Fjärrvärme in Sweden: check the heating costs before you buy
When you buy a house in Germany, where I come from, you ask about gas or oil, the age of the boiler and the energy certificate. In Sweden the questions are different. Oil or gas is something I almost never read in the property descriptions I get to see. Instead you'll find words like fjärrvärme, bergvärme or luft/vatten. Behind them are very different running costs, and those help decide how much you can realistically bid.
Every year I photograph several hundred properties for estate agents in Gothenburg and along the west coast. The heating is one of the details I find in almost every property description, and in my experience it's also one that buyers from abroad most often skip at viewings. This article explains what district heating is, what it costs in Gothenburg and how to estimate a house's heating costs before you place your first bid.
What fjärrvärme is and how common it is
Fjärrvärme is district heating: an energy company produces hot water centrally and pumps it through an underground network of pipes to the buildings connected to it. Inside the house sits a fjärrvärmecentral, a heat exchanger that passes the heat on to your radiators and your hot water. You don't need a burner, a tank or a chimney for it.
In Sweden it is the standard form of heating. According to the industry association Energiföretagen Sverige, roughly half of all heat comes from district heating; in blocks of flats the share is around 90 per cent, and in single-family houses (småhus) it is lowest. The official statistics from Energimyndigheten (the Swedish Energy Agency) confirm the picture: in 2024, 23.15 of the 25.89 TWh of energy used for heating and hot water in blocks of flats came from district heating.
What that means for you: if you buy a flat, district heating is almost the norm. If you buy a house (villa), it's one of several options, and often not the most common one.
District heating in Gothenburg: where the heat comes from
Gothenburg is one of Sweden's district-heating cities. Göteborg Energi, the municipal utility, states that its heat reaches 90 per cent of the blocks of flats in the city, plus around 10,000 houses. The company describes the network as 100 mil long, about 1,000 kilometres.
Where the heat comes from is interesting. For 2025, Göteborg Energi reports that 74 per cent came from recovered energy, including 31 per cent industrial waste heat (from the refineries, among others) and 23 per cent from waste incineration in combined heat and power. A further 25 per cent comes from renewable sources such as biofuels, and the fossil share is under one per cent. According to Göteborg Energi, since 2025 all of its district heating has come from recovered or renewable energy.
Outside Gothenburg it's a different picture. In my experience from many viewings on the coast and the islands, most houses there are heated with a heat pump, electricity or wood, simply because there's no district heating network nearby. Only the local utility can tell you whether a connection is possible.
What district heating costs a house owner in Gothenburg in 2026
Göteborg Energi publishes a standard price list for private customers. It has two parts: a variable energy price and a fixed network charge. The prices for 2026, including VAT:
| Component | Price 2026 |
|---|---|
| Energy, June to August | 13 öre/kWh |
| Energy, May and September | 36 öre/kWh |
| Energy, October to April | 94 öre/kWh |
| Nätavgift (network charge) | 374 kr/month |
| Hyra (rent), if you rent the heat exchanger unit | 345 kr/month |
Two things stand out. First, in winter you pay many times the summer price, and that's exactly when you use the most. Second, there's the rental charge for the fjärrvärmecentral. Find out before you buy whether the unit belongs to the seller or is rented, because that's a difference of over 4,000 kr a year.
Göteborg Energi gives its own worked examples: with an annual consumption of 10,000 kWh and your own unit, the estimated annual cost for 2026 is 13,014 kr; at 15,000 kWh it's 17,276 kr. For 2027 the company has already announced a 3.7 per cent adjustment to the standard price list. The winter price will then rise to 97.5 öre/kWh and the network charge to 388 kr/month.
For comparison with blocks of flats: the annual Nils Holgersson report, which compares running costs for a standardised block of flats, gives Gothenburg 197 kr per square metre per year for 2025. The average across the places surveyed was 236.4 kr/m². So Gothenburg is one of the cheaper district-heating cities.
