Sweden Can’t Be Charmed
And Your Money’s No Good Here, Either
The other day, a guy from Chicago posted on a site for expats here in Sweden, asking for a lawyer. He was a small business owner who was working on a plan to relocate his family to Stockholm for a year-long sabbatical. It was a whim. But he was getting nowhere with obtaining a residence permit. Could anyone recommend a law firm that specializes in services to private U.S. citizens relocating to Sweden?
Spoiler alert: This guy isn’t going to spend a year in Sweden.
Plenty of firms offer these kinds of services in EU Golden Visa countries like Malta, Spain and Portugal. They steer you through the whole shebang, from visas and residence permits through health insurance and all the way to schools and housing. But Sweden doesn’t, because there is no demand. If, as happens .001% of the time, someone has grounds to appeal a Swedish immigration decision, there are a couple of half-asleep lawyers for that. But there’s no path for whims. There are only three ways in: Love, work and study. Sweden has rules and they are quite clear and you either qualify or you don’t.
This stark reality is very difficult for the American brain to process, because we are bred to hustle. For us, rules and requirements are sort of hypothetical frameworks. They are guidelines, suggestions. Nothing is written in blood and everything is negotiable. But not here.
For that first year here, I took “no” as a starting point, like most Americans. But here, “no” is the end.
It took a long time for all of this to sink in. When I called Transportstyrelsen, the Swedish equivalent of the DMV, to swap my U.S. driver’s license for a Swedish one, I knew I was too late. I’d spent my first year here with stars in my eyes, admiring the design of every water class, walking for miles along the beautiful streets, savoring the local cuisine, soaking it all in. I wasn’t thinking about bureaucracy and this alone is shocking to a Swede, for whom society means little else. But I was only two days late, so I thought I had a shot.
Transportstyrelsen did not care about my year of wonder. “If you have been a registered resident of Sweden for more than one year, your non-EEA drivers’ license ceases to be valid,” said the Swedish bureaucrat I reached on the phone, sounding just like a robot. I had, in fact, been a registered resident of Sweden for one year and two days and said so.
“What do I do?” I asked.
The American idea at a juncture like this is, how do I circumvent this and get where I want to go? What is the workaround? If you flirt with the traffic cop, you may not get the ticket. If you present a humble demeanor before the judge, he may throw you a little mercy. If you bargain with the seller, throw a few things into the pot, you may get a better deal. When I was a little late to renew my license in the U.S, I turned on the charm. And he shrugged and said, “What’s a week or two?” and it was fine. For that first year here, I took “no” as a starting point, like most Americans. But here, “no” is the end. The Swedish idea is to comply with the fucking rules.
“You should start studying for your Swedish license?” she answered, her tone implying that I was too stupid to be alive.
The whole country is cut and dried like this. Take university admissions. There’s no interviews, no essays, no recommendations, no taking account of extracurricular activities. No one cares what kind of person the applicant may be, or how charming, or what kind of life experiences they may have had. It doesn’t matter. There is only the score assigned to each applicant, a number calculated by a review of grades and other qualifications. That’s it.
Divorce goes like this: She gets 50% and he gets 50%. That’s it.
And banking? You better sit down. In Sweden’s quest to become a cashless society, even the banks have abandoned paper money. They limit how much cash you can deposit into your own account. This much and no more. That’s it. The bank doesn’t want too much of your money. In fact, within Stockholm proper, a city of roughly one million, by my count there are only five (5) ATMs that accept cash deposits.
You can’t even bluster here, for the love of God. Because how can you talk big when anyone in Sweden can look you up and there, in plain view and for no fee, discover your age, birthday, address, education and employment? Oh, and your income. Yes.
There are no secrets, by design.
Sometimes, this can all be exhausting. It is certainly a waste of my talents. But there is a flip side, something America could learn from. Once you are here, they take care of you. You have the doctor and the schools and generous time off and everything else you need, all within easy reach. The water is clean and the food is wholesome and everything is fair and equitable. That’s what all the rules are designed to do. The Swedish word for citizen, medborg, literally means “inside the castle.” Once you are here, you are on the inside. Once you are here, you are safe.
Laura, I love these pieces. They are great examples of the neuron-scrambling that goes on when we're placed in a new or unfamiliar situations. There's wonder and, inevitably, mistakes. But also, it makes us feel ALIVE.