Moving from Sweden to Spain with family

The year 2023 marked a period of big change for our family, as it was the year we finally moved from Sweden to Spain.

This move was the culmination of a long-held dream and extensive planning by my wife and me. I am sharing our journey here to offer insights and guidance to anyone planning a similar move.

Our adventure began in 2022, inspired by a popular UK TV show titled "A Place in the Sun." This famous show helps house hunters find their dream holiday home in the sun. It may seem somewhat whimsical to drastically alter your life and move your family to another country based on a TV show, and that's exactly what we did. However, the TV show was just an inspiration, not the main reason.

Scandinavian Dream

Our story starts in 2012 when we moved from Slovenia to Sweden. Before moving there, we long admired Scandinavian countries for their progressive societies, based on humanity, inclusion and equality. Moving to one of those countries was a dream. Over the next 11 years we spent in Sweden, our small family gladly embraced the Scandinavian way of life. 

My wife and I both secured stable jobs, bought some properties, started a small business, our children thrived in school and made wonderful friends, and we were generally content. We got everything we hoped for and more, by moving to Sweden.

Summers in Sweden are magnificent and can feel almost magical. Warm, long days that seem to have no end. During summer in Stockholm it never gets really dark. Nights have bluish colour and last only a couple of hours. Visiting rural parts of Sweden in the summer, with endless fields of grass, butterflies everywhere, warm Sun washing everything with its glow, green forests and blue skies, makes you feel like you entered a fairytale land.

However, winters are a different story. And it was not the cold that bothered me, it was something else.

Swedish Winters

Initially, I didn't perceive any significant impact, but over years, the long periods of darkness during winters gradually took their toll. Stockholm, where we used to live, experiences very short days during the winter months due to its high latitude. On average, the amount of sunlight during the winter can be quite limited. Around the winter solstice in December, Stockholm only gets about 6 hours of daylight. 

However, the actual sunlight received can be much less due to frequent overcast conditions. From late November through January, the city typically averages only between 1 to 2 hours of direct sunlight per day. 

As time progressed, I found the extended, dark winter months increasingly difficult to endure. They significantly influenced my mood and energy levels. During these periods, I often felt lethargic, struggling to find the energy for daily tasks or exercise. Ironically, exercise is a key factor in combating these low moods, but starting was always the hardest part. Encouraging each other, my wife and I used to take daily long walks, which proved to be quite beneficial.

Later I learned that this condition has a name, it is called “Seasonal affective disorder” and it is well known and researched. The only real remedy is - more sunlight. So you have to either buy some special artificial lamps which emit light in the same spectrum as sunlight, or you can take a long vacation to some sunny destination.

During that time, we often thought about retiring in Spain someday. But experiencing these winter related challenges made us wonder: why not move to Spain sooner rather than later? Why wait another 10 or 15 years when no one knows what the future brings ? At first, this idea was a bit frightening, but it was also thrilling. Gradually, we began to think about it more seriously.

The Serendipity Moment

Sometimes in life certain events happen just when you need them, as if the universe is listening to your plans and nudging you the right way. Or maybe we start noticing things we didn't see before, once they become important to us and we pay more attention?

Either way, a big moment for us was when we found out, just by chance, that Stockholm regularly hosts a real estate fair for buying properties in other countries. We went to this fair for the first time in October 2022 and then again in February 2023. I can strongly recommend this fair to anyone living in Sweden right now. There you will get a lot of valuable information about other countries like France, Turkey, Thailand, Italy to name a few. 

Attending this fair helped us learn all we needed to know about the process of buying property in Spain, details about taxes and laws, important rules when leaving Sweden and valuable hints about settling in other countries. At that time we were considering both Spain and Portugal as possible destinations.

Spain or Portugal?

Writing about this right now, I really feel blessed and grateful to even find myself in a situation where I can choose a place to live. Many do not have such freedom and I was also once in such a position for a very long time. That gives me a valuable perspective to cherish and appreciate these circumstances.  

Back in 2022 Portugal seemed like a much better option than Spain, at least on a first glance. For digital nomads like us, Portugal was offering one big incentive - a special income tax benefit, where one would pay only 20% income taxes for the next 10 years. And no income tax on any foreign sourced income. This programme is called NHR or “Non-Habitual Residence”, follow the link if you want to learn more about it.

After doing an extensive research about both countries I discovered one big issue with Portugal - real estate prices there have doubled in the last few years and have become much higher than in Spain. This was one negative consequence of the NHR programme. Crypto was booming for a few years and Portugal had 0% tax on crypto at that time. For that reason a lot of people who made their wealth in crypto decided to move to Portugal, buying properties there as investments, and raising prices for everyone. 

Then we also learned about one additional benefit in Spain, called “Beckham law”. This turned out to be quite beneficial since it applied also to digital nomads like us.

After considering all those aspects and a lot of thinking and brainstorming, we have chosen Spain over Portugal eventually. And so far, it turned out to be a great decision.

Planning the move

Moving permanently to another country is not an easy task, even if you are alone. It is much more demanding when you have family, a couple of kids who go to school, job, small business and you own a house. In that situation you have to research and plan two projects simultaneously: first, how to exit one country and close all affairs in the correct way, and second, how to enter another country in the right way, how to transfer all your possessions, and how to prepare a “soft landing” there.

Leaving Sweden in the right way generated a long list of tasks:: 

• Selling our house (in one of worst markets ever!)

• Discovering what to take with us and what to sell (memories vs. clutter) 

• Selling excess stuff (“Blocket” is your friend!)

• Cancelling car leasing (a very painful lesson!)

• Renting a storage in Stockholm (some good tips coming!)

• Finding a cargo transfer company (went better than we thought)

• Closing our small business (closing “Aktiebolag” in Sweden can be done very fast or very slow; hint: “snabbavveckling”)

• Informing government agencies about the move (you do not want to miss that!)

Coming to Spain and settling was also not a walk in the park. Here are most important steps we had to take: 

• Choosing the right area to live in Spain (this is what matters the most!)

• Choosing the right school for kids (public, semi-private or private?)

• Finding a lawyer to help us with the process

• Registering at the municipality

• Getting digital certificates

• Finding a “short term” apartment to rent (that was a hustle!)

• Getting a “long term” contract to rent (this one was really tricky!)

• Renting a storage

• Opening bank accounts as foreigners

• Getting mobile phone contracts

• Buying a car as a foreigner

• Getting a health insurance, a car insurance and a company insurance

• Starting a new small business in Spain (new “Sociedad Limitada”!)

• Getting “Beckham” - a special tax regime

Going through these long lists now really amazes me. It makes me realise how much work had to be done to get here. What really helps with this type of life change is that you always underestimate the effort. If we had known how much work there would be, maybe we wouldn’t have even started with the move, who knows? But now, looking back at everything we've accomplished so far, I can only feel proud and glad that we've made it.

Thank you for taking the time to read through to the end of this newsletter. Your continued interest and support are greatly appreciated.

In following newsletters I will expand more in detail about all steps involved in leaving Sweden and settling in Spain. 

Let me know in the comments if you want to hear more about any specific details.