The heating types in a listing compared
In the agent's property description, the type of heating is usually listed under "Uppvärmning". These are the terms you'll come across most often:
| In the listing | What it is | What to look out for |
|---|---|---|
| Fjärrvärme | District heating from the municipal network | Own or rented unit, consumption over the last few years |
| Bergvärme | Ground-source heat pump with a borehole in the garden | Age of the heat pump, documentation of the borehole |
| Luft/vatten-värmepump | Air-to-water heat pump, feeds the radiators | Age, condition of the outdoor unit |
| Luft/luft-värmepump | Air-to-air heat pump, blows warm air into one room | Often only heats part of the house |
| Direktverkande el | Electric radiators or electric underfloor heating | No water-based system in place |
| Pellets | Pellet boiler with storage | Storage space, effort, chimney-sweeping obligation |
The most important term isn't actually in this table: vattenburen värme, water-based heating with radiators or underfloor heating. District heating, ground-source and air-to-water heat pumps all need a system like this. Göteborg Energi states explicitly that a house needs a water-based heating system for district heating. So a house with only direct electric heating can't simply be switched over. Pipes and radiators have to go in first.
With pellets, fireplaces and wood stoves, you also have the municipal chimney-sweeping obligation. I've described what that involves in the article on sotning when you buy a house.
How to read the energideklaration
When a building is sold, the Swedish Act on Energy Performance Certificates for Buildings (2006:985) requires the owner to make sure an energideklaration (energy performance certificate) is in place. It must be shown to prospective buyers and handed over to the new owner after the sale. A certificate can be used for ten years after it was issued. If it already exists when the property is advertised, the energy performance has to be stated in the listing. According to Hemnet, that's why you'll often find the energy class and energy performance directly in the listing. How to read the rest of a listing is covered in my article on Hemnet listings.
The energy classes run from A to G, with A standing for the lowest energy use. The benchmark is what would be permitted for a new build today: class A means at most 50 per cent of that, class G more than 235 per cent.
What it tells you:
- Energy performance in kWh per square metre per year. This is the most meaningful figure for comparing two houses.
- The type of heating, as it was installed when the certificate was issued.
- Recommended measures (åtgärdsförslag). This is where an energy expert sets out what they think makes sense, such as extra insulation or a change of heating system.
- The date. A certificate that's almost ten years old may describe a heating system that was replaced long ago.
The certificate has one limit: it assesses the building, not your future bill. What you actually pay depends on the tariff, how you live and how many people live in the house.
Estimating heating costs before you bid: how I go about it
In my experience from many viewings, almost every house listing states an annual driftkostnad, the running costs given by the seller. That figure is a start, but no guarantee. It's based on the previous occupants' consumption. Here's how to get a more reliable picture:
- Ask for the actual consumption. District heating is billed per kWh, so the seller can give you the consumption from their bills. Two or three years will show you whether a mild winter is flattering the figure.
- Recalculate the consumption at the current tariff. With Göteborg Energi's examples you can roughly place where the house sits. Check whether the unit is rented.
- Compare with the energideklaration. If the stated consumption differs a lot from the energy performance, ask. Perhaps the house was partly empty, perhaps an extra fireplace was helping with the heating.
- Think about how you'll use the house. A family of four working from home uses more hot water and heat than a retired couple who spend the winter elsewhere.
- Ask to be shown the heating at the viewing. Age of the unit or heat pump, service records, condition of the radiators. That's part of your duty to inspect as a buyer.
The heating costs you arrive at this way belong in your overall calculation before you enter the bidding process. What the other running costs in Sweden look like is covered in my overview of the cost of living.
Bostadsrätt: the heating is usually in the avgift
If you buy a flat as a bostadsrätt, you usually don't pay Göteborg Energi for the heating yourself. Typically the association pays for the heat for the whole building, and the cost is part of your monthly avgift. HSB explicitly lists heating as one of the items the fee is used for. The energideklaration also covers the whole building here and is held by the association.
That doesn't make things simpler, it just shifts the question. If district heating prices go up, sooner or later the avgift goes up. So look in the association's annual report to see how high the heating costs are and how they've developed. How to scrutinise an association as a whole is explained in my article on checking a bostadsrättsförening.
Retrofitting district heating: realistic or not?
Many buyers consider connecting a house with direct electric or old heating to district heating later on. In Gothenburg that's an expensive option. Göteborg Energi quotes prices from 270,000 kr to connect a single house, provided there are already pipes nearby. If several houses are connected at the same time, it can be cheaper. On top of that, you may need to install a water-based system.
Before you factor a conversion like that into your purchase price, get a quote and check what subsidies might be available. How the ROT deduction for tradespeople's work works is explained in the article on ROT and RUT. You'll find the whole buying process in the guide to buying a house in Sweden.
If you have a specific property on the west coast in your sights and would like a second opinion on the heating, the listing or the documents, take a look at my consulting page.
