🇸🇪 Stockholm · First days

First 48 hours in Stockholm

The first two days in Stockholm, in priority order: what has to happen, what should, and what can wait. Tick things off as you go.

For Stockholm
How long you are staying

Must do

  • Telia, Tele2, Telenor and Tre, and budget brands such as Comviq and Hallon, sell prepaid SIMs in supermarkets and kiosks. Prepaid cards must be registered to an ID, so bring your passport.
  • Through the Flytta till Sverige e-service if you will stay a year or more, then book the identity check. Everything else waits on the personnummer.
  • Use a contactless card or phone at the gates and on board, or buy in the SL app. You touch in only. The 30-day ticket is half price, SEK 530, if bought by 1 December 2026; budget SEK 1,060 from January.

Should do

  • 112 for emergencies; 1177 for health advice around the clock, and the call to make before choosing where to be seen.
  • Many shops, cafés and buses do not take cash at all. A card without foreign transaction fees covers you until you have Swish.
  • Make the trip to work in the dark and the cold before you commit to a flat far from the metro. Ten minutes' walk in February is a different walk.
  • Hemförsäkring is cheap and most landlords expect it from the first day of a lease or sublet.
  • For a second-hand contract, ask for the landlord's or co-op board's written consent and check its dates against your term before you pay anything.
  • Bostadsförmedlingen needs a personnummer or coordination number. Register the same day it is issued, pay the SEK 200 annual fee and set it to renew.

Nice to do

  • Drinks stronger than 3.5 per cent are sold only in the state Systembolaget shops, which close early on Saturdays and all day on Sundays.
  • Many embassies run a registration or alert service for nationals living abroad. Two minutes now saves a scramble in an emergency.
  • Some SL ferry routes, such as the Djurgården ferry and the commuter boats across the water, take an ordinary SL ticket. The quickest way to see the city from the water.
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  • Must do0/3
  • Should do0/6
  • Nice to do0/3
Emergency112
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