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There is no official list of Swedish driving schools that teach in English. Transportstyrelsen, the Swedish Transport Agency, keeps a public register of every approved driving school in the country, and that register records the permit, the company and the address. It says nothing at all about the language the lessons are held in. That gap is the whole problem, and it is why the search works best in two steps: use the register to build a short list near you, then settle the language question yourself by asking a handful of specific questions.
Before any of that, one check is worth two minutes. If you already hold a licence issued in another EU or EEA country, you may be entitled to drive on it or exchange it rather than start again, and the rules on holding a foreign driving licence in Sweden decide whether you need a driving school in the first place.
What the official register does and does not tell you
Transportstyrelsen’s search service for approved training providers and test organisers is the authoritative source, and it is the same data our own listings are built on. Pulling the full register on 6 August 2026 returns 973 approved driving schools (trafikskolor) in Sweden. Mapping each registered address to a municipality by postcode places them in 209 of the country’s 290 municipalities, which means 81 municipalities have no approved driving school at all. In those places, learning to drive starts with a bus timetable.
What the register is, then, is a permit list. It confirms that a school is allowed to teach and where it is registered. Everything a newly arrived resident actually wants to know sits outside it: whether anyone there can explain a Swedish roundabout in English, whether the classroom theory is Swedish only, whether the risk training can be booked in a language you follow. Of the 973 schools, 823 had a website recorded in our catalogue when we last checked it in February 2026. For the remaining 150 or so, the telephone is the only way in.
Start with the map, then narrow by language
Distance matters more than most beginners expect. A category B course is not one appointment but a series of lessons spread over weeks or months, usually squeezed around work, and a school 40 minutes away quietly adds hours to every one of them. Geography is therefore the first filter rather than the last.
In the larger cities, language is a question of ringing round rather than of availability. On the same August 2026 pull of the register, Stockholm municipality has 79 approved schools, Göteborg 60 and Malmö 38, while Uppsala has 19 and Lund 16. Our listings for Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö, Uppsala and Lund show which schools operate in each, and every other municipality with approved schools has a page of its own. In a smaller town with two schools, expect to compromise on timing rather than on language, or to travel to the nearest city for the parts that need English.
The questions that actually settle it
Schools are used to being asked, and the answers vary far more than a website suggests. Five questions cover almost everything that goes wrong later.
- Who teaches in English, and when? A school can answer yes because one instructor speaks English. Ask which instructor, and whether that person has slots at the times you can attend. An English-speaking instructor who only works Tuesday mornings is not much use if you work Tuesday mornings.
- Does that include the theory teaching? Lessons behind the wheel and classroom theory are separate products, and a school may run the first in English and the second in Swedish only.
- Can you book risk training part 1 in English? This is the session where language matters most, for reasons set out below.
- Can you book risk training part 2 in English, and where is it held? Ask for the location, not just the price.
- Manual or automatic? If you take the driving test in an automatic car you receive condition 78 on your licence, which restricts you to automatics until you pass a further test in a manual. Trafikverket sets this out for category B, and it is easier to decide at the start than halfway through.
Ask all five before you pay for a package. Prepaid bundles are common, and they are worth far less if the English-speaking instructor turns out to have a three month waiting list.
Risk training is the part to arrange first
Both parts of the mandatory risk training must be completed before you sit either test, and Transportstyrelsen sets out what each part covers. Part 1 deals with alcohol and drugs, fatigue at the wheel and other risky behaviour. Part 2 deals with speed, safety and driving in varying road and weather conditions, and includes the skid pan. The training stays valid until the day you collect your licence, or for five years at most. If you attend a driving school, the school registers you for it. If you are learning privately, you contact a provider yourself.
Part 1 is the session where language does the most work, because it is built around discussion rather than a lecture. Following an argument about risk perception in a second language, in a group, is harder than reading a translated multiple-choice question at your own pace.
Part 2 is where availability bites, and the register shows why. On 6 August 2026 it lists 986 approved providers of risk training part 1 across 221 municipalities, but only 82 approved providers of part 2, spread over 58 municipalities. The practical part needs a skid pan, skid pans are expensive to build and run, and so 232 of Sweden’s 290 municipalities have no approved part 2 provider registered in them at all. That single number explains most of the frustration foreign residents report about this stage. Book it early, ask which languages the session is run in, and expect to travel for it even if your school is around the corner.
What the state has already translated, and what it has not
The theory test is the reassuring part of the process. Trafikverket, the agency that runs the official exams, offers the category B knowledge test in 15 languages, and its own list includes English, specifically British English. You choose the language when you book, not on the day, and you can switch to Swedish during the test if a translated term reads oddly. If you cannot read Swedish well enough for any of the translated versions, you can apply to sit the test with an interpreter instead, which extends the time allowed for category B to 100 minutes. We have covered the format, the pass mark and the booking steps in a separate guide to taking the Swedish theory test in English.
The driving test is a different matter. Trafikverket publishes no translated version of the practical test and no interpreter route for it. The only language arrangement it sets out for the driving test is a sign language interpreter, arranged in advance through its customer service line on 0771 17 18 19. That asymmetry is worth planning around, and it is the strongest practical argument for lessons in a language you follow easily. The language you can process under pressure matters more in a car than on a screen.
One date is worth having in mind while you plan the order of everything. From 19 August 2026, a passed category B theory test is valid for one year rather than four months, a change Transportstyrelsen decided and Trafikverket sets out on its category B page. For anyone fitting lessons around a job, that turns a tight sequence into a manageable one, because the driving test no longer has to follow within a single term.
A short list, then a phone call
The register decides which schools are near enough to be realistic. It cannot decide which of them will teach you, and no amount of searching will make it do so, because the information simply is not collected. What settles it is a conversation in which you ask who teaches in English, when that person is free, and whether both parts of the risk training can be arranged in a language you follow.
Foreign residents who get through the process quickly tend to have done the same thing: they treated the risk training, and particularly the skid pan, as the scarce resource it is, and booked it before worrying about lesson packages. The schools are plentiful. The slippery road is not.
Figures for approved driving schools and risk training providers were taken from Transportstyrelsen’s register of training providers on 6 August 2026 and mapped to municipality by postcode. Website coverage reflects our catalogue as last checked in February 2026.
Senast faktagranskad: 6 augusti 2026