Sweden document photos online

For years a Swedish passport was a smuggler's favourite. Because citizens could report a passport lost and order a replacement as many times as they liked, the burgundy booklet quietly became one of the most trafficked travel documents on the black market, where genuine Swedish covers fetched a premium from people-smugglers; in 2013 it ranked among the most frequently traded passports of all. Sweden finally closed the loophole in 2016, capping replacements at three per five-year period. The episode is a sharp reminder that a passport's real worth lies as much in how hard it is to abuse as in where it lets you travel.

• Passport trafficking Until 2016 Swedes could replace a 'lost' passport an unlimited number of times, making the booklet one of the most traded documents on the black market before the law capped renewals at three per five years.
• Passport power In July 2025 the Swedish passport ranked joint-4th in the world on the Henley Passport Index, granting visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 188 destinations.
• Document security Swedish passports went biometric in 2005, and since 2009 the embedded chip stores both a facial image and fingerprints across 16 data groups.
• Citizenship Swedish citizenship passes by blood, not soil: a child with at least one Swedish parent is a citizen from birth, but grandparents cannot pass nationality directly to grandchildren.
• Currency The krona is officially divided into 100 öre, yet no öre coin has circulated since 2010, when the government scrapped them because minting cost more than the coins were worth.
• First banknotes On 16 July 1661 Stockholms Banco issued the first banknotes in Europe — paper 'kreditivsedlar' in fixed denominations — then over-issued them so badly the bank collapsed within three years and its founder was jailed.
• Oldest bank Sveriges Riksbank, founded in 1668 from the ashes of that failed bank, is the world's oldest surviving central bank and the institution that later lent its name to the Nobel economics prize.
• Two centuries of peace Sweden's last war ended in 1814, beginning a run of military non-alignment so long it outlasted Switzerland's and stretched 210 years until the country joined NATO in 2024.
• Demographics By the end of 2025 about 35.7% of Sweden's population were foreign-born or had two foreign-born parents, with people born in Syria the single largest foreign-born group.