Emergency preparedness in Sweden: what you need at home
In November 2024, a booklet landed in Swedish letterboxes titled "Om krisen eller kriget kommer", "If crisis or war comes". If you're moving here from abroad, you'll read that title twice. In many countries, Germany among them, emergency preparedness is a topic for advice websites and prepper forums. In Sweden every household gets it in the post, without any great drama, in the same tone as a notice from the building management.
I moved from Berlin to Gothenburg in 2022, and at first I found this matter-of-factness almost unsettling. These days I mostly find it practical. Here's what the authorities expect, what you should really have at home, and why it matters when you're buying a house.
How it compares: tone and time frame
To give you a reference point, take Germany: the German federal civil protection office (BBK) recommends being able to look after yourself for up to ten days and says that even a supply for at least three days helps a lot. For drinking water it gives 1.5 litres per adult per day, plus 0.5 litres if you cook with water.
Sweden lands on similar figures, just framed differently. Krisinformation.se, the authorities' official portal, says: plan so that you can manage on your own for at least a week. This "en vecka" (one week) is the core of hemberedskap, home preparedness. As early as March 2022 the authority told the press that people should be able to cope on their own for about a week. The period is a planning figure: that's how long authorities and aid organisations may need before they can deliver again.
The difference lies less in the numbers than in the mindset. Sweden explicitly sees emergency preparedness as part of "totalförsvar", total defence, and addresses you as part of it. The motto of Beredskapsveckan (Preparedness Week) roughly translates as "You are part of Sweden's total defence".
A small side note: on 1 January 2026, MSB (the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency) became the Myndigheten för civilt försvar (MCF), the Swedish Civil Defence Agency. The task stayed the same; the website is now mcf.se. Older articles, including some guides, still refer to MSB.
The booklet and Beredskapsveckan
In March 2024 the government commissioned MSB to produce a new edition of "Om krisen eller kriget kommer". The reasons given were the serious security situation and Sweden joining NATO. The new edition came out in November 2024. It's also available digitally on mcf.se and krisinformation.se.
Once a year there's also Beredskapsveckan, a themed week held in week 39, led by MCF. In 2026 it ran from 21 to 27 September, as municipalities such as Kalix announced. It reliably falls in week 39; the exact dates for 2027 hadn't been set when this was written, but they'll be on mcf.se and on your kommun's (municipality's) website in good time. I use it as a good excuse to go through my own supplies once a year.
What you should have at home
The recommendations from krisinformation.se, without prepper gear:
- Water: at least three to five litres per person per day, for a week. That's considerably more than the 1.5 to 2 litres in the German recommendation.
- Food: things that keep and can be prepared without much water or energy, such as pasta, rice, cereals, tins of tomatoes, vegetables, fruit, ready meals.
- Warmth: a plan for keeping your home warm without electricity. Tiled stoves, open fireplaces and wood-burning stoves are mentioned, plus blankets.
- Radio: a set that runs on batteries, a solar cell or a hand crank. In an emergency, information goes out via Sveriges Radio P4.
- Cash: 1,000 kronor per adult in the household. That's the figure on krisinformation.se. Almost everywhere here you pay by card or Swish, but without power or a network connection, no card terminal works either.
- Medicines: if you take something regularly, you should have a month's supply.
- Light and power: candles, tealights, spare batteries and a power bank.
In my view, this isn't bunker logic. It's the list a camper has anyway. I would adapt it to where you live, though: if you live in a fourth-floor flat in Gothenburg, you need a different answer to "warmth" than someone in a house with a stove.
Alarms, Hesa Fredrik and VMA
The siren signal is called Hesa Fredrik ("Hoarse Fredrik"). It's tested four times a year, at 3 pm on the first Monday in March, June, September and December that isn't a public holiday. So the next test is on Monday 7 December 2026. As for the signal itself: seven seconds of sound, 14 seconds of pause, repeated six times. That means immediate danger to life or health. A continuous tone lasting 30 seconds means "Faran över", all clear.
If the siren sounds outside the test time: go inside, close windows, doors and ventilation, and switch on Sveriges Radio P4 or open krisinformation.se. That's where you'll get the VMA, "Viktigt meddelande till allmänheten" (important public announcement). It goes out in parallel on radio, TV, the website, the app, text message and sirens. There's also SE-Alert, a warning sent straight to your smartphone, for which you don't need to install anything. And there's the krisinformation.se app as well.
For you as a newcomer, that means: when the first test comes round in December, you won't be left standing in the street wondering what's going on. It's a test.
Skyddsrum: where the shelter is
According to krisinformation.se, Sweden has around 64,000 skyddsrum, public shelters with room for about seven million people. In everyday life they serve other purposes, and in a state of heightened alert they have to be made ready within two days. They protect against blast waves and fragments from a bomb nearby and against gases, radiation and biological agents, but not necessarily against a direct hit.
You don't have an assigned place. The instruction is: go to the nearest one, and if that's full, to the next. Municipalities such as Mark say explicitly that there aren't shelters for the whole population.
You can see which shelters are near you on MCF's Skyddsrumskarta (shelter map) at mcf.se. Check once where the nearest one to your home is, and remember the way. That's all it takes. A city like Gothenburg also has so-called trygghetspunkter, meeting points that can provide water, warmth and information in a crisis. They don't replace a house full of supplies, but they're good to know about.
For house buyers: heating, water, electricity
This is where the topic connects with what this site is about. The authorities explicitly name tiled stoves, fireplaces and wood-burning stoves as sources of heat without electricity. When you're buying a house, that means:
A vedspis (wood-fired cooker), fireplace or tiled stove isn't a romantic extra, it's your plan B. When buying, ask whether the stove is approved and has been swept regularly, as I describe in my article on chimney sweeping and sotning. A stove nobody has looked at for years won't help you in January.
Your own well: most pumps run on electricity. Without power, no water comes out of the tap at first, even if the well is full. That's my own technical conclusion, not a quote from the authorities: before you buy, think about how you'll get water if the pump stops. Everything else about wells and wastewater is in my article on egen brunn and enskilt avlopp (private well and private sewage).
Fjärrvärme (district heating) or your own heating system: district heating takes the work off your hands. But whether your house stays warm during a power cut also depends on the controls and pumps in the house. Ask the supplier and the seller specifically about this before you assume it'll just keep working.
Generator: a backup generator can make sense, especially for a pump, the fridge and the heating controls. I'm deliberately not giving any power ratings here; they depend on your house and are a question for an electrician.
Remote locations on the coast: if you buy a house there, plan for power cuts. It stands to reason that a remote location will wait longer for repairs after a fault than the city; I haven't found any reliable public statistics on this and so I'm not giving numbers. How to approach buying a house there is covered in my article on buying a summer house in Bohuslän.
Insurance: read in your policy what happens in a power cut, for example with spoiled frozen food. That's a question for your insurer; I'm not making any claim about what's standard. More on this in my article on villaförsäkring (house insurance). The whole process is covered in my article on buying a house in Sweden.
What I'd leave you with
Start with three things: water for a week, a radio that works without a socket, and one look at the shelter map. The rest can follow over the coming months. I find the Swedish approach more relaxed than the German one, because it's sober. Nobody asks you to be afraid, only to manage for a week without help.
Buying a house in Sweden: practical guide, the in-depth guide on this topic, is currently available in German: view it in the shop.
I'm Sebastian Schiefner, a photographer in Gothenburg, and I help people who are moving to West Sweden with finding a home and buying property. Free intro call.
