Sweden is a Nordic European country and NATO member. Turkey held up Sweden's accession to the alliance.
After a financial crisis in the early 1990s brought about large deficits, Sweden adopted fiscal rules designed to ensure a budget surplus over the business cycle—capping spending and eliminating open-ended appropriations so that surpluses in flush years would more than make up for deficits in down years. It has since gone from being one of the most indebted European countries to one of the least. Sweden has accumulated pension assets of about $671bn, or 110% of GDP—by far the highest ratio in the EU. Some contributions are directed into personal-investment accounts rather than funding today's pensioners. No other EU country has created more unicorns per head.
Stockholm has emerged as the place to be for companies seeking fresh capital in Europe. Initial public offerings on Nasdaq Stockholm have raised multiples of the equivalent figures for other European bourses; European issuers of high-yield "junk" bonds increasingly borrow there too. EQT, headquartered in Stockholm, is the sole European private-equity firm to hold a candle to America's giants.
Sweden's government spent decades running budgets that look puritanical by rich-world standards, often running a surplus—including as recently as 2022. Even in 2020, amid the covid-19 pandemic, it borrowed only 3% of its GDP. At the end of 2024 central-government debt was worth just SKr1.2trn ($100bn), or 18% of GDP. Between 2015 and 2021 the Riksbank kept interest rates at or below zero and bought large volumes of government bonds, chilling the market. Since 2022 rates have risen and the central bank has sold most of its bonds. As Sweden now prepares to spend more on defence, issuance is set to grow sharply: from SKr45bn in 2023 to SKr118bn in 2025, with plans for over SKr200bn in each of 2026 and 2027.
During the cold war Sweden secretly pursued nuclear weapons. In the early 1960s Swedish scientists were perhaps two years from building a nuclear bomb after years of secret work. Officials discussed hiding a plutonium-production plant in a vast rock cavern. Military commanders planned an arsenal of 100 tactical nuclear weapons--bombs, missiles and torpedoes--to be used against a Soviet invasion fleet. America baited what appeared to be a trap, offering enriched uranium-235 for civilian power at low cost, then pressing Sweden on whether it intended to build weapons. Social Democrat leaders ultimately concluded that a small arsenal would not deter the Soviets but would make them target Sweden, strain defence budgets and harm the country's moral standing. The programme was over by the mid-1960s. Sweden's strategy was what scholars call a "catalytic nuclear proliferation posture"--designed not to defeat a larger adversity but to raise the costs of invasion and make American assistance more likely.
In recent decades Sweden championed disarmament, but Trump's pursuit of Greenland has revived the debate. In January 2026 Dagens Nyheter, one of Sweden's largest newspapers, proposed a "joint Nordic" nuclear programme, perhaps alongside Germany. On January 25th 2026 Ulf Kristersson, Sweden's prime minister, said he had held preliminary discussions with France and Britain on nuclear-weapons co-operation, though the talks were "not very precise yet". Swedish and Finnish warplanes have already begun supporting NATO's existing nuclear-sharing mission, which involves American tactical nuclear weapons.
After an influx of 156,000 people in 2015, the government cut the number of new arrivals to around 22,000 in each of the following two years. Yet it struggled to shift the perception that it had opened the borders. In a 2018 YouGov poll 76% of Swedes thought their government was handling migration badly, compared with 54% of Danes. In 2022 the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats (SD) came second with 21% of the vote. The SD had been shunned because of its neo-Nazi roots, but Ulf Kristersson, leader of the centre-right Moderates, struck a confidence-and-supply deal under which the SD backed his government in exchange for policy input but without ministerial posts. The SD's support is steady at around 21%, but legitimising the populists has been costly for two smaller coalition parties, which risk falling below the 4% threshold needed to enter parliament. The SD says it will insist on ministerial posts after the next election, due in September 2026. Magdalena Andersson, Sweden's prime minister until 2022 and leader of the Social Democrats, leads in the polls with about 35%. She says "Denmark is maybe the only country that has been, in the longer run, successful when it comes to weakening the right-wing populist party."
Since 1955 a state-run monopoly, the Systembolaget, has dispensed alcohol. Stores are sparse and closed on Sundays, décor is deliberately uninviting, wine is left unchilled, and there are no discounts or loyalty programmes. Heavy excise duties make booze eye-wateringly expensive: a bottle of Absolut vodka includes €14 of excise, well over half its price.
The town of Kiruna in northern Sweden, historically rich in iron ore, is the site of the largest discovered deposit of rare-earth metals in Europe. The mine is a key part of the European Union's Critical Raw Materials Act, which aims to source 10% of the bloc's essential rare-earth minerals domestically. Kiruna's original iron-ore mine grew so vast that the ground beneath the town collapsed, forcing much of it to relocate.
