Who actually pays tuition in Sweden

If you hold citizenship in an EU or EEA country, or in Switzerland, you don’t pay application or tuition fees to study in Sweden at any level. Everyone else does, with one major exception: doctoral students, who are exempt from application and tuition fees for third-cycle courses and programmes regardless of nationality. That distinction runs through almost everything below, so if you’re applying for a PhD, read that section first before assuming the rest of this guide applies to you.

Universityadmissions.se, the national application portal, puts it plainly: “individuals who are citizens of countries that are not part of the European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA, includes Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) or Switzerland are required to pay application and tuition fees.” EU, EEA and Swiss citizens are exempt, provided they document their citizenship.

What tuition and living costs actually run

Tuition varies a lot by programme and university. Study in Sweden, the government-linked portal for prospective international students, currently puts a full year’s tuition at “about SEK 160,000 per academic year” on average, ranging from “about SEK 80,000 to SEK 320,000” depending on what and where you study. Check the specific figure on your target programme’s own page rather than trusting an average, since these numbers are reviewed and adjusted periodically.

Living costs are broken down in detail on the same site: a student budget of SEK 10,656 a month, made up of roughly SEK 4,900 for accommodation, SEK 2,716 for food, SEK 1,990 for miscellaneous costs, SEK 650 for local travel and SEK 400 for phone and internet. Most English-taught programmes also require an IELTS or TOEFL score as part of admission; if you haven’t decided which test to sit, IELTS or TOEFL: Which Should You Take for a Scholarship? walks through the difference.

The residence permit money test

Getting admitted and paying tuition doesn’t end the money questions. To get a residence permit for higher education studies, the Swedish Migration Agency requires proof of maintenance funds of “at least SEK 10,656 per month, if you applied in 2026.” The figure moves most years, since 2025 applicants needed “at least SEK 10,584 per month,” so check the current number on migrationsverket.se before you rely on anything printed here, including this guide.

Alongside that, the agency wants correctly made passport copies, your admission decision, documents showing you have or have applied for comprehensive health insurance, and documents proving you meet the maintenance requirement. On insurance specifically, the rule is narrow: “If you have been admitted to studies that will last less than a year, you need comprehensive health insurance.” Tuition comes before any of this matters procedurally, because the agency states “you are only considered to be finally admitted once you have paid your tuition fee.”

Two separate fees are easy to confuse. Universityadmissions.se charges non-exempt applicants 900 SEK just to have an application processed. The residence permit application is a different charge entirely, SEK 1,500 for adults and SEK 750 for anyone under 18. Paying one does not cover the other. If you’re assembling bank statements or a sponsorship letter to clear the maintenance figure, keep in mind that a scholarship offer alone doesn’t end the documentation requirement; see After You Win: The Paperwork Nobody Warns You About for how proof of funds keeps mattering even after you’ve been awarded money.

Scholarships: what exists, and what to verify yourself

The Swedish Institute runs the country’s main scholarship programmes for non-EU/EEA applicants, including the SI Scholarships for Global Professionals and a separate track for Pioneering Women in STEM. For the 2026/2027 intake, the online application portal was open from 9 to 25 February 2026. That’s a different date from your actual university admission decision, which is published separately on Universityadmissions.se in late March; the SI-specific list of successful scholarship candidates is published later, around 23 April, with an official offer sent by email shortly after and a deadline of 30 May for accepted candidates to confirm their place.

What these scholarships actually cover changes between rounds, and the Swedish Institute’s own coverage and eligibility pages were not reliably accessible while researching this guide. Don’t repeat a secondhand claim that a Swedish Institute scholarship is fully funded, or that it covers travel, without checking the live call for applications at si.se yourself.

Universities also run their own awards alongside the national ones. The University of Gothenburg, for example, describes its Axel Adler scholarship as “a tuition fee waiver” for students in specific bachelor’s and master’s programmes, separate from SI-funded and Women in STEM awards administered through the same university. Treat that as one example of how a Swedish university might structure its own funding, not as a standard offer every university replicates. Check each university’s own funding page rather than assuming Gothenburg’s line-up is typical.

Work rights, and a rule that just changed

Since 11 June 2026, students on a Swedish higher education residence permit are capped at “a maximum of 15 hours a week during semesters,” with unrestricted hours allowed in June, July and August. Work that’s built into your programme, such as a required internship or research tied to your studies, doesn’t count against that cap. If your permit was granted before 11 June 2026, a transitional rule means the new cap doesn’t apply to you until you apply for an extension.

The same set of changes tightened academic progress requirements: you now need 37.5 credits during the first year, and 45 credits per year after that, to keep your permit valid, and you must notify the Migration Agency of your address within 30 days of receiving or changing one, unless you’re already registered in Sweden’s population system. If you’re counting on part-time work to close a gap in scholarship funding, budget around the 15-hour weekly limit rather than assumptions based on older reporting about Swedish student visas, since this rule only came into force a few months before this guide was written. For a broader look at loans, assistantships and work income as alternatives to scholarship money, see Funding Routes That Are Not Scholarships.

PhD study runs on a different system

If you’re applying for doctoral study, most of the above doesn’t apply to you. Universityadmissions.se confirms that applicants to doctoral (third-cycle) studies “aren’t required to pay application or tuition fees,” and at institutions like Lund University, “there are no tuition fees,” with “regular doctoral positions” coming “with a salary and formal employment at the University.”

That means the competition for a Swedish PhD is for the funded position itself, not for a scholarship layered on top of tuition you’d otherwise owe. Search department vacancy lists and supervisor openings the way you’d search a job posting, rather than searching scholarship databases the way a prospective bachelor’s or master’s student would.

A workable order of operations

Get admitted first. Nothing else, tuition payment, a scholarship decision, or your residence permit application, moves forward without an admission decision in hand. Once you’re admitted, and have either paid tuition or been awarded a waiver, apply for your residence permit with bank statements dated close to your submission date, since older statements read as unsettled money to a caseworker.

Budget for the 900 SEK university application fee and the 1,500 SEK permit fee as two separate costs, not one. And if you’re relying on savings, a sponsor, and part-time work together to clear the monthly maintenance figure, run that math against the 15-hour weekly work cap before you commit to a programme, not after your permit is already approved.