Tax Agency.
Insurance and Medical Treatment
Stay of one year or more As a foreign student with a residence permit valid for one year or more, you are entitled to benefits such as reduced costs for medicine, medical and dental care, and low-cost hospital treatment.
To be eligible for these benefits you must be registered as a resident and at a social insurance office. Application for civil registration is made at your local tax office.
When your application is approved you will be given a registration number (personnummer) (see Civil Registration). The application procedure may take time, but you will be fully covered if you can show that you have applied for registration as a resident. Once you have received your registration number, your local social insurance office, Försäkringskassan, will send you an application form so you can register with it.
Medical insurance does not cover your travel to Sweden nor the time you spend here prior to registration. Thus, to be fully covered you will need some kind of travel insurance.
Stay of less than a year
If you have a residence permit valid for a period of less than a year you will not be able to register as a resident. However, if you come from an EU/EEA country to perform studies leading to a qualification officially recognised by Swedish authorities, you are entitled to use the necessary public medical services on the same basis as persons resident in Sweden. In order to be eligible for this you must have a European Health Insurance card, an E111 form or an E128 form, which will be issued by the competent social insurance institution of your home country.
Sweden has reciprocal agreements for public medical benefits with some countries; to find out whether your country has such an agreement, you should contact your local social insurance office. Students from these countries need only show their passport and a certificate from the social insurance office in their home country. For the reciprocal agreement to apply, the need for medical care must arise during (not prior to) your stay in Sweden.
Students from other countries who intend to stay in Sweden for less than a year must arrange their own insurance coverage. Medical treatment is extremely expensive if you do not have insurance. (The cost for hospital treatment is at least 2,800 kronor per day.) Check with your student union. It is likely to have a special agreement with an insurance company.
If you need to consult a doctor, you can either make an appointment with the doctor at the student union health centre at your university or college, or go to the health care centre, (vårdcentralen), that serves your neighbourhood. It might be a good idea to have a thorough check- up at your dentist before leaving for Sweden. Should you still need to visit the dentist here, go to your nearest public dental clinic, (folktandvården). For urgent dental treatment contact an emergency dental clinic, (jourhavande tandläkare).
Civil registration
If you intend to stay for longer than a year in Sweden, you can register with the civil registration authorities at your local tax office, (lokala skattemyndigheten). You will then be given a ten-digit civic registration number, or personal number (personnummer), based on your date of birth plus four extra digits. For example, if you were born on May 25, 1979, it might look like this: 790525-1045.
To apply, take along your passport, a letter of acceptance from your educational institution, documents from the Swedish immigration authorities and, if you are married, your marriage certificate.
You need to register before you be entitled to medical benefits through the Swedish National Health Insurance System. When seeing a doctor, for instance, you will be asked for your civic registration number (see Medical insurance and medical treatment below).
ID cards
To get a Swedish ID card you have to be registered as a resident (see Civil Registration, above). You may apply to Skatteverket for an ID card. The ID card is used for many transactions in Sweden, from renting videos to paying by credit card.
When you join a union you will receive a student card that entitles you to benefits and discounts on domestic travel. Many shops also offer student discounts. Other services include updated information on activities on and off campus and help in most matters relating to your stay in Sweden. Best of all, perhaps, is the chance to take part in interesting social activities and meet new people.
In Sweden a special student ID card is generally not required. To identify yourself as a student, use the receipt for your student union fee together with an ordinary ID card or your passport.
Living and studying in Sweden
The Academic Year, classes
The academic year is divided into two semesters. The autumn semester starts in mid- August and lasts until mid-January, when the spring semester starts. The spring semester lasts until the beginning of June. Normally there is brief break of about a fortnight at the end of December. From mid-June to mid-August there is as a general rule no teaching, but at some universities summer courses are offered.
The Swedish academic environment may strike foreign students as being very informal: professors and staff members dress informally, speak in a familiar style with the students and may socialise with them during breaks.
