Published 30 September 2024 at 13.46
Domestic. The Swedish Transport Agency wants to be able to deny the exchange of foreign EEA driving licenses into Swedish. The authority is now submitting a petition to change the law to the government to put an end to the so-called driving license tourism.
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— We want people with Swedish driving licenses to have the necessary knowledge and practical skills to drive the vehicles for which you have a driver's license, says Jonas Bjelfvenstam, director general at the Swedish Transport Agency.
During the year, the Swedish Transport Agency has made a comprehensive analysis of a large number of applications for the exchange of foreign driving licenses from countries within the EEA area for Swedish driving licences. The results show clear indications that people who are registered in Sweden go to other countries within the EEA to get a driver's license from a third country exchanged for a European driver's license. Several other European countries have more liberal exchange rules than Sweden.
When the European driver's license is issued, the person returns to Sweden and requests the exchange of the European driver's license for a Swedish driver's license. The Swedish Transport Agency cannot currently refuse an exchange if the person meets the formal requirements, i.e. has a valid EEA driving license and is permanently resident in Sweden. During 2023, approximately 15,000 exchanges from a foreign to a Swedish driving license were carried out. An estimated 90 percent of these were exchanges from another EEA country. The analysis shows that close to 24 percent of the exchanged EEA driving licenses originated from a driving license issued in a third country.
— Based on the results, we can state that around 3,000 people in Sweden may have received a Swedish driver's license last year without having proven their skills through a driving test in Europe. This means that there is some uncertainty about the person's competence to drive vehicles safely. We want to see measures to be able to reduce that uncertainty, says Jonas Bjelfvenstam.
According to the Swedish Transport Agency's proposal, an exchange for a Swedish driver's license from a driver's license from other EEA countries originating in a third country will only be accepted in three cases:
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* If the driving license is issued after a passed driving test (knowledge test and driving test) in a state within the EEA.
* If the driving license is issued after exchanging a driving license originally issued in the Faroe Islands, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Japan or Switzerland. (These are countries Sweden already has bilateral exchange agreements with today.)
* If the driver's license holder had their driver's license in an EEA country for at least five years before he or she permanently settled in Sweden.
If such a rule change is introduced, the authority's assessment is that driver's license tourism as it looks today will be made significantly more difficult.
The Swedish Transport Agency has previously introduced several measures to prevent exchanges from taking place on incorrect grounds. Despite this, the authority's analysis shows that driver's license tourism continues and the assessment is that there is currently nothing to indicate that the problem will decrease or disappear. The conclusion is therefore that a change in the law is needed to stop driver's license tourism.
— Sweden is one of the world's safest countries and the safety of our roads comes first. We see significant traffic safety risks here and it is urgent to counteract the risks in order to avoid more deaths and injuries in traffic, says Jonas Bjelfvenstam.