Financial Products When Moving to Sweden

There is a great load of financial products that are needed when moving to Sweden, most important being BankID. This is a service you get when you sign up to a Swedish bank and is an app on your phone. You use BankID pretty much everywhere, and for everything, in order to authenticate you are who you say you are.

You are allowed to have financial products in your name even though you don’t have “uppehållstillstånd” or citizenship yet. Sweden is very complacent in that way, they allow you all the things you need, even though you are not actually a recognized citizen yet.

Insurance in Sweden

Getting different insurances when moving to Sweden is a fairly straight forward process. Although it can be hard to sign the contract if you haven’t got BankID yet. It’s still possible to sign contracts though, but just a bit harder. Here are the most important insurances to get when living in Sweden:

1. Car insurance (required by law)
2. Home insurance
3. Health insurance
4. Pet insurance

Phone in Sweden

You can get either a Swedish phone number or keep your international one when living in Sweden. It is fine to use your international number with services such as Whatsapp, but our suggestions is you get a Swedish phone number as soon as possible. It will most likely get very expensive for you to text or call other Swedish phone numbers with your international phone provider otherwise.

Swedish people won’t typically respond to international calls either, since it seems suspicious to them. Therefore when job searching, it’s best to just have a Swedish phone number before you start applying. Here are your options to get a phone number starting with +46:

• Going to a phone company
• Getting a SIM card

Credit in Sweden

Credit in Sweden is fairly straight forward, but unlike a lot of other countries, is very hard to obtain. There are lots of rules and the banks are super strict when it comes to their applicants. They don’t typically allow foreigners without citizenship get a mortgage for example, while there still are banks that do. It depends on the interest you are willing to pay though, as you most likely won’t get access to a mortgage from a household bank until you obtain citizenship.

Other credit services though are easily obtained, even as an immigrant. Here is a list of your options:

1. Credit card
2. Personal loan

Entertainment in Sweden

There is lots of entertainment in Sweden, especially in the big cities. The food is great, with a remarkable restaurant culture. In Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo you can get really good food, go to shows and enjoy other activities around town. In smaller cities, the selection of course is a bit smaller, but there are still things to do.

Many Swedes also enjoy themselves from home, with things like streaming services and gaming. It’s cold 6+ months of the year, so Swedes tend to have a hobby they can do indoors.

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