Polar Night
in SwedenWhere the sun does not rise, and for how long

What counts as polar night

SMHI, the Swedish weather service, defines polarnatt simply: a day on which the sun never rises above the horizon. That is a statement about the sun, not about darkness. On those days the sun passes close beneath the horizon at midday, and the sky above it is lit for hours.

Exactly when a sunrise counts depends on a convention, and this is why the dates online do not agree. Sunrise is when the upper edge of the sun appears, not its centre, and the air bends the light so that the sun can be seen while it is still geometrically below the horizon. Svenska Almanackan, the Swedish almanac, counted from the sun's centre until 2013 and from its upper edge since 2014. Older figures, such as the 27 days that SMHI quotes for Kiruna from the 2013 almanac, were counted the old way and come out longer.

All of these dates assume a flat, open horizon. In a valley or under a mountain the sun disappears earlier and comes back later than the table says, and on a hilltop the reverse. Treat the dates below as the astronomer's answer, not a promise about the view from your cabin window.

Where in Sweden, and for how long

The further north, the longer it lasts. At Abisko, Björkliden and Riksgränsen, along the railway to Norway, the sun last sets on 5 December 2026 and does not rise again until 7 January 2027: 32 days without a sunrise, from 6 December to 6 January. At Kiruna and Jukkasjärvi the last sunset is on 10 December and the first sunrise on 2 January: 22 days, from 11 December to 1 January. At the far north-western tip, where Sweden, Norway and Finland meet, it is about six weeks.

The Arctic Circle is not the line. Because of the way sunrise is counted, SMHI puts the southern edge of polar night some tens of kilometres north of a line through Pajala and Gällivare. Both are north of the Arctic Circle, and both still see the sun on the shortest day: at Gällivare it rises at 10:58 and sets at 12:12 on 21 December 2026, and at Pajala it is up for about an hour.

Further south the days are short but real. On the solstice the sun is up for about two hours at Jokkmokk and three at Luleå and at Harads, six in Stockholm and seven in Malmö. The dates shift very little from year to year: in 2027–28 Abisko and Kiruna have the same 32 and 22 days, on the same dates.

What the days are like

The middle of the day is twilight. On the solstice Kiruna has civil twilight from 08:56 to 14:18, and nautical twilight, dimmer, either side of it from about half past seven to a quarter to four. Abisko is much the same. In those hours you can walk, ski and see the mountains; the light never turns white, and stays in the blues and violets, with a band of orange along the southern sky where the sun is hiding.

How bright it feels depends on three things the almanac cannot tell you. Snow throws the light back up and makes everything brighter. Cloud flattens it. A moon, especially near full, can light the whole valley at night. The Sámi information centre at samer.se describes how the weeks before the snow can feel the darkest of the year, and how the first snow lightens the landscape.

Plan the day around the middle of it. Outdoor things go between about ten and two; the afternoon is for a sauna, a meal and a book; the evening, from dark onwards, is for the sky. Four hours outside in this light is a full day.

The northern lights in the dark weeks

Polar night does not cause the aurora, and it does not make one more likely. The aurora happens in summer too; it is simply invisible in daylight. What December gives you is long dark evenings to look in. NOAA's rule of thumb for the best hours is about 22:00 to 02:00 local time, and IRF, the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna, notes that in Scandinavia the most active displays often come before midnight.

December is not, by the science, the best month. NOAA describes a statistical tendency for stronger geomagnetic activity around the equinoxes, in March and September. Cloud matters more than either. Abisko sits in a rain shadow, which SMHI explains: air coming over the mountains from Norway drops its moisture on the far side, and cloud tends to break up as it comes down. That is a better chance, not a clear sky.

The Aurora Sky Station above Abisko runs its night visits from 19 October 2026 to 27 March 2027: you meet at STF Abisko at 20:30 and the chairlift runs from 21:00 to 01:00, from SEK 1,295 for an adult, warm overalls and boots included. In severe weather it switches to an alternative programme, and nobody guarantees the lights. Our private aurora night follows the cloud forecast instead. The rest is in our northern lights guide.

The cold

SMHI's 1991–2020 normals put December at Abisko at an average of minus 6.8, with nights averaging minus 10.5. Kiruna airport is colder, at minus 9.4 and minus 13.9, and Karesuando, inland in the far north-east, colder still, at minus 11.3 and minus 16.4. Those are averages: clear nights go far below them.

The darkest weeks are not the coldest. At all three stations January averages colder than December, and at Abisko February is colder than January. Dress as 1177, the national health service, advises: loose layers, nothing cotton next to the skin, a windproof outer layer, a hat, and spare socks and mittens.

What is open in December

ICEHOTEL 37 opens on 11 December 2026, with its opening ceremony at 18:00, the day after Kiruna's last sunset. ICEHOTEL 365, the permanent building kept at about minus five, is open all year. Our Icehotel guide has the detail.

Dog sledding around Kiruna normally runs from December to April, earlier if there is snow in November, and every snow activity in early December depends on how much has fallen. Kiruna's cross-country trails are normally skiable from late October. In Abisko, STF's mountain station is open all year; its daytime chairlift does not run until 13 February 2027, so in December the mountain is seen at night, on the aurora visits.

Christmas and New Year are the busiest weeks of the winter. The public holidays are 25 and 26 December, 1 January and 6 January, Epiphany. Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are not public holidays in law, but they are the days Swedes celebrate: check each place's hours. In Kiruna itself, the new town centre opened in 2022 as the old town makes way for the mine; building work continues, with a city park planned for 2027.

Getting there

Fly to Kiruna. SAS and Norwegian fly from Stockholm all year, in about an hour and a half, and SAS adds a direct flight from Copenhagen three times a week from 17 December 2026 to 7 March 2027. Abisko is a little over an hour from Kiruna airport by road.

Or take the night train. From December 2026 SJ runs the northern night trains, with through carriages from Stockholm to Kiruna, Abisko and Narvik and no change at Boden. SJ releases tickets in batches; winter tickets were on sale to 4 April 2027 when we checked.

If you drive, it is the E10. Winter tyres are compulsory from 1 December to 31 March in winter conditions, which here means all of it. Reindeer are on the roads all year, and Trafikverket asks for extra care at dawn and dusk. In polar night, dusk lasts most of the day. If you hit one, call 112 and mark the place.

Living with the dark

For most visitors a week of polar night is a novelty, not a hardship, but it suits some people more than others. 1177 describes seasonal depression, most common in the dark part of the year, as something that affects some people, not everyone, and its general advice is to get outdoors around midday, when it is brightest, and keep regular hours. Livsmedelsverket, the food agency, notes that the body stores vitamin D made in summer for part of the winter.

If you know you flag without daylight, come in February instead: the same snow and the same aurora season, with the sun back. If you want to feel the dark rather than visit it, come in mid-December.

The Sámi year does not divide at the solstice at all. It is counted in eight seasons that follow the land and the reindeer rather than the calendar. In Northern Sámi, early winter is čakčadálvi, autumn-winter, and winter is dálvi. The dark time inside them is skábma, and November is skábmamánnu, the dark-season month.