Moving from Sweden to the UK

If you will live abroad for a year or more, tell Skatteverket at the latest a week before you go. Its page on moving from Sweden (opens in a new window) (page metadata: modified 26 August 2026) says that anyone registered in Sweden with a Swedish personnummer, a personal identity number, must report it, and so must anyone whose shorter stay turns into a year. The deadline is senast en vecka före flytten.

The date has a consequence. If you move to a country outside the Nordic countries and report by the day you move, Skatteverket registers you as moved out from that day. If you report later, it registers the day it receives your report. A move that is cancelled or postponed is reported by the move date you first gave.

You can report in the e-service if you are over 18, registered as unmarried, divorced or widowed, and moving outside the Nordic countries. You cannot if you are registered as married, have a registered relationship to a child under 18 or have protected population-register data. Those people send the form SKV 7665, and the English version is SKV 7665b.

For a child under 18, the legal guardians sign one joint report, and a child of 16 or older may sign and submit their own report on the form. The page adds that compulsory schooling, skolplikt, can be affected by the population register, so ask your municipality what applies if your children will be away for all or part of a school year.

The page says it takes about three weeks before a case officer is assigned to a report of a move from Sweden. Skatteverket’s shorter answer (opens in a new window) (metadata: modified 9 May 2025) names the e-service and the form but not the week or the processing time. Its English page (opens in a new window) (metadata: modified 1 April 2026) agrees with the Swedish page on the week, the e-service conditions and the three weeks.

It changes your registration in Sweden, not your Swedish identity number. Skatteverket says you keep your personnummer after you are registered as moved out, and that Swedish citizenship, for those who hold it, is not affected. It does not settle Swedish tax: the page warns that you may still have to file an income tax return in Sweden, depending on several circumstances.

Skatteverket registers the contact address abroad that you give in the report and passes it to authorities, municipalities, regions and SPAR, the state personal address register. SPAR passes it on to customers such as banks, insurance companies and associations, and deletes your details five years after you move abroad unless you ask for deletion to be deferred. Authorities can still fetch a changed address from Skatteverket, and it is for you to tell the companies and organisations you want to reach you.

If you have an active digital mailbox, digital brevlåda, Skatteverket may keep sending digital mail after you leave, and changes to the mailbox itself are for your mailbox operator.

Skatteverket’s pages on Swedish tax after a move abroad are a gap on this page: we did not read them, so we give no Swedish tax advice and cannot say whether you would still file a return. Skatteverket is the office to ask.

Weapons, older cultural objects and large sums of cash each have a Swedish rule when you leave. Tullverket’s page on moving from Sweden says that a firearm or dangerous object needing a permit to leave Sweden, from the Police Authority for example, must also be declared to Tullverket at the border. A permit alone is therefore not enough for a weapon.

Riksantikvarieämbetet, the Swedish National Heritage Board, says on its page on taking cultural objects out of the country (opens in a new window) (updated 11 August 2026) that older objects can need an export permit, utförseltillstånd, under Swedish law and, when they leave the EU customs territory, in some cases an export licence, exportlicens, under EU rules. The categories partly differ, so check both. An application for an object judged very important to the national heritage can be refused.

Tullverket’s page on travelling with cash (opens in a new window) (updated 10 September 2026) says to report cash worth 10,000 euro or more when you travel to or from Sweden. Cheques, traveller’s cheques, promissory notes and gold of stated purity count too. Its page on cash as a type of goods (opens in a new window) (updated 12 August 2026) says Tullverket may hold cash of that value temporarily if it has reason to believe the report is wrong or incomplete, among other grounds.

Tullverket’s page adds that a report is free and made online or on a form, and it answers Nej, det finns ingen maxgräns: there is no upper limit if you report. For arrival, GOV.UK (opens in a new window) asks you to declare £10,000 or more brought into Great Britain, before you travel (the earliest is 72 hours ahead) or at customs, and relatives or a group travelling together add their cash up, so a total of £10,000 or more needs a declaration however little each person carries. Undeclared cash can be seized, with a penalty of up to £5,000 to get it back.

