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Police organisation

Polismyndigheten

A single national police authority for Sweden, organised into seven police regions, twenty-five police districts and ninety-five local police districts.

Fact-checkedLast updated

At a glance

Official name
Polismyndigheten
Commonly rendered in English as
Swedish Police Authority — a rendering in common use, not the organisation’s own name.
System
Sweden
Level of government
National
Kind of body
National police force
Status
Currently operating
Official website
https://polisen.se/ — confirmed against the organisation’s own pages on 26 July 2026.
Facts last checked against sources
13 September 2026

What it is

The Swedish police are one authority, not a federation of regional ones: the regions and districts are internal subdivisions. Alongside the Office of the National Police Commissioner sits a Department of Special Investigations, which investigates complaints against police officials, prosecutors, judges and members of Parliament on the direction of the Special Prosecution Office — a body inside the authority whose independence comes from who directs it rather than from where it sits.

What it covers

The whole of Sweden, through seven police regions and the districts beneath them.

Broad responsibilities

  • Policing across Sweden through the regions and districts
  • Investigation of complaints against police officials and certain other officers, through the Department of Special Investigations, on the direction of the Special Prosecution Office

Elsewhere on this site

  • Polismuseet — the museum, archive or collection that holds this organisation’s history
  • Who polices what — how Sweden is structured, against other systems

Where this connects

Institutions: National police.

Sources

  1. The Swedish Police Authority

    Polismyndigheten (Swedish Police Authority) · Government publication · link verified 2026-07-26

    The Swedish Police Authority's own English page, read directly and re-confirmed. Supports that the police are a single national authority comprising "7 Police Regions", "25 Police Districts" and "95 Local Police Districts", the Office of the National Police Commissioner, and a Department of Special Investigations; that it is "led by National Police Commissioner Petra Lundh"; and that the Department of Special Investigations investigates, on the direction of the Special Prosecution Office, complaints against police officials, prosecutors, judges and members of Parliament. The single-national-authority merger (from 21 regional authorities, 2015) is well attested but only secondary-sourced, so the date is not asserted as primary-verified.