Sweden is home to one of the Nordic region’s largest Albanian communities. Most trace their roots to Kosovo, with families from North Macedonia and Albania, and their story runs from a handful of labor migrants in the 1960s to the refugees of the Kosovo War and a confident Swedish-born generation today, one that includes football star Kosovare Asllani. This guide covers how many Albanians live in Sweden, where they came from, where they live, and the community they have built.
It is part of our Albanians Around the World series.
Quick Facts: Albanians in Sweden
- Population: 23,654 residents born in Kosovo or Albania (Statistics Sweden, end of 2024). The community is larger: that figure leaves out Swedish-born descendants and Kosovo Albanians who arrived before 2008 and are still recorded under Yugoslavia. A conservative estimate from the official figures: about 30,600 to 36,300 people of Albanian origin (method shown below).
- Largest region: Skåne County in the far south, around Malmö, with 6,202 residents born in Kosovo or Albania, about 26 percent of the total.
- Main origins: Kosovo (by far the largest), western North Macedonia, and Albania.
- Where they live: Skåne (Malmö), Stockholm, and Västra Götaland (Gothenburg).
- Famous connection: Sweden women’s national team star Kosovare Asllani is of Kosovo Albanian origin.
On This Page
- How Many Albanians Live in Sweden?
- A Conservative Estimate, and How It Is Built
- Where They Come From
- How the Community Was Built
- The Diaspora and Kosovo’s Cause
- Where Albanians Live in Sweden
- Community and Everyday Life
- Frequently Asked Questions
How Many Albanians Live in Sweden?
Sweden does not record ethnicity, so there is no official count of Albanians. What Statistics Sweden does publish is country of birth: at the end of 2024, 23,654 residents had been born in Kosovo (12,891) or Albania (10,763). That is a floor, not a total. It leaves out Swedish-born children and grandchildren, Albanians born in North Macedonia, and Kosovo Albanians who arrived before 2008, who are still recorded under Yugoslavia.
What sets Sweden apart from much of the diaspora is where the community settled. The largest concentration is not in the capital but in the far south, in Skåne County around Malmö, home to 6,202 residents born in Kosovo or Albania, about 26 percent of the national total. Stockholm County follows with 5,725, and Västra Götaland, around Gothenburg, with 4,980. The two groups settled differently: most Albania-born residents live in Stockholm County, while the Kosovo-born are concentrated in Skåne and Västra Götaland. Smaller communities live in Halland, Jönköping, and across the rest of the country.
A Conservative Estimate, and How It Is Built
A conservative estimate from the official figures: about 30,600 to 36,300 people of Albanian origin in Sweden. This is an estimate, not an official figure. Sweden does not record ethnicity, so we build the range from Statistics Sweden’s published counts and state every assumption.
| Group | Official count (end of 2025) | Share counted as Albanian | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Born in Albania, plus Swedish-born with two Albania-born parents | 13,140 | All | 13,140 |
| Born in Kosovo, plus Swedish-born with two Kosovo-born parents | 15,607 | 90.79 percent, the Albanian share in Kosovo’s 2024 census | 14,170 |
| Born in North Macedonia, plus Swedish-born with two parents born there | 13,588 | 24.3 to 66 percent (see below) | 3,302 to 8,968 |
| Total | 30,612 to 36,278 |
The North Macedonia range runs from the Albanian share of that country’s resident population in its 2021 census (24.3 percent) to the Albanian share among citizens living abroad who took part in the same census (about 66 percent). The second figure is our own arithmetic from the published totals: Albanians were 29.52 percent of all 2,097,319 people counted and 24.3 percent of the 1,836,713 residents, which leaves about 173,000 Albanians among the 260,606 people counted abroad.
What the range leaves out. Kosovo Albanians who arrived before Kosovo declared independence in 2008 are still recorded as born in Yugoslavia, a category of 58,757 people in 2025 that Statistics Sweden does not divide by ethnicity, and another 30,921 Swedish-born residents have two parents born there. Children with only one parent from these countries, the third generation, and Albanians from Montenegro or Serbia are also outside the count. The real community is therefore likely to be larger than our range, but we do not put a number on what cannot be measured.
Last reviewed: September 18, 2026. Inputs: Statistics Sweden, population by country of birth and by parents’ country of birth; Kosovo Agency of Statistics, Census 2024; State Statistical Office of North Macedonia, Census 2021.
Where They Come From
The overwhelming majority of Albanians in Sweden are Kosovo Albanians. Smaller numbers come from the Albanian regions of western North Macedonia and from Albania itself. As in the rest of the diaspora, many who arrived in the guest-worker and early refugee years traveled on Yugoslav documents, so older Swedish records often did not record them as Albanians, which has long made the community harder to count precisely.
