The short answer
Förordning (2026:451) om medborgarskapsprov names eleven areas of knowledge about Swedish society: Swedish history and founding events; traditions; the welfare state; the labour market and personal finances; climate and environment; democracy, constitutional law and the justice system; freedoms and rights including equality and children's rights; world religions and freedom of religion; the role of media; geography and geopolitics; and the EU and international cooperation. The official study material has fourteen chapters, which is a different shape. The law also says the test checks facts, not values, and that it is written in Swedish.
Why the regulation matters more than the brochure
Two lists circulate for this test. One is the fourteen chapters of the official study material, which every preparation site reproduces. The other is the eleven subject areas set in förordning (2026:451) om medborgarskapsprov, adopted on 30 April 2026 and in force since 6 June 2026.
The regulation is the one with legal force. The book is the material; the regulation is the scope. When they disagree in shape, and they do, the regulation is what the test is authorised to cover.
The most visible difference: climate and environment is a named area in the regulation and does not have a chapter of its own in the material. That is the sort of thing worth knowing before you decide your revision is complete because you finished chapter fourteen.
| In Swedish | What it means | When you use it |
|---|---|---|
| förordning | a regulation, issued by the government rather than voted by the Riksdag | The kind of text that sets the test's scope. |
| kunskapsområden | areas of knowledge | The word for the eleven headings. |
| grundläggande kunskaper om det svenska samhället | basic knowledge about Swedish society | The formula the law itself uses for the requirement. |
The eleven, as the regulation names them
Swedish history and founding events. SVT reported after the first sitting that nineteenth century history and the timing of universal suffrage caused trouble.
Traditions. The calendar year in Sweden, which overlaps with things you probably already live through.
The welfare state. How the system is financed and who provides what.
The labour market and personal finances. Employment, unions, tax, budgeting.
Climate and environment. Named in the regulation, without a chapter of its own in the material.
Democracy, constitutional law and the justice system. The heaviest of the eleven, and the area candidates reported struggling with, specifically the division of powers between the state and the kommuner.
Freedoms and rights, including equality and children's rights.
World religions and freedom of religion.
The role of media.
Geography and geopolitics.
The EU and international cooperation.
| In Swedish | What it means | When you use it |
|---|---|---|
| välfärdssamhälle | welfare society | The word for the model itself, and a whole area of the test. |
| grundlag | constitutional law | Sweden has four of them, which is already a fact of the kind this area asks about. |
| jämställdhet | equality between women and men | Distinct from jämlikhet, which is equality in general. The distinction is Swedish, not a translation artefact. |
| barns rättigheter | children's rights | Named explicitly inside the rights area. |
Facts, not opinions
The government wrote that because this is a knowledge test, what is tested is factual knowledge. Answering a question about Stockholm University's objection, it said questions would not be framed so as to assess a candidate's values rather than their knowledge.
Skolverket also secured a wording change worth noticing: the subject is knowledge about Swedish society, not the school subject called samhällskunskap. Preparing with a gymnasium textbook is therefore preparing for a slightly different thing.
The test is in Swedish, on paper, in multiple-choice questions with one correct answer. UHR publishes five example questions on its own page, and they are worth reading there rather than in somebody's rewrite. We do not reproduce them.
How to use this list
Use it as a checklist against your revision, not as a syllabus. When you finish the material, go through the eleven and ask which ones you could answer three factual questions about. The gaps will not be evenly spread.
Then do the part that decides the outcome, which is the Swedish. The paper is written at the level the law calls funktionell nivå, and reading the official material at A2 is a trainable skill rather than a matter of trying harder.
And check the gate before you invest anything. Only Migrationsverket decides who is allowed to sit, registration is currently closed, and the rules that created all of this changed on 6 June 2026.
What is still blank
UHR has not published a pass mark. It describes the sitting of 15 August 2026 as a calibration sitting and says the threshold will be set afterwards, with results due in October 2026.
It has not published the length of a sitting, the number of questions for the next sittings, their dates, their cities, or a fee for any sitting before 2027. The regulation sets 2 000 kronor per sitting from 2027 and exempts stateless people with refugee status or a Swedish travel document. Each of those blanks is set out one by one in the five questions with no published answer.
We are not affiliated with UHR, Skolverket or Migrationsverket, we reproduce nothing from the official material or from UHR's example questions, and nobody here can tell you whether you will pass or whether you qualify. Migrationsverket decides an individual case.
Sources
- Förordning (2026:451) om medborgarskapsprov2026-04-30
- Prop. 2025/26:175, Skärpta krav för svenskt medborgarskap2026-03-12
- UHR: Om medborgarskapsprovet2026-08-17
- SVT Nyheter: Nya krav för svenskt medborgarskap, så gick första provet2026-08-15
Rules and processing times change. Check the official page for your own case before acting on anything here.
Questions people ask
- What subjects are on the Swedish citizenship test?
- The regulation names eleven areas: Swedish history and founding events, traditions, the welfare state, the labour market and personal finances, climate and environment, democracy and constitutional law and justice, freedoms and rights including equality and children's rights, world religions and freedom of religion, the role of media, geography and geopolitics, and the EU and international cooperation.
- Is the list of eleven areas the same as the fourteen chapters of the book?
- No. The material has fourteen chapters and the regulation has eleven areas, and they do not map one to one. Climate and environment is named in the regulation without having a chapter of its own.
- Does the test ask about my opinions?
- The government stated that because it is a knowledge test, factual knowledge is what is tested, and that questions would not be framed so as to assess a candidate's values. Skolverket also secured that the subject is knowledge about Swedish society rather than the school subject samhällskunskap.
- Which areas did candidates find hardest?
- SVT reported after the first sitting on 15 August 2026 that the division of powers between the state and the kommuner caused difficulty, along with nineteenth century history and the timing of universal suffrage. That is reporting from one sitting, not a published statistic. The vocabulary behind that difficulty is small and learnable: [the Swedish words the material keeps reusing](/blog/swedish-words-medborgarskapsprovet).
- Can I see real questions from the test?
- UHR publishes five example questions on its own page. Read them there. We do not reproduce them or any text from the official material, and any site claiming to have real questions from a sitting is claiming something UHR has not released.
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