A Bachelor's Degree in Sweden: What It Really Costs and How to Apply — A Guide for Parents

Your child is 16 or 17. Sweden has come up — maybe from a friend, maybe from a search late at night. And you have two questions before any others: what will this cost our family, and what do we have to do, by when?

Here are the answers, straight from the official Swedish sources. Every figure below is linked to where it comes from. Fees and amounts change every year, so treat them as correct as of October 2026 and check the link before you transfer money.

Who pays tuition — and who doesn't

If your child is not a citizen of an EU/EEA country or Switzerland, they pay tuition. That includes students from Vietnam. EU/EEA and Swiss citizens study for free; most other applicants pay both an application fee and a tuition fee (University Admissions in Sweden).

There is no national price list. Each university sets its own fee for each programme, and publishes it on the programme page and on universityadmissions.se.

What tuition actually costs

According to Study in Sweden, the official guide run by the Swedish Institute:

• Average: about SEK 129,000 per academic year
• Full range: from about SEK 80,000 to about SEK 295,000 per year
• Most programmes: roughly SEK 80,000–110,000, or SEK 120,000–145,000 for higher-cost programmes
• Architecture and design: SEK 190,000–295,000

A Swedish bachelor's degree usually takes three years, so multiply the programme's annual fee by three to see the full tuition commitment. The single most useful thing you can do is look up the exact fee for the two or three programmes your child is actually considering, rather than planning around an average.

The application: one website, one fee, one deadline

Every application goes through one national site: universityadmissions.se. Your child can apply to several programmes in one application and rank them in order of preference.

For studies starting in autumn 2027 (August/September), the key dates are:

The application fee is SEK 900, paid once per semester no matter how many programmes your child applies to (University Admissions). There are no exceptions to it — not even for students applying for a scholarship.

If your child is in Grade 11 now, the January 2027 deadline belongs to students one year ahead. Your child's round will open about a year later, during their final school year — check the Vietnam instructions on universityadmissions.se for how documents from students still in school are handled. Either way, your family has one full cycle to watch, prepare documents and save.

Entry requirements and English

To be eligible for a bachelor's programme, a student needs three things (Bachelor's requirements):

1. A completed upper secondary (high school) education.
2. Mathematics equivalent to the Swedish course Mathematics 1.
3. English equivalent to the Swedish course English 6.

On top of that, most programmes set specific requirements — often more maths, physics or chemistry for engineering and science. These are listed on each programme's page, and they are worth checking before anything else.

For Vietnamese students specifically (Vietnam, bachelor's admission):

• The Bằng tốt nghiệp THPT together with the học bạ (transcript for Grades 10–12) can meet the general entry requirement.
• Documents in Vietnamese need an official translation into English or Swedish, done by a translation company or professional translator.
• Vietnamese school English does not count. Your child will need an approved English test.

The most common English proofs for a bachelor's programme (English language requirements):

• IELTS Academic: 6.5 overall, no section below 5.5 (IELTS General Training is not accepted)
• TOEFL iBT (results from 21 January 2026): 4.5 overall on the 1–6 scale, no section below 4
• PTE Academic: 62, with 61 in writing
• Cambridge C1 Advanced: minimum 180

Plan for the test to be done well before the February document deadline, with time to retake it if needed.

Scholarships: be realistic

The Swedish Institute's main scholarships are for master's students, not bachelor's. Its flagship programme requires an eligible master's programme and work experience (Study in Sweden). Good to know for later — not a plan for an 18-year-old.

For a bachelor's degree, the funding to look for comes from the universities themselves. Almost every Swedish university offers merit-based scholarships for high-achieving international students. Each sets its own amounts and rules — Lund University's, for example, requires you to rank Lund first on universityadmissions.se. Check the scholarship page of every university on your list before the application opens.

There is no general fee-waiver programme for the application fee (University Admissions). Budget as if no scholarship will come. If one does, it is a bonus.

The residence permit and the money you must show

A non-EU student needs a residence permit for studies, applied for through the Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket). The order matters:

1. Your child is admitted to a programme.
2. You pay the tuition fee the university asks for. Migrationsverket requires it to be paid before the permit application.
3. Your child applies for the permit and pays the SEK 1,500 permit fee.
4. They show they have enough money to live on — the maintenance requirement.

For applications made in 2026, the requirement is at least SEK 10,656 per month, for the entire period the permit covers — one or two years. For twelve months, that is about SEK 128,000. This amount is updated each year, so expect a slightly different figure in 2027.

What living in Sweden costs

Study in Sweden estimates a student needs around SEK 10,584 per month:

• Accommodation: SEK 4,900
• Food: SEK 2,700
• Local travel: SEK 620
• Phone and internet: SEK 400
• Everything else: SEK 1,964

Add roughly SEK 750 per month for books. Housing is likely to be the biggest cost, and the total depends on the city and on how your child lives. Ask each university early what help it gives international students with finding housing.

Putting it together

For one year, a non-EU student should plan for:

• Tuition: SEK 80,000–145,000 for most programmes (more for architecture and design)
• Living: the maintenance requirement — about SEK 128,000 for twelve months at the 2026 rate
• One-time fees: SEK 900 to apply, SEK 1,500 for the residence permit

Then multiply the yearly figures by three. That number — not a ranking, not a rumour — is the one to bring to the family table.

The first question isn't cost. It's eligibility.

All of this only matters for programmes your child can actually get into. The specific requirements — which maths, which sciences, which grades — are the part families most easily miss.

iimaginer reads a student's own documents, including a Vietnamese học bạ, and shows which Swedish programmes they meet the entry requirements for, with the rule behind each answer and what would need to change for the ones they don't. Start there, then put real numbers next to real options.

Upload your documents and see where you qualify →