There is a small fee to be paid each semester for your compulsory membership of a student union. Apart from that, higher education in Sweden is generally free of charge.
Postgraduate studies in Sweden
Research in Sweden, in contrast to many other countries, is conducted largely within the higher education system. Many teachers are involved both in education and research, and supervise PhD students.
In 2003 about 19,500 students in Sweden were enrolled in postgraduate studies, and nearly 2,600 were awarded doctoral degrees. Postgraduate training is conducted in some 450 different subject areas. All the universities and some other higher education institutions are empowered to confer doctoral and licentiate degrees in one or more areas of research/faculties. These institutions have permanent resources for research.
The Government can decide, on application by the institution, if a university college is to be permitted to confer doctoral and licentiate degrees (often limited to some specialised subjects) within an area of research. To obtain this right, the university college must maintain a high level of scientific competence in research projects and high quality in its undergraduate programmes.
The professors and senior lecturers (with doctoral degrees) are members of a faculty. The faculty boards determine the content of postgraduate programmes of education, the specific admission requirements and selection criteria. Postgraduate training is then organised and administered by the departments.
Eligibility/Admission
To be admitted to postgraduate studies for a doctoral degree, a student must hold a university degree equivalent to a Bachelor's degree with a major in the same subject as the intended postgraduate subject of study. In some cases a Master's degree is required. (In practice, most students do have a Master's degree.). The major must include a paper (degree thesis) presenting the results of independent research (in contrast to the standard practice in many other countries).
A university degree is not always sufficient for admission to postgraduate studies. Specific eligibility conditions exist for each subject. There is also an assessment of the applicant's suitability and capacity to complete doctoral studies. The student must also have a very good command of English. Individual institutions set their own requirements for proficiency in the English language, but in almost all cases this will involve achieving a specific minimum score on the TOELF test or its equivalent.
Many departments have no formal requirements regarding knowledge of the Swedish language for admission to postgraduate studies. However, for many subjects a good command of Swedish is necessary as the lectures and seminars are often held in Swedish. Some postgraduate students are advised to attend Swedish language courses alongside their postgraduate studies.
Admission to postgraduate programmes is restricted; only those applicants thought capable of handling the intense competition are admitted. Since 1998 institutions of higher education may only admit a postgraduate student with guaranteed funding for the entire period of postgraduate training, or who is appointed to a postgraduate studentship (doktorandtjänst) or qualifies for a study grant (utbildningsbidrag) from the university. Students who are enrolled for postgraduate studies at their home university may, as part of their thesis work, be admitted to some of the postgraduate courses at Swedish universities.
Application
Students considering postgraduate studies must get specific information and application material directly from the university and the department of the subject concerned. Applications for PhD studies must be sent directly to the department together with officially certified copies of diplomas/certificates or official transcripts, diploma work and letters of recommendation, etc. Authorised translations are often required.
Qualifications recognition
For a foreign programme of education to correspond to at least 180 credits in Swedish basic higher education, the programme must comprise at least three years of study and be pursued at an officially recognised institution of higher education and/or the degree must be officially recognised. For some countries, a programme of education must comprise more than three years for it to be considered to correspond to 180 credits in Sweden.
Factors influencing this assessment include the inclusion of ideological courses (political and/or religious), general sports courses, military training, work experience (internship) during term time not considered to be relevant to the programme of education and of greater extent than an equivalent Swedish work experience period, and possible adjustments of level in subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and languages in which the entry level is deemed to be lower than for an equivalent programme of education in Sweden.
Read more about qualifications recognition.
www.studyinsweden.se
You can find more general information about Sweden at the Swedish Institute's website www.sweden.se.
The Swedish Institute also provides information about scholarships, the higher education system and about living and studying in Sweden at www.studyinsweden.se.
Page upContact person: Torkel Holmström, e-mail: forename.surname@hsv.se
Phone: +46 8 563 085 00, Fax: +46 8 563 085 50, Mail: doktorand@hsv.se