In 1971 Sweden became the second country in the world, after Denmark, to legalise all forms of pornography. Yet it took a more restrictive approach to prostitution. In 1999 it originated the so-called Nordic Model, which criminalises the purchase of sex but not its sale, with the intention of reducing demand while protecting vulnerable women. The model has since been adopted by France, Ireland, Israel and the American state of Maine.
The share of Swedish men who say they have ever paid for sex fell from 14% in 1996 to 9% in 2017, and Swedes are far more likely than their rich-world peers to say prostitution can "never be justified". However, some 80% of Swedish men who pay for sex do so abroad. Prosecutions for buying sex have risen, but there were no convictions for trafficking in 2024. Among girls aged 15-19, 8% say they have sent sexual content or met someone for sex in exchange for money, often via Snapchat.
On July 1st 2025 a new law came into force criminalising payment for live pornography on sites like OnlyFans, carrying a penalty of up to a year in prison. The law applies the Nordic Model's logic to the digital world, though critics argue it will further isolate sex workers, particularly migrants and trans people.
Sweden never mandated masks or staying at home, and kept most schools open during the pandemic. The policy, designed by Anders Tegnell, was widely criticised: the New York Times called Sweden a "pariah". Yet after a year of covid its excess-death rate was one of the lowest in Europe.
On October 22nd 2025 Ukraine and Sweden signed a deal that could lead to Ukraine buying 100-150 Gripen fighter jets to rebuild its air force over many years. The Gripen is relatively cheap and especially well suited to Ukraine's needs. If Ukraine follows through on the order, it would boost Sweden's aerospace industry. Even France, which makes competing planes, would prefer this to Ukraine buying American jets.
In 2018, as part of a "total defence" strategy, Sweden reintroduced a system whereby all men and women must register at 18. The army drafts a small share for an 11-month spell of military service. Sweden holds an annual "preparedness week" to focus minds, and in 2024 sent every household a 32-page booklet explaining what to stockpile at home (batteries, torches, tinned food, bottled water) and how to reach a civil-defence shelter. The booklet states: "From the year you turn 16 until the end of the year you turn 70, you are part of Sweden's total defence and required to serve in the event of war or the threat of war." Civil-defence spending is planned to rise to SKr19.4bn ($2.1bn) in 2028, up from SKr2.7bn in 2022. Carl-Oskar Bohlin is minister for civil defence.
Sweden's a26, built by Saab, is a compact submarine at just 66 metres long. A portal built into its bow lets it deploy underwater drones, sensors or divers onto the seabed, making it well suited to the Baltic Sea's murky, shallow waters. Sweden ordered two a26s in 2022 but the first delivery has been pushed back to 2031, partly owing to the need to upgrade the shipyard where they are built. Poland ordered three a26s in November 2025 for an estimated $2.8bn.
Major General Jonas Wikman heads the Swedish air force. In late September 2025 more than 100 Polish paratroopers landed on Gotland, a Swedish island in a commanding position in the Baltic Sea, as part of a joint exercise responding to Russian airspace violations across the region. Sweden is also moving ground-based air defences to Gotland and increasing the readiness of its air force. Wikman says he has delegated authority to shoot down Russian planes if needed, but stresses proportionality.
The Wallenberg family, led through Investor AB, controls 35% of the value of the Swedish stock exchange. Few other families in the West hold comparable sway in their home countries. The family also controls SEB, Sweden's biggest bank, established by the dynasty's founder André Oscar Wallenberg in 1856. Sixteen Wallenberg foundations gave away $300m for research and education last year, making them the biggest donor to Europe's universities after Britain's Wellcome Trust. The sixth generation began stepping into senior roles in spring 2025.
Sweden was once the country with the world's highest literacy rate, but reading standards have declined of late. Its PISA reading score fell by 19 points in four years to 487 in 2022 (compared with 543 for top performer Singapore). Around 25% of Swedish pupils struggle to read properly, according to higher-education minister Lotta Edholm. The centre-right government has adopted a "back to basics" policy—"Från skärm till pärm" ("from screen to binder")—reducing the use of computers and tablets in favour of handwriting and old-school textbooks. In August 2026 mobile phones will be banned at all grundskolor (mandatory nine-year comprehensive schools). The government has spent over SKr2bn ($216m) to provide one textbook per pupil per subject.
Around 100,000 Sami live in Sapmi, a region spanning Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. Sweden's constitution recognises the Sami's right to use land for reindeer herding, but these rights exist alongside competing property claims. Lacking a clear legal framework, Sami communities are forced to fight industrial expansion in courts or corporate boardrooms. Logging has reduced lichen-rich grazing areas by 71% over the past 60 years. New mining and wind-farm projects linked to Europe's green transition are further squeezing migration corridors—in Kiruna, the main corridor has been compressed to a passage only a few kilometres wide.
The only person who always got his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.