Wouter(32)

I worked six years as a software engineer at a scale-up in Amsterdam. The salary was good, but the work pressure was enormous. Every weekend I was exhausted. When I received an offer from a Swedish fintech in Stockholm, I didn't hesitate for a moment. The Scandinavian tech scene had been on my radar for years — Spotify, Klarna, King — all born in Stockholm.

The first thing you need to do as an EU citizen in Sweden is register with Skatteverket, the Swedish tax authority. That sounds simple, but without a personnummer — the Swedish equivalent of a social security number — you can do almost nothing. No opening a bank account, no phone subscription, no signing a rental contract. My employer helped me enormously with the application. After about five weeks I had my personnummer, and then everything suddenly moved fast.

BankID is the next big thing. In the Netherlands you have DigiD, in Sweden you have BankID. You need it for literally everything: tax returns, picking up packages at PostNord, registering with your doctor. Without BankID you're digitally invisible. I applied for it as soon as my Swedish bank account at Handelsbanken was active.

The tech scene in Stockholm is incredible. There are meetups and conferences almost every week. The startup culture is different from Amsterdam — less rush, more structure, and a strong focus on sustainability. My team truly works nine to five. Working overtime isn't admired here, it's discouraged. The first months that felt strange, now I wouldn't want it any other way.

Living in Stockholm isn't cheap. The bostadskö — the queue for rental apartments — has waiting times of ten to twenty years. I rent via an andrahandskontrakt, a type of sublease, which many expats do. It costs me about 14,000 SEK per month for a one-bedroom apartment in Södermalm. Buying is an option, but Swedish mortgage rules are strict: maximum 85% financing and you must amortize.

What I value most is the balance. In summer it's light until eleven at night and everyone heads to the skärgården — the archipelago off the coast — after work. In winter it's dark, but then comes the coziness: mys, candlelight, kanelbullar during fika. After two years, Stockholm feels like home. The quiet strength of Sweden suits me.