If your driving school has told you to “read the book”, you do not have to pay for one in English. Körkortonline.se publishes a complete textbook for the Swedish category B driving licence as a free PDF download, titled “Theory Book, Driving Licence Book 2026“. It runs to 367 pages, and you can download it without creating an account. English textbooks you pay for also exist, among them a printed translation from STR and a 2026 edition from Svea Trafikutbildning. The free PDF and STR’s book cover the same test but are built differently, so the book your school teaches from should decide your choice.
The free PDF and STR’s printed book differ in price, format and edition
The free book is published by Hagberg Media AB, the company behind Körkortonline.se. The current edition is numbered 2026-1 and dated 1 January 2026. It is written for category B, the ordinary car licence, and uses bullet points and many photographs of real traffic situations in Sweden. It also includes road signs and a selection of court cases. Each chapter ends with a question taken from the site’s own practice tests, with the answer and an explanation on the next page.
The printed book is the English translation of Driving Licence Book, STR’s textbook for driving pupils in Sweden, published by STR Service AB. The current edition is the 36th, printed in 2025, with 292 pages and ISBN 978-91-89746-61-9. Each spread pairs a page of pictures with short explanations on the left and a page of more detailed text on the right, with keywords in the margin. A separate booklet, Swedish Road Signs, comes with the book when you buy it. STR also sells two further English handbooks, Driving Handbook and Theory Handbook.
These two are not the only English textbooks for category B. Svea Trafikutbildning publishes Driving licence book: körkortsboken på engelska, with a 2026 edition (ISBN 9789198993523).
- Cost. The Körkortonline.se PDF is free. Private buyers order the STR book from korkort.nu, because STR’s own web shop at butik.str.se serves driving instructors.
- Format. The PDF is a file of about 32 MB that you read on a screen or print yourself. The STR book is a printed volume with a separate road sign booklet.
- Edition. The PDF is the 2026 edition. The STR translation was printed in 2025.
- Link to the school. According to STR’s product sheet, many driving schools use the Swedish edition of its book. If your instructor teaches from STR’s book, owning the same layout makes it easier to follow references to a page or a picture.
The PDF named Driving Licence Book is only a product sheet
A search for an English driving licence book as a PDF often turns up a file named “Driving Licence Book” at butik.str.se. It is a one-page product sheet for STR’s printed translation, listing the edition, page count and ISBN. It does not contain the book. If you want STR’s version, you have to buy the printed copy.
Körkortonline.se also publishes the same theory as free web pages, chapter by chapter, with photographs and video clips and no registration. If you study on a phone, the web version may be easier to use than a 367-page PDF.
How to choose an English driving licence book
- The school’s book. If lessons and homework refer to STR’s book, the printed English translation saves you translating between two layouts. If the school only says “read the book”, the free PDF covers the same category B syllabus.
- The edition year. A book printed several years ago cannot include rule changes made after it went to press. Use the newest edition you can get, whether you download, buy or borrow.
- How you read. The PDF is searchable and costs nothing. A printed book is easier to annotate and does not drain a battery.
Can you borrow the English driving licence book from a library?
The Körkortonline.se book also exists in print. Stockholm City Library has the printed English edition from 2023 in its catalogue, listed as Körkortsboken på engelska. Svea Trafikutbildning’s book carries the same Swedish title, so check the publisher when you search. The 2023 library edition is older than the 2026 PDF. Copies are lent out and reserved in turn, so availability changes from day to day. Whether other libraries hold it varies, so search your own library’s catalogue.
Practice questions will not be the questions in the test
Trafikverket’s guidance for the category B theory test says: “If you practice answering questions, bear in mind that the questions you find online or get from your instructor will not be the same as the questions in the test.”
The test has 70 multiple-choice questions, and you need 52 correct answers to pass. It measures your knowledge in five areas: vehicle knowledge and manoeuvring, the environment, road safety, road traffic rules, and road safety and behaviour. Trafikverket stresses that it is important “to have a broad knowledge of the whole subject area, rather than just learning the answers to individual questions.”
Use the book as the main tool and the practice questions as a check. Read a chapter, then test yourself on it, and go back to the text when you get an answer wrong instead of memorising the right option. On Körkortonline.se, the practice tests have a free demo, while full access is paid. After the real test, you learn which areas you got wrong but not which questions, so if you need a second attempt, you return to the chapters of the textbook.
The risk course comes before the theory test
You must complete both parts of the risk course before you can sit the theory test. Our guide to risk training part 1 and part 2 explains why the skid pan session is usually the hardest to book. Our guide to taking the Swedish driving theory test in English covers which languages the test is offered in, how booking works and how long a pass stays valid. If you are still choosing a school, our guide to finding a driving school that teaches in English lists the questions to ask before you pay. For the rules most likely to catch out a driver from abroad, see traffic rules in Sweden.
Last fact-checked: 19 October 2026