Convert SEK to GBP Swedish krona ↔ Pound sterling Free Online Secure
Type an amount in Swedish krona and read it in Pound sterling at once. The page uses the European Central Bank's reference rate, and tells you which day that rate is from.
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Common amounts — Convert SEK to GBP (Swedish krona ↔ Pound sterling)
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The last thirty days
Where these codes and rates come from
The three letters in EUR, USD or JPY are not an abbreviation someone invented for a website: they are ISO 4217, a standard in which the first two letters are the country's own code and the third is usually the initial of the currency. The figures on this page come from the European Central Bank, which publishes one set of reference rates each working day, around 16:00 Central European time, agreed between the central banks of the Eurosystem. They are a daily snapshot meant for statistics and accounting, not a live trading feed — which is exactly why they are the same number for everyone, rather than whatever one bank happened to quote at one moment.
Where you meet an exchange rate
You meet an exchange rate four or five times a year without thinking about it: booking a trip, paying an invoice issued abroad, buying from a foreign shop, reading a salary offer in another currency, or checking what a card charge really cost. In all of these the reference rate is the honest middle, and the price you actually pay sits a little to one side of it. Knowing the middle is what lets you see how wide that margin is.
Questions people ask
Is this the rate my bank will give me?
No, and no page can promise one. This is the European Central Bank's reference rate: the midpoint published once a day for statistics. A bank, a card scheme or an exchange office adds its own margin on top — usually between half a percent and three percent, sometimes more at an airport counter. Use this figure to judge the offer you are given, not to predict it.
How often does the figure change, and what happens at weekends?
The European Central Bank publishes once each working day, in the afternoon, Central European time. There is no publication on Saturdays, Sundays or TARGET holidays, so on those days the page shows the last working day's rate and says which day it belongs to. The chart alongside is one year of the same daily series.
Is the answer exact?
Where both units are defined in terms of one another by whole numbers, yes — the page says so above the figure, and the only rounding is in how many digits are shown. Where the ratio has no finite decimal, the page shows twelve significant digits and says the relation is approximate rather than pretending otherwise.
Does anything I type leave my device?
No. The arithmetic runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded and there is no server to upload it to. Load the page once and it keeps working with the network switched off.
"Ulf has taken three payments in England": the runestones of Sweden, the pounds of silver and the pound of today
In the Swedish province of Uppland, north of Stockholm, a granite stone stands in a farmyard at Yttergärde, covered in a curling ribbon of runes. Carved in the early eleventh century, it carries a short and proud boast: Ulf, the son of Karse, has taken three payments in England, the first from Tosti, the second from Torkel, the third from Knut. The payments were the Danegeld, the tribute that English kings handed over to Viking armies to leave them in peace, and one of them, in 1012, amounted to 48,000 pounds of silver. A Swedish warrior had been in England, been paid and come home to boast about it in stone. The word "pound" itself comes from this world of weighed silver: the English pound began as a pound weight of silver pennies, and the Swedish language still uses the word "pund" for the British currency. A thousand years later, Swedes still travel to England for work, study and leisure, and the first practical question is how many pounds sterling a Swedish krona buys. This page answers it. Use it to Convert SEK to GBP with the daily reference rates published by the European Central Bank, in which the krona and the pound are quoted against the euro; the page combines them into a krona-pound figure and prints its date under the result. The amount you type never leaves your browser.
Using the converter
Kronor go in, pounds come out
Type your sum, then Convert SEK to GBP and note the date beside the answer, as it belongs to the figure.
Write a sum in Swedish kronor, and the page gives the equivalent in pounds sterling and pence, together with the date of the fixing used. A pound is worth around thirteen or fourteen kronor, so the answer is roughly a thirteenth of the number you typed. A new fixing is published once on each working day; on weekends and public holidays the page repeats the previous one and says so. Round sums and a graph of the last thirty days sit below the box. For the opposite direction, from pounds into kronor, open Convert GBP to SEK.
A yardstick for any offer
A booth in a station will always sound simple, so Convert SEK to GBP first and measure the offer in per cent.
The number shown is the midpoint of the market on a working day, before any bank has added its share. Banks, booths and apps quote somewhat less, and the gap in per cent is the cost of the service: under one per cent is very good, two or three per cent is normal, above four is worth another opinion. Make every Convert SEK to GBP the yardstick. The sums below use an invented, round rate of fourteen kronor to the pound, simply to keep the arithmetic tidy; it is not a forecast and not today's price, so replace it with the real figure.
The Vikings of the east and the west
Who went where
Viking is a catch-all name for Scandinavian seafarers, traders and raiders who spread across Europe between the eighth and the eleventh centuries. In rough terms, the Norwegians sailed west to Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and Greenland, the Danes attacked England and northern France, and the Swedes mostly went east, down the rivers of Russia to the Black Sea and Constantinople, where they were known as Rus or Varangians. But the runestones tell a more mixed story. Dozens of Swedish stones mention journeys to England, Greece, the Baltic and the lands of the Khazars, and some record deaths abroad. Together they form the largest body of written sources about the Viking Age.
