International student mobility Stockholm 2023/2024

Every year thousands of international students come to Stockholm’s 18 universities and university colleges, and every year we at Stockholms Akademiska Forum make a summary of international student mobility in Stockholm – How many imcoming students were there? How many outgoing students? And can we see any trends over time?

In the academic year 2023/2024, Stockholm’s 18 universities had a total of 12,300 incoming international students. Some were studying a full Master’s programme, some were here for a semester and some may have only studied a short course. Of these, 9,000 were free movers and 3,300 were exchange students. The total number increased by 7% compared to the previous academic year.

The largest groups of international students are from Germany, China, France, India, Italy and Finland, in that order. The number of students from China has increased by 22% since the previous academic year and, together with Germany, occupies a special position with almost twice as many students as the next country.

International students came from 87 different countries around the world. However, this is a significant decrease from the previous year when students came from 129 different countries.

On average, the proportion of international students at Stockholm’s higher education institutions is around 11%, but the proportion varies greatly between different universities and university colleges.

In the academic year 2023/2024, 1,920 people left Stockholm’s higher education institutions as exchange students. Although this is an increase of 8% compared to the previous academic year, the number of outgoing exchange students has remained fairly stable at between 1,700 and 1,900 over the past 10 years, excluding the pandemic years.

About half of outgoing exchange students go to other EU countries, and the trend is increasing. The main destinations are France, Italy, the USA, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany. Five years ago, the top five destinations were English-speaking countries (USA, Australia, Singapore and the UK), all of which have since experienced declining trends in the number of outgoing students from Stockholm.

In the 2023/2024 academic year, the number of outgoing students from Stockholm County was 4,070*, a decrease of 3% compared to the previous year and a decrease of 13% compared to five years ago. Of these, 650 (16%) study medicine abroad. Popular destinations are Latvia, Poland and Lithuania.

*This figure represents the number of people registered in Stockholm County who have received grants from The Swedish Board of Student Finance (CSN) for post-secondary studies abroad. It is therefore not fully comparable with other figures.