Wednesday, September 24 | 2025
1. Overstaying your welcome
Swedish parking attendants are meticulous when it comes to time. If you have paid for two hours of parking, you will not be forgiven if you leave the parking stop after two hours and one minute of parking. There is no grace period.
Be wary of the P sign. A white P on a blue background stands for fri parkering. Fri doesn’t mean ‘free’ here; it only means you are allowed to park. Look out for other signs labelled Avgift (‘fee’) so that you don’t miss out on paying. Notably, the P sign, if not otherwise stated, means that you can park in one spot for 24 hours only. If you stay longer, you are risking a fine.
2. Assuming it’s the same every day
Due to snow clearing, many Swedish towns employ a system of datumparkering (‘date parking’). These may be applicable all year round or during the colder months. There are several ways of organising this. For example, you may have a system where you can park on the side of the street with even-numbered house numbers on even-numbered dates and vice versa. You also have a system where parking is prohibited on a particular street on a specific weekday.
By making sure a whole street or one side of the street is clear of cars on a bi-daily or weekly basis, snow clearance can be done adequately, which is a necessity for several months of the year. However, the rules also apply on days when there is no snow. Always read the signs carefully before parking, and remember that the date format on such signs are DD/MM, so 1/11 means 1 November, and 11/1 means 1 January (January 1, for the Americans).
3. Interpreting a lack of signs as an invitation to park
One thing you will rarely see in Sweden is a sign with parkering förbjuden (‘Parking prohibited’) written on it. This doesn’t mean that parking is not prohibited. Instead, if you are looking for somewhere to park in an urban area, you will need to look for the P sign — fri parkering — ‘available parking’.
When it comes to street parking, you should look out for a round blue sign with a diagonal red line crossing it. This sign is called Förbud mot att parkera fordon, and it makes parking, but not stopping, unallowed. If the sign has two red lines crossing each other, you can’t even stop your vehicle.
4. Assuming you will get help to get out of the snow
Snow and ice are not an exception in the Nordics. Such climatic phenomena are an issue that you will need to deal with, especially for street parking. On a snowy day, snow ploughs will clear the street on a regular basis, creating a snow bank parallel to the line of cars parked on the side of the street. If you return to your car planning to drive, you will not be able to leave the spot until you have cleared the snow between your vehicle and the street. Always keep a shovel in your trunk, and be prepared to use it. Also, the unwritten rules for clearing snow and disposing of it should be followed so that it does not create a nuisance for fellow drivers or pedestrians.
5. Not paying your fine on time
Unfortunately, most of us will receive a parking ticket at some point. Although the exact fee is decided on a municipal level, many international drivers report that it is higher or much higher than the equivalent in other countries. You may want to appeal the decision or ignore the ticket, but be careful. If you look closely at the ticket, you usually have only a few days before the payment is due, and if you haven’t paid in time, the ticket will be swiftly referred to debt collectors. This may result in you having a higher fee, and it also affects your credit score, which may have negative consequences for the future, for example, if you are planning to get a mortgage.
Even if you believe you have a chance to appeal, do pay your fine on time. If your appeal is approved (which it’s not likely to be, by the way), you will be refunded.
BONUS - Believing your ignorance will save you
The truth is harsh, but claiming that you don’t know the rules or didn’t understand the parking signs will not save you from being fined. It is your responsibility to learn and know all the laws that apply to driving and parking. If unsure, consult fellow drivers, learn the signs in the Körkortsboken på engelska, and read Driving in Sweden: The A–Z Guide.
Driving in Sweden: The A-Z Guide
What driving-related issues do you need to think about when you are new in Sweden, visiting for a holiday, or planning a road trip? This practical guide is designed to help you and you car navigate Sweden’s 215,000 roads, 16,000 bridges, 39 ferry crossings, and 40,000 billion parking rules.
