English-Taught Degrees in Sweden: The Complete Guide

The Monday-morning seminar in a KTH master’s programme in machine learning runs entirely in English. The lecturer, Swedish, fields questions for two hours without switching once; around the table are students from Germany, India, Brazil, Poland and Sweden itself, and the only Swedish you hear is the hej at the door and the coffee order at the fika break. Three floors down, a Swedish bachelor’s cohort is taking the same subject — but in Swedish. That single building holds the central fact about studying in English in Sweden: at master’s level the country is one of the most English-friendly destinations in Europe, while at bachelor’s level it largely still teaches in Swedish. Which side of that line your plan sits on decides almost everything that follows — the universities open to you, the degree level you aim for, and whether you ever need a word of Swedish.

Here is the bottom line. Sweden runs well over a thousand English-taught master’s programmes — engineering at KTH and Chalmers, business at the Stockholm School of Economics, the sciences and social sciences across Lund and Uppsala — taught, examined and supervised entirely in English, and for EU, EEA and Swiss students they are free of tuition, exactly like the Swedish-taught ones (studyinsweden.se). The catch is the level: most bachelor’s teaching is in Swedish, so the classic international route is a master’s in Sweden after a bachelor’s earned elsewhere. The gate into any of them is one English test — IELTS Academic 6.5 (no band below 5.5) or TOEFL iBT 90 (writing 20+), what Swedish admissions call “English 6”. Across the families we advise at College Council, the most common Sweden mistake is not the application itself but assuming an English bachelor’s is as easy to find as an English master’s. It is not.

This is a focused companion to our complete guide to studying in Sweden, zooming in on the one question English-speaking applicants ask first: can I actually do this degree in English, and where? I will map the master’s-versus-bachelor’s reality, name the universities where English teaching is strongest, walk through the language requirement that gates every programme, show you how to find English-taught courses on the national portal, and give you the honest cost and Swedish-language picture. If you are comparing institutions rather than languages, our sibling guide ranks the best universities in Sweden on the same dataset.

English-Taught Degrees in Sweden, Key Numbers

Source: studyinsweden.se; universityadmissions.se; QS World University Rankings 2026; College Council Atlas. Programme totals are approximate and shift each admission cycle.

The one thing to understand: master’s in English, bachelor’s mostly in Swedish

Sweden’s English offer is not evenly spread across the two degree levels, and this is the single most useful thing to grasp before you start. At master’s level (masterexamen, two years), English is the norm rather than the exception: every major research university runs dozens of English-taught master’s, and the national total runs comfortably past a thousand programmes. These are not segregated “international” tracks bolted onto the side — they are mainstream programmes that mix Swedish and international students under the same faculty, sit the same exams and earn the same degree. A Swedish engineer and a Polish one end up in the same room; the English is the working language of the department, not a concession to foreigners.

At bachelor’s level (kandidatexamen, three years), the picture inverts. The large majority of undergraduate teaching is in Swedish, because the default undergraduate intake is Swedish school-leavers studying in their own language. English bachelor’s degrees do exist, but the national catalogue runs to a few dozen, and they cluster in specific places: the business schools, a set of university colleges (högskolor), and pockets of fields like game development and international business where teaching in English is the industry standard.

That asymmetry produces the textbook international path: a bachelor’s at home or in another English-language system, then a two-year English-taught master’s in Sweden. It is the route most international students at KTH, Lund and Chalmers actually take, and it sidesteps the Swedish-language bottleneck entirely. If your heart is set on doing the bachelor’s in Sweden in English, that is achievable too, but you plan around a much shorter list — covered below. Either way, your study load transfers cleanly across Europe, because one Swedish credit (högskolepoäng) equals one ECTS and a full year is 60 credits.

Where English teaching is strongest — the universities

Below are the Swedish institutions where the English-taught offer is deepest, split by where the English actually is. The research universities are your English master’s powerhouses; the business schools and university colleges are where most of the country’s English bachelor’s degrees live. Every university links to its full profile in the College Council Atlas, where you can see programmes, location and admission data — there is no English-language pillar for these institutions yet, so treat the Atlas as the canonical source. The QS rank, where shown, describes overall reputation, not the English offer specifically; what each is known for matters more.

