Levnadskostnader
What life here costs
Three honest monthly budgets for one person in Stockholm — from getting by to getting greedy. Each ends with the gross salary it actually requires.
Survive
A room, a bike, a rice cooker. Tight but dignified — many students and first-year arrivals live exactly here.
- Room in a shared flat
- 7,000
- Groceries (you cook)
- 2,800
- Transport (bike + reserve card)
- 600
- Phone + broadband share
- 350
- Home insurance
- 150
- Everything else
- 1,600
12,500
SEK/month, net
Requires roughly18,000 SEKgross/month in Stockholm
Check a specific salary →Live comfortably
Your own one-room flat, lunches out, a gym card, and a weekend trip now and then. The Swedish baseline.
- Own 1-room flat (second-hand)
- 12,500
- Food incl. weekday lunches out
- 4,500
- SL transit card
- 1,060
- Phone + broadband
- 650
- Insurance + gym
- 700
- Fun, travel, buffer
- 4,500
23,910
SEK/month, net
Requires roughly34,500 SEKgross/month in Stockholm
Check a specific salary →Live it up
A central two-room flat, restaurants without checking the menu prices first, padel, design furniture in instalments, Europe on weekends.
- Central 2-room flat
- 21,000
- Food + restaurants
- 9,000
- Transport incl. taxis
- 2,000
- Gym, padel, wellness
- 1,200
- Wardrobe & home
- 3,000
- Travel, fun, buffer
- 8,800
45,000
SEK/month, net
Requires roughly60,000 SEKgross/month in Stockholm
Check a specific salary →Gothenburg, Malmö and Uppsala run roughly 15–25% cheaper, almost entirely through rent. The restaurant bill is national.
Method: line items are indicative 2026 Stockholm prices; required gross is computed with Stockholm's municipal tax (30.55%) and state tax above the threshold — the same model as our calculator, which slightly overstates tax, so consider these figures safe rather than optimistic. Line items are market estimates as of June 2026 (Qasa, SCB CPI).
Everyday prices
- Cappuccino out
- 45–55 SEK
- Beer at a bar (40 cl)
- 75–95 SEK
- Dagens rätt lunch
- 125–155 SEK
- Dinner for two, mid-range
- 900–1,300 SEK
- Cinema ticket
- 150–170 SEK
- Gym membership
- 350–600 SEK/mo
- Haircut
- 450–700 SEK
- 1 litre of milk
- 16–19 SEK
Stockholm, 2026 — the small numbers that calibrate intuition faster than any index.
With children, the math flips
Sweden is expensive for singles and strangely affordable for families: every child brings 1,250 SEK/month in barnbidrag (no application, it just arrives), full-time förskola is capped at 1,547 SEK/month from July 2026 (≈1,700 before) regardless of income, school lunches are free, and kids' healthcare costs nothing. The line items above barely move — the state absorbs what would be four figures elsewhere.
How locals keep costs down
- Lunch is the restaurant meal
- Dagens rätt at 130 SEK buys what dinner sells for 300. Swedes eat out at noon and cook at night.
- Second-hand is a virtue here
- Blocket, Myrorna and Tradera furnish half the country's first apartments. Nobody will ever know, and nobody would care.
- The water is the drink
- Tap water is excellent and free everywhere; alcohol carries the Nordics' heaviest markup. The bar bill is the budget's biggest lever.
- Friskvårdsbidrag
- Most employers pay 2,000–5,000 SEK/year toward your gym or sports — money that evaporates if you forget to claim it.
Common questions
Is Sweden expensive?
Housing in Stockholm is, restaurants and services are, groceries and electronics are average for Western Europe — and childcare, healthcare and education are nearly free. The total picture is gentler than the restaurant menu suggests.
How much money do I need per month in Sweden?
A single person gets by on ~12,500 SEK net/month in a shared flat, lives comfortably on ~24,000, and lives large on ~45,000. Outside Stockholm, subtract 15–25%.
What salary do I need to live comfortably in Stockholm?
Roughly 34,000–35,000 SEK/month gross covers the comfortable tier for one person — comfortably below the national median of 38,500 SEK, which is reassuring.
Are salaries high enough to compensate?
Generally yes: disposable income after rent compares well with most of Europe, and what taxes take, they return — commutes that work, healthcare that's near-free, and five weeks of vacation to spend it all.
How much does a beer cost in Sweden?
At a bar, 75–95 SEK for 40 cl in the big cities; at Systembolaget, 15–25 SEK a can. The gap explains a lot of Swedish social life — the förfest (pre-party) is an economic institution.
Is it expensive to have children in Sweden?
Remarkably not: 1,250 SEK/month child allowance per child, daycare capped at ~1,550 SEK/month, free school lunches and near-free healthcare. Childcare costs that consume a salary elsewhere are a rounding error here.