Smoking remains a controversial issue because it is definitely not good for your health and thus places a heavy burden on the healthcare system. As a result, efforts have been underway for many decades to reduce smoking rates, both in the EU and internationally.
But smoking remains popular, even though fewer people smoke than they have in a long time. In Japan and the U.S., around 12-13 percent of the population smokes, and in the EU, the figures are generally even higher (around 25 percent in France, around 20 percent in Spain, around 17 percent in Denmark, and around 11 percent in the UK). But there is now one country in the EU that is classified as smoke-free: Sweden.
According to SVT, based on a new report from the Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs, the percentage of Swedish smokers has fallen from 16 to 4.8 percent between 2003 and 2025. If the rate is below five percent, the country is classified as smoke-free. The goal was actually to reach that mark as early as last year, but the milestone was instead achieved in 2026.
Among the reasons for the success are information campaigns, smoke-free zones, tax hikes, and support for quitting. It should also be noted, however, that Sweden has its own hugely popular form of tobacco in the form of Swedish snus. The numbers for snus users have, on the contrary, gone up, so it seems that the craving for nicotine persists, but that smoking is now completely out of fashion. Snus, however, causes significantly fewer health problems and is not considered nearly as dangerous (it does not affect the lungs, for example), so it is still viewed as a major net gain.