[eddtests]

When I moved to Sweden I had the same issues because of a dependency on Swish and BankID (and personal ID numbers). It can be a real pain for things when you’re staying a little longer than a weekend and want to go to a gym for example. I went to one cafe where I literally had no way to pay as a foreigner

[daneel_w]

A normal European debit card works everywhere. Cash-only establishments are uncommon. With that said I don't know how complicated the procedure is for a non-EU citizen to get a bank account (and with that a normal debit card) after moving to Sweden and having obtained a permit for residency. For EU citizens it's not a hassle.

[Tijdreiziger]

I lived in Sweden for 6 months in 2018 and didn’t have any such problems.

My Dutch Maestro debit card worked in all shops and cafés I visited, and online I was usually able to use a MasterCard.

Personnummer was really only required for things like phone plans and store loyalty cards, which you don’t really need. I just used EU roaming on my Dutch SIM, but if you’re non-EU I believe you can get PAYG/prepaid SIMs without needing a personnummer.

[Leherenn]

I don't know about Sweden in particular, but things have moved very quickly in this space, especially since Covid. It's very common that things that used to be cash only (food trucks, car parks, ...) have moved to $local_system since then.

[Tijdreiziger]

I don’t recall any cash-only businesses even back then. I did carry some cash, but I barely used it.

[folmar]

That's great for you, but most countries don't have Maestro so no luck in Sweden. And no, Mastercard does not work nearly as well.

[Tijdreiziger]

I think Swedish banks issue MasterCard or Visa as their standard debit cards, so it seems to me that it should work (although I didn’t have reason to try it when I was there). See e.g.:

https://www.swedbank.se/en/private/cards-and-payment/debit-c...

https://www.handelsbanken.se/en/personal/accounts-cards-and-...

https://www.nordea.se/privat/produkter/kreditkort-bankkort/n...

[eddtests]

There's a big push on Swish which is a mobile banking app and only available to people with BankID - there are smaller places that are Swish-only which means you cannot pay with a card or cash but a Swedish-specific app. I am now with Handelsbanken so this issue is solved but when I first visited it was an issue!

But regardless of those more niche issues, did you try joining a Gym before getting a Swedish card/personnummer?

[folmar]

Nordea -> issues Visa Electron. That is not the same as regular Visa!

Swedbank -> issues Maestro, https://www.swedbank.se/privat/kort/bankkort/bankkort-maestr... (yes, the English page lists only a quarter of the available ones)

Handelsbanken -> issues Maestro, scroll down a bit

I was there a few year ago with both Mastercard and Visa in my pocket and the success rate was 60-70% for that combination (i.e. some one third of the places would not accept either). But steadily improving.

[robin_reala]

If you move from another EU country this is the problem that EMPSA are trying (though with no visible success) to solve: https://empsa.org/