The English master’s powerhouses. KTH Royal Institute of Technology (QS #78) in Stockholm is the country’s deepest English-taught offer in engineering — ICT, AI, engineering physics and machine learning, with most of its two-year MSc programmes delivered in English (KTH’s own fee page notes most run at SEK 360,000 total for non-EU students). Lund University (QS #72), a broad research university and LERU member, runs English master’s across engineering, economics, law and the sciences. Uppsala University (QS #93), the oldest in the Nordics, and Stockholm University (QS #147) both offer wide English master’s menus in the sciences, social sciences and humanities. Chalmers University of Technology (QS #165) in Gothenburg teaches its master’s portfolio almost entirely in English, strong in materials, automotive and maritime engineering. The University of Gothenburg (QS #202), Linköping University (QS #310) and Umeå University (QS #401, home of the Umeå Institute of Design) round out the broad English master’s offer. In life sciences, the Karolinska Institute teaches its biomedicine, public-health and global-health master’s and PhD programmes in English — but note its six-year physician programme (Läkarprogrammet) is Swedish-only.

Where English bachelor’s degrees actually are. The Stockholm School of Economics runs Sweden’s best-known English-taught BSc — a private, selective programme that, uniquely in Sweden, requires a standardised admission test (SAT, ACT or its ITB-Business test). Jönköping International Business School, an English-medium business school by design, offers English bachelor’s and master’s in business, economics and international management. Linnaeus University in Kalmar and Växjö carries a comparatively large English bachelor’s offer for a younger university. And a set of university colleges — Malmö University, Halmstad University, Dalarna University and Mälardalen University — run individual English bachelor’s programmes in fields like international business, computer science, game design and tourism. The honest framing: at these institutions you check the specific programme for its language of instruction rather than assuming the whole catalogue is in English.

The language gate — IELTS, TOEFL and “English 6”

Every English-taught programme in Sweden is gated by the same requirement, and clearing it cleanly is the most controllable part of your application. Swedish universities express their English requirement as “English 6” — the upper-secondary English level a Swedish school-leaver reaches — and for international applicants that translates into a certified test score. Nearly every programme accepts IELTS Academic 6.5 with no section below 5.5, or TOEFL iBT 90 with at least 20 in writing, with Cambridge C1 Advanced (CAE) also accepted. A small number of competitive programmes ask for slightly higher (IELTS 7.0), so read the individual programme page.

Two points trip people up. First, a strong English grade from your own school system is generally not a substitute at most universities — you need the certified test, even if you have studied in English for years. There are exemptions (for example, holders of certain prior degrees taught in English), but treat them as the exception and plan to sit a test unless your programme explicitly waives it. Second, the test result must be uploaded before the document deadline, which falls just after the 15 January application deadline; a missing or late English score sinks an otherwise complete application.

The practical move is to book IELTS or TOEFL for November or December so your score is in hand well before the January deadline, with time to retake if a section falls short. If you are deciding which test to sit, our TOEFL versus IELTS guide lays out the differences for European admissions. And because Swedish programmes care about the writing sub-score specifically (TOEFL iBT writing 20+), full timed practice with feedback pays off: you can run complete TOEFL iBT mock tests with AI-graded speaking and writing in our TOEFL app.

English Language Requirements at a Glance

Source: universityadmissions.se English-requirements guidance; university programme pages, 2025/2026. Confirm the exact level on your specific programme.

How to find and apply to English-taught programmes

Finding English-taught programmes in Sweden is mercifully centralised. Start at the national portal, universityadmissions.se, run by the Swedish Council for Higher Education (UHR), and filter by instruction language “English” — that single filter surfaces every public English-taught programme in the country, bachelor’s and master’s, across all the universities, in one searchable list. The Swedish Institute’s studyinsweden.se and the commercial Studyportals catalogue cover the same programmes with more editorial detail and student reviews, which is useful for shortlisting, but you apply through universityadmissions.se, not those sites.