How the Community Was Built
Sweden’s Albanian community was built in a few clear stages.
| Wave | Period | Who and Why |
|---|---|---|
| Early labor migrants | 1960s to 1970s | A modest number of workers from Yugoslavia, including ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and North Macedonia, arrived as Sweden recruited foreign labor |
| Kosovo war refugees | 1990s | The defining wave: as Yugoslavia broke apart and the Kosovo War unfolded, Sweden, one of Europe’s most generous asylum countries, took in many Kosovo Albanian refugees |
| Settlement and reunification | 2000 onward | Family reunification and a fast-growing Swedish-born generation turned refugees into a permanent community |
Sweden signed a labour agreement with Yugoslavia in 1966, but it never ran guest-worker recruitment on the scale of Switzerland or Germany, so the early Albanian presence was modest. The community grew above all through the 1990s, when the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Kosovo War of 1998 to 1999 sent hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians fleeing abroad. Sweden, long one of Europe’s most generous countries for asylum, took in a large share. A national policy of dispersing refugees across the whole country, in place from the mid-1980s, spread the community well beyond Stockholm, including to the far south, and family reunification and a Swedish-born generation did the rest.
The Diaspora and Kosovo’s Cause
Sweden’s Albanians were part of a wider diaspora that played a real role in Kosovo’s push for independence. In the early 1990s, Kosovo Albanian political organizations, the moderate Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and the more radical People’s Movement of Kosovo (LPK), opened branches across the Nordic countries, including Sweden, alongside larger hubs in Switzerland and Germany. Through these networks the diaspora helped fund Kosovo’s underground parallel schools during the 1990s and, when war came in 1998, helped finance the Kosovo Liberation Army through the Homeland Calling fund.
Where Albanians Live in Sweden
Albanians live in every part of Sweden but cluster in three regions: Skåne in the south around Malmö, the Stockholm area, and Västra Götaland around Gothenburg. Together these three counties hold about 71 percent of residents born in Kosovo or Albania. The map shows how the numbers fall across the country.
23,654 residents of Sweden were born in Kosovo or Albania (Statistics Sweden, end of 2024). The figure leaves out Swedish-born children and Kosovo Albanians who arrived before 2008 and are still recorded under Yugoslavia. Hover or tap a county.
County figures count residents born in Kosovo or Albania. Source: Statistics Sweden (SCB), 2024.
In these regions, Albanian cultural associations, mosques, football clubs, and cultural and media projects, such as the Migjeni association in Borås, are part of everyday community life.
Community and Everyday Life
The Swedish-Albanian community is well organized, running cultural centers, sports clubs, and Albanian-language schooling and media that keep the community connected to its language and heritage. Most Swedish Albanians are Muslim, with Catholic and Orthodox minorities, and faith is generally practiced in the moderate, secular-leaning style common across the Albanian world.
The community’s most visible face is in sport. Kosovare Asllani, born in Kristianstad in Skåne to Kosovo Albanian parents, became one of the biggest stars of the Sweden women’s national team, a World Cup and Olympic medalist who has played for clubs including Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid. She is one of many second-generation Swedish Albanians now prominent in public life: in politics, Arba Kokalari, born in Tirana and raised in Sweden, represents the country in the European Parliament.
What Sweden’s Country of Birth Records Show
The country of birth register counts only people born abroad, whatever passport they hold today, so it leaves out the Swedish-born generation. At the end of 2025 the register listed 12,915 residents born in Kosovo, 11,065 born in Albania, and 11,162 born in North Macedonia. The North Macedonia figure covers everyone born there, not only ethnic Albanians.
| Country of birth | 2000 | 2010 | 2020 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kosovo | 0 | 2,288 | 11,164 | 12,915 |
| Albania | 374 | 1,281 | 7,908 | 11,065 |
| North Macedonia | 2,362 | 4,752 | 9,410 | 11,162 |
| Yugoslavia (former state) | 71,972 | 70,819 | 63,419 | 58,757 |
The table explains why birthplace totals undercount Kosovo Albanians. The register shows no Kosovo-born residents at all in 2000 or 2005, and only 2,288 in 2010, because people who arrived before Kosovo’s independence stay recorded under Yugoslavia. That category still held 58,757 people in 2025, and Statistics Sweden does not break it down by ethnicity.
The fastest recent growth comes from Albania itself. Sweden counted 374 Albania-born residents in 2000 and 2,569 in 2015, then more than four times as many a decade later.