Tullverket and Transportstyrelsen each have a step. Tullverket says a car taken permanently to a country outside the EU must be reported for export before it leaves Sweden. Transportstyrelsen deregisters it on a notice with proof that it has left and the plates, and until then vehicle tax and traffic insurance run on, unless the car is taken off the road.

Tullverket’s page on taking a car to another country (opens in a new window) (updated 9 October 2026) says to hand in the export report at the nearest customs clearance office, tullklareringsexpedition, with details of the exporter such as personnummer and address. The car must be there for a possible check. Tullverket’s English page (opens in a new window) is written about selling a car but gives the same step.

Transportstyrelsen’s page on export (opens in a new window) (last updated 17 April 2026) is written for a sale abroad, and its section for people moving outside the EU and EEA says the same rules apply to you. It recommends a temporary registration where the buyer can apply for one. Otherwise it needs three things posted to 701 81 Örebro: the notice on part 2 of the latest registration certificate, the original; a document that clearly shows the car has left Sweden for good, such as a foreign registration certificate, a customs document or a professional carrier’s certificate (receipts, invoices and purchase agreements are not accepted); and the plates.

If any of the three is missing, the car stays in the Swedish road traffic register. The page adds that you pay vehicle tax and carry traffic insurance until deregistration, unless the car is avställt, taken off the road, and that the only way to be deregistered before the car has left is a granted temporary registration for export. The used-vehicle route (opens in a new window) asks that the buyer be permanently resident abroad, and Transportstyrelsen’s page on temporary registration (opens in a new window) (last updated 17 April 2026) lists, for a person living in Sweden who is moving away, only a new vehicle. It does not list a used car you own, so ask Transportstyrelsen which route applies.

The two offices’ pages do not say whether one certificate can serve both. Transportstyrelsen asks for part 2 of the latest Swedish registration certificate, in original, with the deregistration notice. DVLA, which registers vehicles in Great Britain, asks for the original foreign registration certificate as proof of when the vehicle was made, and says you will not get it back. Neither page mentions the other, so ask DVLA what it accepts before you post anything to Örebro.

GOV.UK’s page on registering an imported vehicle (opens in a new window) says that without an original DVLA might take other evidence of when the vehicle was made, for example a letter from the manufacturer or a vehicle enthusiast club. It also says the V5C registration certificate can take up to six weeks to arrive. That is a reason to ask early, because Transportstyrelsen deregisters the car only once it holds a complete notice.

The ToR1 form, covered below, asks for each vehicle’s registration number, the date its registration certificate was issued and the country of issue. Copy the Swedish certificate and plate number before anything goes in the post.

GOV.UK’s page on telling HMRC (opens in a new window) gives 14 days after a permanent import to tell HMRC through a Notification of Vehicle Arrivals (NOVA) declaration. For a shipped car the declaration can be made by your shipping company or customs agent, or by HMRC’s CARS team; if you bring the car in yourself, you contact the CARS team. DVLA cannot register the car before the declaration is processed.

A Swedish car is EU-registered. GOV.UK’s approval page (opens in a new window) says a vehicle more than 10 years old, counted from first registration or manufacture, might not need approval. For an EU-registered vehicle it asks for a European Certificate of Conformity from the manufacturer, and if the car is left-hand drive, a GB conversion IVA certificate is needed as well (IVA is Individual Vehicle Approval). It names the Vehicle Certification Agency as the contact if you are unsure whether a vehicle qualifies for that certificate.

Sweden asks for no customs report when a dog or cat leaves, but Jordbruksverket’s rules decide whether a Swedish vet can issue the pet passport that Great Britain accepts. Jordbruksverket, the Swedish board of agriculture, says the destination country sets the entry rules, so the Great Britain requirements are GOV.UK’s, set out in the next section.

