Photo: Daniel Moqvist via Unsplash
Moving to Sweden with a driving licence from another country raises a practical question fast: can you just keep driving on it, or does it need to become a Swedish one at some point. The answer splits cleanly along one line. A licence from an EU or EEA country never has to be exchanged. A licence from anywhere else has a clock running from the day you register as a resident, and since 1 May 2026 that clock comes with a stricter set of conditions than before.
EU and EEA licences: no exchange required
If your driving licence was issued in an EU or EEA country, you can simply carry on using it in Sweden. Transportstyrelsen, the Swedish Transport Agency, treats it as valid for as long as it remains valid in the country that issued it, with no requirement to swap it for a Swedish card. Exchanging it is possible if you want a Swedish licence for convenience, but for someone who has moved from Germany, Poland or Ireland, keeping the original card is the simpler route and carries no deadline pressure.
Licences from outside the EEA: the one-year rule
A driving licence issued outside the EU and EEA works differently. Once you become folkbokförd, the Swedish population register entry that marks permanent residency, the foreign licence is valid for at most one year from that date. After the year runs out, the licence stops being valid for driving in Sweden. There is no automatic Swedish test built into that deadline: if you have not exchanged the licence or obtained a Swedish one by then, you simply lose the right to drive on it, and starting from scratch with a Swedish learner’s process is the fallback.
The one-year window is therefore the real planning horizon for anyone arriving with, say, a Canadian, South Korean or Brazilian licence. It is worth checking the current process on Transportstyrelsen’s own page on foreign driving licences as soon as the move date is set, since a late start can mean missing the window entirely.
Four countries with a shortcut: exchange without a Swedish test
A licence originally issued in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan or the Faroe Islands sits in its own category. Sweden has agreements that let holders of these licences exchange directly for a Swedish one without sitting a Swedish knowledge or driving test, in the same way an EU or EEA licence holder can. If you fall into this group, the one-year deadline that applies to other third-country licences does not corner you in the same way, since a direct exchange is available on its own terms.
New rule from 1 May 2026: EES licences of third-country origin
The rule that changed on 1 May 2026 targets a specific and previously exploitable route. Some people held a driving licence from outside the EEA, moved to another EEA country long enough to exchange it there for an EEA licence, and then used that EEA licence to get a Swedish one without ever sitting a Swedish test, a pattern Transportstyrelsen and the Swedish government describe as körkortsturism, or driving licence tourism. Since 1 May 2026, Transportstyrelsen can refuse to exchange an EEA-issued licence for a Swedish one if its holder cannot show that the licence traces back to genuine competence rather than a paperwork route around the system.
In practice, an EES licence with third-country origin can still be exchanged for a Swedish licence, but only if one of three conditions is met.
- The licence was issued after the holder passed both the knowledge test and the practical driving test in an EEA country, rather than simply being swapped in.
- The original licence, before any EEA exchange, was issued in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan or the Faroe Islands, the same four countries covered by Sweden’s direct-exchange agreements above.
- The holder had a licence with the equivalent category for at least five years before becoming permanently resident in Sweden.
If none of the three applies, Transportstyrelsen can turn down the exchange application, and the holder is referred back to the ordinary Swedish process instead: booking the theory test and the practical test through Trafikverket like any other new applicant. This is a real, current stoppregel, not a proposal. It follows a sharp rise in exchange applications built on EEA licences originally issued outside the EEA, most commonly Romania, and it took legal effect after a government bill on the issue passed through the Riksdag.
Sitting the tests in English rather than Swedish
Anyone who ends up needing to take a Swedish test, whether because the one-year window on a third-country licence has closed or because none of the three May 2026 conditions apply, does not have to sit it in Swedish. The knowledge test is available in English at Trafikverket’s own test centres, and the format, question count and pass mark are covered in our separate guide to taking the driving theory test in English, which also explains how the practical test booking works alongside it.
A Swedish-language guide for the same situation
Everything above concerns the specific expat angle: an internationally issued licence and a move to Sweden as an adult. Readers who want the parallel Swedish-language coverage of moving to Sweden and sorting out a driving licence, aimed at a slightly broader newcomer audience, can turn to our sister site körskola.nu and its guide Körkort för nyanlända. The two guides cover the same territory from different angles rather than duplicating each other, so reading both fills in details that a single article would have to compress.
Where this leaves most readers
For the majority of people moving to Sweden with an EU or EEA licence, none of this changes daily life: the licence keeps working with no exchange and no deadline. It is specifically the smaller group holding an EEA licence that itself began life as a third-country licence, or a genuinely non-EEA licence past its one-year mark, where the rules above decide what happens next. Given how narrowly the 1 May 2026 conditions are drawn, anyone in that position is better off checking their own case against Transportstyrelsen’s current guidance directly rather than assuming an older description of the rules still holds, since this is exactly the kind of requirement that has just been tightened.
Driving schools in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö that teach in English are used to fielding exactly these questions from newly arrived clients, and are a reasonable first stop if a licence situation looks unclear before booking any test.
Senast faktagranskad: 23 juli 2026