How to move to Sweden and become a Swedish citizen

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Alison Gerber, an American living in Sweden, recently posted a lengthy Twitter thread about what life is like in the small country’s “socialist nanny-state hellscape.”

That is, if a hellscape includes top-notch healthcare, low (or non-existent) childcare costs, and rapid service to deliver it all. The thread, published yesterday, has gone viral — especially among FOMO-filled Americans.

“I don’t remember anything at all about the costs,” Gerber wrote of her experience giving birth in a Swedish hospital, “because there were none, basically. Mothers’ and children’s’ health care is free. We did have to pay for gas to get to that faraway hippy hospital, so that’s probably like $40 round trip.”

She also describes the free, open-access facilities filled with kids’ toys, books, and trained staff that parents and their children can visit together, and the $125 child allowance she gets in her bank account each month.

True to Gerber’s descriptions, the idyllic land boasts some of the happiest people on earth, thanks to the country’s egalitarian values, paid parental leave policies, single-payer healthcare system, and breathtaking scenery — all of which leads thousands of people to immigrate each year.

Applying for citizenship requires you to live in the country for five years and have a “proven” identity — which also means you’d have to adjust to wintertime darkness.

For those who weren’t born there, here’s how you become a Swede.