Tullverket (opens in a new window) (page updated 29 September 2026) puts it in one line: Ingen anmälan krävs till Tullverket vid utresa. That page is written for travellers and does not mention a household move. Jordbruksverket’s pages for dogs (opens in a new window) and cats (opens in a new window) (both last reviewed 18 August 2026) say that for a country outside the EU the animal usually needs a passport and at least one health certificate from an official vet. For a dog, wrong or incomplete papers can mean refusal and a return to Sweden, quarantine or, in the worst case, euthanasia. The cat page words it differently and adds that some countries may quarantine a cat at the owner’s cost.

Jordbruksverket’s sections on travel to EU countries give the Swedish-side rules for the animal and its passport. The animal is microchipped before its rabies vaccination and is at least 12 weeks old for the primary vaccination, which is one or two injections. It then waits 21 days before travel. A chip placed in Sweden on or after 22 April 2026 must be one that Jordbruksverket has approved, or the animal is re-chipped before a passport is issued.

Jordbruksverket says Endast personer som är stadigvarande bosatta i Sverige kan få svenska EU-pass utfärdade till sina sällskapsdjur. Its page on the new requirements (opens in a new window) (last reviewed 23 April 2026) adds that a passport issued to a permanent resident stays valid for the animal’s life, with no new proof of residence for later entries in it. Neither that page nor the Skatteverket pages we read say how a report of your move affects the right to a passport, so ask your vet whether to have it issued before you report the move.

For Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland), GOV.UK (opens in a new window) lists a pet passport issued in an EU country among the documents accepted from an EU country, so a Swedish pet passport can serve. The animal must also be microchipped before its rabies vaccination and wait before travel; GOV.UK’s main guide says how long depends on the vaccine used and is at least 21 full days counted from the first vaccination or the end of the first course.

A dog from Sweden needs tapeworm treatment (opens in a new window), because the page names only Finland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Malta and Norway, and only for dogs coming directly from them. The vet records it in the passport or certificate and gives it between 24 hours and five days (120 hours) before arrival. The pet passport page (opens in a new window) says any vet in any country can enter tapeworm treatment in the passport, whereas Jordbruksverket says only vets with EU authorisation may write in an EU pet passport. The pages do not reconcile this, so ask the vet who treats the dog whether GOV.UK will accept the entry.

The main guide (opens in a new window) says a pet may be put into quarantine for up to four months if the rules are not followed, or refused entry if you travelled by sea, and asks you to check that your route is approved for pet travel. Jordbruksverket notes that the UK is outside the EU but that dogs, and cats, going to Northern Ireland still travel under EU rules, so this section is about Great Britain only. For the wider rules, see our overview of moving abroad with a pet.

Alcohol and tobacco are excluded, and goods from secondary or holiday homes do not qualify. Pets brought in for non-commercial purposes qualify, and the ToR1 form needs a health certificate or passport for each animal, so for a single animal with no belongings it must exist before you start.

ToR1 asks for a list of items in groups with estimated numbers, a passport photo page, proof of your UK address from the last three months (or a statement from the person you will live with, or a temporary booking), and evidence of your usual non-UK address, dated within six months: a bank statement, a utility bill, or a mortgage or rental agreement. An agent applying for you needs your signed letter of authority. A move from the EU to Northern Ireland does not need you to apply for ToR relief, according to both HMRC pages, and Sweden is in the EU. For an approved claim, the customs procedure code on the import declaration is 40 00 C01.

A car can travel in a container or on a roll-on roll-off (RoRo) ship, and our guide to shipping a car explains how the two differ. We’re an enquiry and introduction service, so we don’t ship vehicles ourselves.

GOV.UK’s Living in Sweden (opens in a new window) guide (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, last updated 12 December 2025) says in its section on returning to the UK that if the NHS funds your healthcare in Sweden through an S1 form, you should contact the NHS Overseas Healthcare Team to cancel it. Read that section if you are coming back for good: it links GOV.UK’s separate guidance on returning to the UK permanently.

Put the Skatteverket deadline and the ToR1 date into our moving checklist. Our cost guide shows where paperwork charges can turn up in a quotation.