TL;DR: Yrkeshögskola (YH) is Sweden's higher vocational education, studied after upper secondary school, like university. A Higher Vocational Education Diploma sits at level 5 of the Swedish Qualifications Framework (SeQF) and an Advanced Higher Vocational Education Diploma at level 6, the same level as a bachelor's degree, while the upper secondary diploma sits at level 4. What sets YH apart from university is that employers sit on every programme's steering group and that part of the programme is spent at a workplace. For new programmes, the level must be printed on the diploma itself from 1 April 2027.
Yrkeshögskola is Sweden's post secondary vocational education. The Higher Vocational Education Act says it exists to make sure that post secondary vocational programmes that meet the needs of working life come into being. The Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education (MYH) decides which programmes are included, and each programme is run by an education provider.
A programme covers at least 100 YH credits, and five YH credits equal one week of full time study. More than 104,000 people applied to YH programmes in 2025, with 2.3 eligible applicants for every place, according to Statistics Sweden figures published in March 2026.
No. The vocational programmes of Swedish upper secondary school lead to an upper secondary diploma at SeQF level 4, whether it is earned at school or in adult education (komvux). Yrkeshögskola comes after that: the law says the programmes should essentially build on what students learn in the national upper secondary programmes.
The names make the mix up easy. Yrkesprogram, yrkesvux and yrkeshögskola all carry the Swedish word for trade, and a recruiter reading a CV in a hurry can take it for school level. A Higher Vocational Education Diploma sits one level above the upper secondary diploma, the advanced one two levels above.
Level 5 for a Higher Vocational Education Diploma and level 6 for an Advanced Higher Vocational Education Diploma. SeQF has eight levels and is linked to the European Qualifications Framework, so SeQF level 5 equals EQF level 5 anywhere in Europe. The Swedish Council for Higher Education (UHR) places the Swedish qualifications like this:
The levels were set by the Swedish government and are tied to the goals of each programme, according to MYH.
They share a level but they are different qualifications. MYH answers the question itself, in its own words translated from Swedish: "The answer is no, they are not equivalent. They should lead to the same level of competence but can be very different from each other."
UHR draws the line in another place. An Advanced Higher Vocational Education Diploma belongs to level 6 in both SeQF and EQF, but not to the first cycle of the Bologna system, where the bachelor's degree belongs.
Employers sit at the table. Every YH programme must have a steering group, and the Higher Vocational Education Act requires representatives of the parts of working life the programme concerns to be part of it. The steering group makes sure the quality work keeps the programme within the requirements of the law.
A Higher Vocational Education Diploma takes at least 200 YH credits, about one year of full time study, and the advanced one at least 400 YH credits, about two years. A bachelor's degree from a Swedish university covers 180 university credits, three years of full time study. Both YH diplomas require an independent degree project.
LIA (lärande i arbete) is the part of a YH programme the student spends at a workplace. For an Advanced Higher Vocational Education Diploma, at least a quarter of the programme must be learning at work, under the Higher Vocational Education Ordinance.
From 1 April 2027 the requirement covers every programme. MYH writes that a programme will then need a formal exemption to have less than 25 percent LIA. Magnus Wallerå, director general of MYH, said when the government adopted the new rules in June 2026 (translated from Swedish): "That a significant part of the learning takes place in working life is a key founding idea of yrkeshögskola."
Eight in ten are in work a year after graduating. Of those who earned a YH diploma in 2024, 81 percent were employed the year after, according to a follow up Statistics Sweden ran in autumn 2025 among close to 23,000 graduates, published by MYH in December 2025.
The share varies by trade. Among the highest were specialist assistant nurses, security coordinators, electrical design engineers and ambulance care staff.
With proof that someone else stands behind. TRUE Wallet is a free profile page where the student writes what they are looking for, an LIA placement or a job, and it shows at the top. What sets Wallet apart from a CV is that every experience and skill can be confirmed by someone else: a teacher, a supervisor or a former colleague writes a reference, and diplomas and certificates issued with TRUE sit on the profile as verified documents.
The same goes for the certificate a student receives after the LIA period. An employer reading the profile does not have to take the student's word for it. The profile is free to create at TRUE Wallet.
Today the diploma states the programme's field, with a description of its content and goals attached. It is issued by the education provider, the school that ran the programme, and the student receives it on request.
On 1 April 2027 the Higher Vocational Education Ordinance changes. The diploma will then be issued without the student asking for it, and it must state that a Higher Vocational Education Diploma corresponds to level 5 and an Advanced Higher Vocational Education Diploma to level 6 of the national qualifications framework. A student who does not complete a degree receives a certificate of studies stating the programme's content and the goals the student reached. According to MYH, the new rules do not affect programmes that are already approved.
The school issues the diploma, so the school is the one that can confirm it is genuine. If the diploma was issued digitally with TRUE Original, the employer does not need to call anyone: the diploma's link opens a page showing who issued it and that nothing has changed since. The same link can be pasted into TRUE Verify, which is free and needs no account.
TRUE now issues more than one in three of all higher vocational education diplomas in Sweden. Among the schools that issue the most with TRUE are IHM Business School, TUC, YH Akademin and Nackademin. IHM Business School has issued more than ten thousand diplomas this way, and every programme is validated against the programme codes held by MYH, so each diploma is tied to a registered programme. YH Akademin's diplomas have been viewed tens of thousands of times, and Ali Feizabadi, head of IT development there, put the change this way: "I really like the efficiency of TRUE, it frees our staff from tedious work." The check itself, step by step, is in How to check if a certificate is real.
For a school that issues with TRUE Original, the level is one line in the diploma template. Templates live under Design templates in the TRUE Dashboard, and a change there applies to every diploma issued after it. Each diploma is secured with a fingerprint anchored on public blockchains, among them Ethereum and Polygon, so whoever reads the level can trust it was there when the diploma was issued. TRUE Original has issued over 900,000 documents for 200+ issuers in 15+ countries. More on digital diplomas for YH schools in Digital diplomas for yrkeshögskola.
From April 2027, the diplomas of new programmes will carry the answer: level 5 or level 6.
Every organisation we work with started with the same question. Give us thirty minutes and we will show you what your own documents would be worth.
Book a callNot sure where to start? Let us help!
Trusted by leading organisations worldwide
