2026-06-25 • 5 min read • Author: Arina Öström
Trade between Sweden and Ukraine is small and strikingly one-sided. According to UN Comtrade data, Sweden imported goods worth about USD 121 million from Ukraine in 2024, while Swedish exports to Ukraine reached about USD 619 million — mainly machinery, vehicles and electrical equipment.
The largest groups of Swedish imports from Ukraine in 2024 were mineral fuels (USD 21.5 million), machinery (USD 18.4 million) and wood and wood products (USD 13.8 million).
Wood and furniture have long been the core of the trade. Before the full-scale invasion, in 2021, Statistics Sweden (SCB) reported that Sweden bought goods worth about SEK 1 billion from Ukraine, including floorboards, furniture and mattresses.
The Kyiv-based Centre for Economic Strategy describes Ukrainian exports to Sweden as narrow and concentrated: wood products, furniture and textiles, and more recently fats and oils. Services tell a different story. IT accounts for 55% of Sweden's services imports from Ukraine, and in 2024 Sweden bought more services from Ukraine (EUR 98.1 million) than it sold there (EUR 71.5 million).
Set against the Swedish market as a whole, these volumes are tiny. In 2025 Sweden imported goods worth about USD 202 billion. In the categories where Ukraine is strong, Swedish imports were measured in billions: - iron and steel: USD 4.35 billion; - articles of iron or steel: USD 4.23 billion; - furniture, lighting and prefabricated buildings: USD 3.33 billion; - wood and wood products: USD 2.66 billion; - clothing: about USD 5.2 billion.
Ukraine's share in each of these categories is well below one percent. For comparison, Sweden imported goods worth USD 9.66 billion from Poland in the same year.
The capacity exists. In 2025 the EU as a whole imported from Ukraine sawn wood worth about USD 310 million, veneer worth USD 233 million, plywood worth USD 200 million, builders' joinery worth USD 152 million and wooden packaging and pallets worth USD 136 million.
Most of these flows go to neighbouring markets such as Poland and Germany. Several factors explain why Sweden receives so little: longer logistics compared with suppliers in Poland and the Baltics, Swedish buyers' preference for long-term, well-documented supplier relationships, language barriers, and a perception of risk linked to the war. Many Ukrainian producers simply have not approached the Swedish market in a structured way.
The most realistic potential lies where Sweden imports large volumes and Ukrainian producers already supply other EU countries: wood products and joinery, furniture and furniture components, industrial packaging, textiles and workwear, and metal articles.
At the same time, new EU rules make documentation decisive for exactly these categories: the [EUDR for wood products](/insights/eudr-december-2026-timber-furniture-ukraine/), the [new packaging regulation](/insights/ppwr-new-eu-packaging-rules-2026/) and [quotas and CBAM for steel](/insights/eu-steel-quotas-cbam-ukraine-2026/). Producers who prepare for them early will find Swedish buyers more willing to talk.
- [UN Comtrade via Trading Economics: Sweden imports from Ukraine](https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/imports/ukraine) - [UN Comtrade via Trading Economics: Sweden exports to Ukraine](https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/exports/ukraine) - [Trading Economics: Sweden imports by category (2025)](https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/imports-by-category) - [Trading Economics: Sweden imports by country (2025)](https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/imports-by-country) - [Trading Economics: EU imports from Ukraine of wood and articles of wood (2025)](https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/imports/ukraine/wood-articles-wood-wood-charcoal) - [SCB: Så stor var handeln med Ukraina och Ryssland i fjol](https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/redaktionellt/sa-stor-var-handeln-med-ukraina-och-ryssland-i-fjol/) - [Centre for Economic Strategy: Ukraine & Sweden economic dialogue](https://ces.org.ua/en/sweden/)