Birthplace data also adds detail to the regional picture. At the end of 2024, nearly half of all Albania-born residents lived in Stockholm County: 4,906 of 10,763. Kosovo-born residents were concentrated in the south and west, with 4,543 in Skåne and 3,012 in Västra Götaland, compared with 819 in Stockholm County.
The Swedish-Born Generation in the Statistics
Statistics Sweden tracks children of immigrants by their parents’ birthplace. In 2025 it counted 2,692 Swedish-born residents whose parents were both born in Kosovo, 2,075 whose parents were both born in Albania, and 2,426 whose parents were both born in North Macedonia. A further 30,921 Swedish-born residents had two parents born in the former Yugoslavia, a group the agency does not divide by ethnicity or by successor state.
Sweden and Kosovo: Official Ties
Sweden’s ties with Kosovo are formal as well as personal. Kosovo declared independence on 17 February 2008, and Sweden recognized it on 4 March 2008. Kosovo opened its embassy in Stockholm on 15 December 2009, and Sweden’s liaison office in Pristina was later upgraded to a full embassy. For the wider picture, see our list of countries that recognize Kosovo.
More Swedish Albanians in Sport and Music
Football offers several more examples of the two-country story. Emir Bajrami, born in Pristina in 1988, grew up in the town of Köping and went on to win 18 caps for Sweden, including a place in the squad for Euro 2012. His club career took him from Elfsborg to Twente, Monaco, and Panathinaikos.
Arbër Zeneli took the opposite path. Born in Säter in 1995 to Albanian parents from Selac, a village near Mitrovica, he was part of the Sweden squad that won the 2015 European Under-21 Championship. In August 2016 he chose to represent Kosovo, and he made his debut that October in a World Cup qualifier against Croatia. Read more about the side he joined in our guide to the Kosovo national football team.
In music, Dafina Zeqiri was born in Varberg, on Sweden’s west coast, in 1989 to Kosovo Albanian parents. She launched her career in 2008 and sings mainly in Albanian, in a style that moves between R&B, soul, and pop. For more artists, see our guide to famous Albanian singers.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Albanians live in Sweden?
Sweden does not record ethnicity. Statistics Sweden counted 23,654 residents born in Kosovo or Albania at the end of 2024. The community is larger, because that figure leaves out Swedish-born descendants and Kosovo Albanians who arrived before 2008 and are still recorded under Yugoslavia. A conservative estimate from the official figures is about 30,600 to 36,300 people of Albanian origin, with the method shown in this guide, and the real figure is likely higher.
Where in Sweden do most Albanians live?
In the far south. Skåne County, around Malmö, has the largest community, with 6,202 residents born in Kosovo or Albania, ahead of Stockholm and Västra Götaland around Gothenburg.
Where are the Albanians in Sweden from?
The great majority are Kosovo Albanians, with smaller communities from western North Macedonia and Albania.
Why did Albanians move to Sweden?
A modest number came as labor migrants from the 1960s, but the community grew above all as refugees during the 1990s, when Sweden took in many people fleeing the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Kosovo War.
Are there famous Swedish Albanians?
Yes. Sweden women’s national team footballer Kosovare Asllani, of Kosovo Albanian origin, is among the best known, alongside Arba Kokalari, a member of the European Parliament who was born in Tirana.
Sources
- Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket)
- Wikipedia: Albanians in the Nordic countries
- Wikipedia: People’s Movement of Kosovo (LPK)
- Statistics Sweden (SCB): Population by country of birth, age and sex, 2000 to 2024
- Statistics Sweden (SCB): Population by country of birth, age and sex, 2025
- Statistics Sweden (SCB): Population by region, country of birth and sex, 2000 to 2024
- Statistics Sweden (SCB): Foreign-born persons and persons with at least one foreign-born parent, 2018 to 2025
- Wikipedia: Kosovo-Sweden relations
- Wikipedia: Emir Bajrami
- Wikipedia: Arbër Zeneli
- Wikipedia: Dafina Zeqiri
- Government of Kosovo: First final results of the 2024 Census (ethnic composition)
- Balkan Insight: North Macedonia census 2021, residents and non-residents counted
Related Reading
- Albanians Around the World: The Global Diaspora
- Albanians in Switzerland
- Albanians in Germany
- The Kosovo War: A Complete History
- Is Kosovo Albanian?
Author: Val Demiri
Valbona is an editor and writer at ALB Connection, where she covers the people, businesses, and culture shaping the Albanian diaspora. A journalism graduate of the University of Iowa, her work spans community profiles, success stories, and features on Albanian life across the US, Europe, and beyond. She is drawn to stories that celebrate Albanian achievement and keep the community connected across borders.