The application itself is the same one described in the main Sweden guide: a single form where you rank up to four programmes in order of preference — across one or several universities — and upload your transcripts, degree certificate, English-test result and any programme-specific documents electronically. Selection is documentary; there are no admissions interviews at the public universities. For a master’s, the decisive documents are your bachelor’s transcript, degree certificate and statement of purpose, and on selective English programmes — data science, finance, design — the statement carries real weight, so write it for the specific programme.

Two cycle facts to hold onto. The main deadline for an autumn start is 15 January, with first results around early April; and for non-EU applicants only there is a SEK 900 application fee, while EU/EEA/Swiss citizens apply free. A small spring intake exists for some programmes, but for international applicants the January round is the one that matters. If you are also weighing whether the SAT belongs in your plan, it is needed in Sweden only for the Stockholm School of Economics route — our SAT scores for European universities guide sets out where it helps, and you can prepare the digital SAT in our SAT app.

What an English-taught degree costs

Here is where the whole picture turns on one fact about your passport, and families routinely get it wrong in both directions. The cost of an English-taught degree in Sweden is identical to a Swedish-taught one — there is no English-language premium — and it forks entirely by citizenship. For an EU, EEA or Swiss student, tuition is 0 SEK, on an English master’s just as on a Swedish bachelor’s, with only a voluntary student-union fee of about SEK 300 per semester. The whole cost is then living: roughly €10,000–14,000 a year in Stockholm and €8,000–11,000 in regional cities like Lund, Linköping or Umeå, driven mostly by rent. Over a two-year English master’s that is on the order of €18,000–28,000 all-in for a degree from a QS-top-100 university — with zero tuition behind it.

For a non-EU student, tuition applies and varies by field: roughly SEK 80,000–120,000 a year for humanities and social sciences, SEK 120,000–200,000 for business, engineering and the sciences, and SEK 200,000–300,000 for medicine, design and lab-heavy fields, plus the one-off SEK 900 application fee (studyinsweden.se). As a concrete anchor, KTH publishes that most of its two-year English master’s cost SEK 360,000 in total for non-EU students (kth.se). Even at the top of that range, a Swedish English-taught degree lands well below the UK or US equivalent — and for EU students, the free-tuition route makes it one of the best value English-language degrees in Europe.

English-Taught Degree, What It Costs Per Year

Tuition + living, 2025/26. EU/EEA/Swiss pay no tuition; non-EU figures add on top. There is no extra cost for studying in English.

Source: studyinsweden.se fees and costs; KTH tuition page; College Council estimates. Living costs are averages; housing availability varies by city.

The Swedish-language question — for the degree versus for the job

Here is the part the programme brochures underplay. You do not need Swedish to earn an English-taught degree, and you do not need it for daily life: Sweden ranks among the world’s highest for English proficiency on the EF English Proficiency Index, and lectures, exams, supervision, banking and admin all run in English without friction. For the two years of an English master’s, you can live entirely in English and most international students largely do.

Swedish matters for exactly one thing, and it matters a lot: the job afterwards. In the Stockholm tech bubble — Spotify, Klarna, King, Ericsson — you can build a career in English, and many graduates do. Step outside it, into the wider Swedish economy or the public sector, and employers expect Swedish; even inside tech, Swedish widens your options sharply. Every university offers free Swedish courses, and the single most useful thing I tell families is to treat that course as part of the career plan, not an optional extra. The students who start Swedish in week one of an English master’s, rather than waiting until they begin job-hunting, graduate into a noticeably wider market. The degree is in English; the career is easier in Swedish.

How College Council helps

We built College Council to take the two things that most often derail an international application — weak test preparation and a chaotic, last-minute process — off your plate. For an English-taught degree in Sweden, the gate is the language score, and it is the most controllable variable you have. Our TOEFL app delivers full TOEFL iBT practice tests with AI-graded speaking and writing feedback, so you clear the IELTS/TOEFL hurdle — and the writing sub-score Swedish programmes check explicitly — with room to spare. If your plan also spans the US or the Stockholm School of Economics, our SAT app runs the full digital SAT with adaptive practice.

Beyond the apps, the judgement calls are where families get stuck: which four programmes to rank, whether a given programme is genuinely English-taught end to end, whether your background fits a selective master’s, and how to write a statement of purpose that wins the place. Those are the questions we work through on data — College Council holds every university, its admission requirements and how to get in. Create a free account and check your fit at app.college-council.com/register, or run your profile against real programmes at our chances tool.