The Danegeld
In the year 1012 a payment of 48,000 pounds of silver was a national disaster; Convert SEK to GBP today and a modern pound looks gentle.
The first recorded tribute was paid in 991, after the battle of Maldon in Essex, when King Æthelred the Unready handed 10,000 pounds of silver to a Viking fleet. Further payments followed in 994, 1002, 1007 and 1012, rising to 48,000 pounds. In 1018, a final levy of 72,000 pounds was collected from the English, with an additional 10,500 from London. The tribute drained the country's silver, which ended up in the north: hoards of English coins have been dug up on the Swedish island of Gotland, in Uppland and in the Baltic. A visitor to the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm can see some of them.
Silver by weight
In the Viking Age, silver was used by weight rather than by count. Merchants carried small balances and cut up arm-rings and coins into pieces, called hack silver, to pay exact amounts. A pound of silver in England meant 240 silver pennies, which is why the old pound had 240 pence until decimalisation in 1971. Convert SEK to GBP today, and you perform the same operation in a more modern form: weighing the value of one currency against another.
Seeing the Vikings, in Stockholm and York
The History Museum in Stockholm
The Swedish History Museum on Narvavägen houses the Gold Room, with gold and silver treasures of the Bronze Age and the Viking Age, the Viking exhibition, which shows weapons, jewellery and finds from Birka, the oldest Swedish town, and runestones. Entry to the museum is free, and special exhibitions cost 100 to 150 kronor. Guided tours in English run a few times a week. A visit takes two to three hours, and the museum café serves a decent lunch for 110 to 150 kronor.
Birka and Gamla Uppsala
An hour by boat from Stockholm, on the island of Björkö in Lake Mälaren, lie the remains of Birka, a trading town of the ninth and tenth centuries, now a World Heritage site. A day trip with a guided tour and a lunch costs about 600 to 800 kronor. North of the capital, Gamla Uppsala, Old Uppsala, has three large burial mounds from the sixth century and a small museum. Entry to the mounds is free, to the museum about 100 kronor.
Jorvik in York
Before the train to York, Convert SEK to GBP for the ticket and for the fare, and remember that off-peak tickets are far cheaper.
On the English side, the Jorvik Viking Centre in York, built over an archaeological dig in Coppergate where a Viking Age street was found in the 1970s, takes visitors in small cars through a reconstruction of the town, complete with sounds and smells. It opened in 1984 and has been updated since. A ticket costs about 15 to 25 pounds, or 210 to 350 kronor at the invented rate. The Yorkshire Museum nearby displays finds, including the Vale of York hoard of silver. York is two hours by train from London, and a day pass for a rail traveller costs around 80 pounds.
Swedes in Britain today
Students and workers
A student can Convert SEK to GBP for tuition and for rent, then divide by twelve to see what each month costs.
Thousands of Swedes live in the United Kingdom, mostly in London, as students, engineers, bankers, designers and staff of Swedish firms. Others come for a year of English study. Tuition for international students at British universities runs from 15,000 to 35,000 pounds per year, and living costs in London are 1,100 to 1,500 pounds per month. Since Brexit, newcomers need visas. A Swede who earns pounds and pays Swedish costs, or the other way round, will make a regular Convert SEK to GBP.
Travelling to Britain
Direct flights from Stockholm to London take about two hours and a quarter, with fares from 40 pounds. The ferry from Gothenburg to Newcastle no longer runs, but routes via Denmark, Germany or the Netherlands exist. Britain is an hour behind Sweden. For comparisons with Eastern Europe, Convert CET to EET shows the one-hour step. Swedish citizens now need an electronic authorisation to enter. Apply only through the official government site.
Prices and units in Britain
A pub lunch, a pint and a day of transport add up, so Convert SEK to GBP for each and write the daily total.
A coffee costs 3.5 to 4.5 pounds, a pub lunch 12 to 18, a restaurant main course 16 to 28, a pint 5.5 to 7, a day of the Tube in central zones 8 to 16. At the invented rate, a pub lunch of 15 pounds is 210 kronor. Britain mixes units: Convert km to mi turns kilometres into miles, Convert L to gal relates litres to gallons, and Convert °C to °F gives Fahrenheit. A British pint is 568 millilitres.
Two old banks and one old word
Stockholm before London
The Swedish Riksbank, founded in 1668, is the oldest central bank in the world still operating, and the Bank of England, founded in 1694 to lend money to a king who needed to pay for a war, comes second. The two institutions grew out of the same practical problem: governments needed credit, merchants needed trusted paper, and neither could rely on a heap of coins. The Swedes, as we have seen, had even printed the first European banknotes in 1661, so the krona in your pocket belongs to a very long family of money. The pound is older still as a name, since it began as a measure of weight, and the symbol £ is a stylised L from the Latin libra, which also gave English its abbreviation lb.
