A first-hand contract (förstahandskontrakt) is a lease held directly with the landlord — a housing company, a private owner, or a housing association. A second-hand contract (andrahandskontrakt) is a sublease: someone who already holds a first-hand contract, or owns the flat outright, rents it out to someone else, usually for a fixed period. The difference shapes rent, security, and how long someone can expect to stay.
What does a first-hand contract actually mean?
A förstahandskontrakt is signed with the party that owns or manages the property — a municipal housing company, a private landlord, or, for a cooperative flat (bostadsrätt), the owner acting as landlord. It is generally open-ended, with no set end date, and it carries the strongest protection under Swedish tenancy law, the Hyreslagen (chapter 12 of Jordabalken, the Land Code). Rent for first-hand contracts on rental-only buildings is set through negotiation between landlords and the tenants’ union, a process known as bruksvärdessystemet, or the “use value” system, rather than by open market pricing.
In Stockholm, first-hand contracts for rental apartments are largely distributed through the municipal housing queue, run by Bostadsförmedlingen i Stockholm, where waiting time — not income or application speed — determines who is offered a flat. That queue and how it functions is covered in detail in how the Stockholm housing queue works.
What is a second-hand contract?
An andrahandskontrakt exists when the first-hand tenant, or a bostadsrätt owner, rents the flat to someone else instead of living in it. This is legal in Sweden, but it requires permission — from the landlord for a rental flat, or from the housing association’s board (bostadsrättsföreningens styrelse) for a cooperative apartment. Permission is usually tied to a stated reason: work or study elsewhere, a trial period living with a partner, or a posting abroad, and it is normally granted for a defined period rather than indefinitely.
Rent for a second-hand let is capped by law relative to the first-hand tenant’s own costs, plus a reasonable allowance for furniture or other extras, and disputes over what counts as “reasonable” can be brought before Hyresnämnden, the regional rent tribunal. In practice, oversight of pricing on second-hand lets is far looser than official rules suggest, and complaints about overcharging are common in reporting by the Swedish Tenants’ Union, Hyresgästföreningen.
Why does Stockholm run on so much second-hand renting?
Because first-hand contracts through the municipal queue can take years to reach, a large share of people renting in the city — students, recent arrivals, those between housing situations — end up on second-hand or third-hand contracts (subletting from another subtenant) instead. Bostadsförmedlingen i Stockholm and the City of Stockholm have both published queue-time figures showing multi-year waits for centrally located first-hand contracts, though the exact figure moves and should be checked on the operator’s own site rather than assumed. The imbalance between demand and first-hand supply is one of the defining features of housing in the city, discussed more broadly on the living in Stockholm hub.
This also affects where people end up. Waiting lists are shorter for buildings further from the centre, which is one reason the split between the inner city and the wider suburbs matters practically, not just geographically — a distinction laid out in how Stockholm’s inner city differs from its suburbs and in the account of the Million Programme suburbs built specifically to expand housing supply from the 1960s onward.
How does the queue relate to first-hand vs second-hand status?
Queue time (kötid) with Bostadsförmedlingen only accrues toward first-hand contracts distributed through that system — time spent living in a second-hand flat does not itself convert into a first-hand offer. Registering and accumulating queue points is a separate, parallel process to whatever contract someone is actually living under at a given moment, which is why long-term Stockholm residents often register in the queue years before they expect to need a new flat. The mechanics of registering, renewing, and using queue points are set out step by step in the site’s explainer on how the housing queue works.
A Swedish personal identity number, a personnummer, is generally required to register in the queue and to sign most contracts, since it is how landlords, banks, and municipal systems verify identity. What that number is and who needs one is explained separately in what a personnummer is and what it’s needed for.
What protections does a second-hand tenant actually have?
Fewer than a first-hand tenant, but more than none. Swedish law gives second-hand tenants a right to a written contract, a right to challenge rent that exceeds the legal cap through Hyresnämnden, and — depending on how long the sublet has run — some protection against being asked to leave without notice. It does not give a right to take over the first-hand contract when the sublease ends, and it does not give the queue time that a first-hand contract would.
Hyresgästföreningen, the national tenants’ union, publishes guidance on what a second-hand contract must contain and how to challenge an unreasonable rent, and its advice is generally treated as the practical reference point for tenants navigating a dispute, since it represents tenants directly in negotiations with landlords nationally.
What should someone check before signing either kind of contract?
- Whether the person offering the sublet actually holds a valid first-hand contract or ownership of the flat, and whether the landlord or housing association has approved the sublet.
- Whether the contract states a clear end date or notice period, and whether rent is described as inclusive of specific costs (heating, internet, a parking space) rather than left vague.
- Whether a deposit is being requested — Swedish rental law does not require one for first-hand contracts, and a large upfront cash deposit on a second-hand let is one of the more common features of informal or unregulated arrangements described in tenants’-union guidance.
- Whether the rent is within a defensible range of what the first-hand tenant themselves pays, since large mark-ups are the most frequent basis for a successful complaint to Hyresnämnden.
Does any of this affect a short-term visitor to Stockholm?
Directly, no — short stays for tourism are a different market from these residential contracts, governed by separate rules around short-term letting rather than the Hyreslagen. But the same housing pressure that produces heavy demand for second-hand contracts also shapes which neighbourhoods have more short-term flats available and which are almost entirely long-term residential, a distinction worth understanding when reading about how Stockholm’s districts differ as places to live rather than places to visit.
Visitors planning where to stay, rather than where to rent, are better served by the practical planning material gathered under Stockholm practical and the wider planning and practicalities archive, which cover transport, timing, and logistics rather than tenancy law.
Why does this distinction matter for understanding the city, not just for renting in it?
The first-hand/second-hand split explains a good deal of how Stockholm actually functions day to day: why queue time is treated as a form of currency among residents, why so many people move flats every year or two rather than settling long-term, and why conversations about housing dominate discussion of the city among people who live there far more than among visitors. It is one of the clearest ways the city’s practical structure differs from its postcard image, and it sits alongside other everyday mechanics — the metro’s zones, the housing queue, the personnummer system — covered across the Living in Stockholm archive for anyone trying to understand the city as a place people actually live, not only visit.
Access Stockholm is an independent guide written from published, checkable sources. We have not visited the places described here and we do not publish personal recommendations or invented ‘local favourites’ — where something is singled out as notable, we say who says so. Opening times, fares, closures and prices change at short notice, so treat everything here as a starting point and confirm with the museum, operator or venue directly before building a day around it. We give no advice on visas, insurance, health or safety; use your own government’s official guidance for those.
Featured image: Photo by Holger.Ellgaard, source, CC BY-SA 3.0
