🇸🇪 Learning Swedish in Sweden

Skolverket (the National Agency for Education) sets the national SFI curriculum, and each municipality delivers the actual courses through its komvux. Open from age 16 to anyone living in Sweden who lacks basic Swedish, structured as four sequential courses A to D including literacy training, individually adapted to your prior schooling and goals. Tuition is free. This is the authority's page rather than an application form — apply through the municipality you live in (see the Stockholm and Gothenburg entries below).

Folkuniversitetet is a state-supported study association that delivers SFI as a contracted provider for many municipalities, so the teaching is free of charge to you. Locations include Göteborg, Lund, Malmö, Helsingborg, Jönköping, Kalmar, Karlskrona, Karlstad, Kristianstad, Landskrona, Uppsala, Växjö, Ystad, Östersund and Varberg. You still apply through your municipality's komvux and name Folkuniversitetet as your chosen school.

The official directory run by Sveriges folkhögskolor, covering roughly 155 schools; the international and language category carries courses such as Svenska som andraspråk, Allmän kurs and Svenska och svenska samhället. Teaching itself is free of charge, but students pay for materials, study trips, meals and, if they board, accommodation — amounts vary by school. There is no national intake: browse the directory and apply directly to individual schools. A good fit if you want immersion and a year of structure rather than evening classes.

ABF is Sweden's largest state-supported study association, with local districts across the country running Swedish study circles in person. Alongside paid general courses it lists free beginner and continuation Swedish courses aimed at asylum seekers — the surviving practical form of the old 'Swedish from day one' model, whose original brand pages no longer resolve. Prices and availability are set by each local district, so check the listing for your area. Browse and book on the site or contact your nearest ABF district.

Open-enrolment Swedish courses for anyone who wants to learn without going through municipal SFI — typically EU workers, spouses and students who fall outside SFI's target group, or people who have already used their SFI entitlement. Courses run at Folkuniversitetet's physical schools in cities across Sweden, with online options alongside. Book directly on the site; no municipal application needed.

Hermods is one of Sweden's biggest private adult-education companies and a contracted SFI provider inside municipal adult education, so students pay nothing. Entry requires being 16 or over, resident in Sweden, and lacking basic Swedish. Formats include full-time daytime, part-time day or evening, and distance study. Apply through your municipality and select Hermods as your school; the site lists its physical locations.

The official national portal for applying to Swedish higher education, and the way into freestanding university courses in Swedish as a foreign language taught by university departments in Stockholm, Uppsala, Lund, Gothenburg and elsewhere. There is no tuition fee for EU/EEA and Swiss citizens or for people with permanent residence in Sweden; other applicants pay fees. Search the site for Swedish-language courses, check each course's entry requirements, and apply by the national deadlines (mid-January for autumn, mid-August for spring). Note that a university's internal courses for its own exchange students are a separate, closed track.