Why "sterling"?
The word sterling is a puzzle, and historians offer more than one explanation. Some say it comes from a small star, steorra in Old English, stamped on early Norman pennies. Others think it is connected to the Easterlings, merchants from northern Germany whose silver was trusted for its purity. Whichever is true, by the Middle Ages "pounds sterling" meant a pound weight of silver of a fixed fineness, and the phrase survived long after the silver itself was replaced by paper. Today it is used as a formal name for the currency and its money market.
240 pence to the pound
Until 15 February 1971, when Britain went decimal, a pound was divided into 20 shillings, and each shilling into 12 pence, which made 240 pence. Prices were written in a mixture of pounds, shillings and pence, and the old coins, guineas, crowns and half-crowns, lived on in speech. Many Swedes who visited in the 1960s remember a currency where a simple sum took pencil and paper. Decimalisation made it as tidy as the krona, which has been divided into one hundred öre since 1873.
Swedish brands and Swedish players in Britain
The high street
Anyone who walks along Oxford Street will see Swedish names: H&M, Ikea at Tottenham and Wembley, Volvo showrooms, Ericsson equipment inside the mobile networks, and Spotify on the phones of everyone on the Tube. Hundreds of Swedish companies have offices in the United Kingdom, and thousands of British firms trade the other way. A Swedish consumer who orders from a British web shop will often be charged in pounds, and the rate used by the card issuer is rarely the same as the reference. Convert SEK to GBP with this page before ordering, and add any import duty and carriage.
Football and other sports
Swedish footballers have written their names in English football. Freddie Ljungberg, who joined Arsenal in 1998, won two league titles and three FA Cups before leaving in 2007. Henrik Larsson, the Celtic striker, spent a short loan at Manchester United in 2007. In 2016 Zlatan Ibrahimović arrived at Old Trafford, and a year later he helped the club win the League Cup and the Europa League. A match ticket in the Premier League costs from 30 to 100 pounds for a regular fixture and more for a derby, which at the invented rate means 420 to 1,400 kronor.
The Swedish church in London
London has a Swedish church in Marylebone, founded to serve sailors and merchants, and now a social centre for Swedes who live in Britain. It holds services in Swedish, a Lucia concert in December and a Christmas fair with gingerbread, glögg and saffron buns. Entry to the fair is free, and a bun costs two or three pounds. If you are lonely in a new city, a familiar song can help a lot.
After the referendum
A currency that moved overnight
In June 2016, when British voters decided to leave the European Union, the pound fell sharply in a few hours against both the dollar and the krona, and for years afterwards it traded at a lower level than before. For a Swede who earned kronor and bought pounds, it meant that England became cheaper. For a Swede with a mortgage or a salary in pounds, it meant the opposite. Rates have gone up and down since then, which is why the date beside the result is as important as the number.
New rules for entry and work
Since the United Kingdom left the single market, citizens of Sweden who want to work or study there for more than a short stay need permission in advance, and they pay fees and a health surcharge. For a short visit, an electronic authorisation applies. Rules change, so read the official government pages before you book, and keep a printed copy of the confirmation. Allow time for the process, since delays are not unusual in the summer.
A budget for a long weekend
Take a Friday-to-Monday trip to London as an example. Flights are 80 to 160 pounds return, two nights in a mid-range hotel 250 to 400, food 100 to 150, local transport 30 and one museum or show 40 to 80. The total is somewhere between 500 and 820 pounds, or 7,000 to 11,500 kronor at the invented rate. Convert SEK to GBP for each line, and keep a small reserve of 10 per cent for the things you cannot predict.
Other krona conversions
If your trip continues
Travellers who go on to the euro area can use Convert SEK to EUR, those crossing the Atlantic Convert SEK to USD, and those heading to Switzerland Convert SEK to CHF.
A habit worth keeping
Write down the rate and date of each exchange, and compare them later with the statement. It takes seconds.
Mistakes to avoid
Paying in kronor in a British shop
A terminal that offers kronor is offering its own rate; decline it and Convert SEK to GBP at your leisure to see the difference.
A terminal that offers to charge you in kronor uses its own rate. Choose pounds.
Forgetting the entry rules
Rules for entering Britain have changed since 2021. Check them before you book.
Using an old rate
A rate from last month can be wrong by several per cent. The date shown beside the result protects you each time you Convert SEK to GBP.
In short
The only thing fetched from the network is the table of daily rates, while your amount stays in the browser and no account is needed. From a rune on a Swedish farm to a ticket in York, the routine is the same: Convert SEK to GBP, read the date and compare every offer with the number on this page.