Explore every Swedish university in our Atlas. Beyond the dozen above, the College Council Atlas holds the full set of Swedish institutions with programmes, language of instruction, location and admission data — the same dataset behind this guide. Filter for English-taught programmes before you lock in your four choices.

Frequently Asked Questions

Summary — is an English-taught degree in Sweden right for you?

If you want a master’s in English, Sweden is among the strongest choices in Europe: over a thousand English-taught programmes, taught by world-class faculty, free of tuition for EU students and well-priced for everyone else, applied for through one clean portal and gated only by an IELTS or TOEFL score you control. The cohorts mix Swedes with the rest of the world, the teaching is fully in English, and the degree opens onto a high-wage Nordic tech and research economy. The only real friction is housing, which you tackle the day you are admitted.

If you want a bachelor’s in English, calibrate your expectations: the offer is real but small, concentrated in the Stockholm School of Economics, Jönköping, Linnaeus and a set of university colleges, and you check each programme’s language of instruction individually. For a wider English bachelor’s menu, the Netherlands still has more on offer. Start from the master’s-versus-bachelor’s split, filter universityadmissions.se by English, and build the rest of your plan — costs, permits, scholarships — from the complete Sweden guide. The cycle for an autumn start runs to 15 January, so the work begins now.

Next Steps

1. Decide your level — English master’s (deep choice) or English bachelor’s (short list); the whole plan follows from this.
2. Filter the portal — open universityadmissions.se, set instruction language to English, and shortlist up to four programmes.
3. Book your English test early — most programmes want IELTS 6.5 or TOEFL iBT 90 (writing 20+); prepare in our TOEFL app and sit it in November so the score lands before 15 January.
4. Check the fit — confirm your prior subjects or bachelor’s degree meet each programme’s specific entry rules, and write the statement of purpose for the named programme.
5. Run your profile — create a free account at College Council and test your chances at our chances tool; browse the full set in the Atlas.

Read Also

• Study in Sweden: complete guide for international students — the parent guide: costs, permits, scholarships and the full system
• Best universities in Sweden (2026 rankings) — the same universities ranked by QS, with what each is known for
• TOEFL 2026 versus IELTS for European universities — which English test to sit for the language gate
• Study in Scandinavia: free tuition and top universities — Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway compared
• SAT scores for European universities — where the SAT helps in Europe, including SSE Stockholm

Sources and Methodology

This guide focuses on the language of instruction at Swedish universities. University strengths and rankings are drawn from the QS World University Rankings 2026 and cross-checked against College Council’s Atlas dataset of Swedish higher-education institutions. The English offer is described at the institutional level (where English teaching is concentrated) rather than asserting a fixed count of programmes per university, because programme catalogues and languages of instruction change every admission cycle — always confirm a specific programme’s language and English requirement on its own page. High-stakes current-cycle figures (tuition, fees, deadlines, language thresholds) were verified against official Swedish government and university sources in 2026.

1. Study in Sweden (Swedish Institute) — Fees and costs (free tuition for EU/EEA/Swiss; non-EU tuition SEK 80,000–300,000; SEK 900 application fee) and English-programme listings
2. University Admissions Sweden (UHR) — universityadmissions.se (single application, instruction-language filter, up to 4 ranked programmes, 15 January deadline, English-requirement guidance)
3. KTH Royal Institute of Technology — Application and tuition fees for master’s studies (most two-year English MSc cost SEK 360,000 total for non-EU students)
4. QS / TopUniversities — QS World University Rankings 2026 (Lund #72, KTH #78, Uppsala #93, Stockholm University #147, Chalmers #165, Gothenburg #202, Linköping #310, Umeå #401; Karolinska excluded as single-faculty but top-ranked in life sciences and medicine)
5. EF Education First — EF English Proficiency Index (Sweden in the “very high proficiency” band, among the highest-ranked countries in the world)
6. College Council — Atlas higher-education dataset (Swedish HEI location, programme and admission data) and internal advising experience with international applicant families