Sweden Denies Jehovah's Witnesses State Subsidies, Then a Court Orders Them Restored

Update, 10 July 2026: The Swedish state has appealed the ruling described below. The appeal was filed by the Myndigheten för ungdoms- och civilsamhällesfrågor (MUCF), the Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society, which took over administration of state grants to faith communities on 1 January 2026, when the Agency for Support to Faith Communities (SST) was wound up. An earlier version of this article said SST filed the appeal; that was incorrect. MUCF's appeal to the Kammarrätten was reported in early June 2026. The appellate court has not ruled, and no grant of leave to appeal has been reported as of this update. This update also corrects an earlier description of the 2019 decision that first granted the organization eligibility — see "The 2025 denial," below.

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Sweden's Agency for Support to Faith Communities (SST) denied Jehovah's Witnesses eligibility for state grants in October 2025, then a Stockholm Administrative Court overturned that denial roughly seven months later and ordered the grant restored. The reversal, dated 7 May 2026, was the first court test of new "democracy conditions" written into Swedish law in 2024.

The dispute turns on money the Swedish state distributes to registered faith communities. Jehovah's Witnesses had reapplied on 10 March 2025, after a new statute required every recognized community to submit a fresh application.

The 2025 denial

The governing statute is Lag (2024:487) om statsbidrag till trossamfund — the Act on State Grants to Faith Communities — which entered into force on 1 January 2025 and introduced eligibility tests known as demokrativillkor, or "democracy conditions." According to Swedish outlets Dagen and public broadcaster Sveriges Radio, SST found that Jehovah's Witnesses met the formal criteria on membership numbers and activity, but did not satisfy those democracy conditions. The decision was reported as having been issued on 24 October 2025.

The reported grounds centered on the organization's teachings and internal practices. SST's primary focus, as reported by Dagen, was the refusal to admit or retain members in same-sex relationships. Also cited were the practice of disfellowshipping and shunning and its social consequences, and the exclusion of members living with a non-Witness partner.

The denial reversed a status the organization had spent years obtaining. Jehovah's Witnesses first applied in 2007; the government rejected the application, and Sweden's Supreme Administrative Court (Högsta förvaltningsdomstolen) repeatedly overturned those rejections. The government granted eligibility in 2019, twelve years after the first application, and the organization received a first payment of roughly 2.03 million kronor in 2021, according to SVT. That court, in other words, cleared the way; it did not itself award the grant. In October 2021, SVT reported, Sweden's Chancellor of Justice separately awarded the organization about 8.5 million kronor in damages for the unreasonable delay — a damages award, not a grant. The 2024 reform forced the re-application that produced the October 2025 refusal.

The 2026 court reversal

The Förvaltningsrätten i Stockholm (Stockholm Administrative Court) overturned SST's decision on 7 May 2026. As reported by Dagen and Sveriges Radio, the court held that the state must remain neutral and impartial toward religious beliefs, and that under the European Convention on Human Rights a faith community may govern its own beliefs and practices without undue state interference.

The court reasoned, according to Dagen, that a faith community's reserving the right to deny or withdraw membership from people in same-sex relationships was not by itself a lawful basis for refusing it state subsidies. The court ruled that Jehovah's Witnesses were entitled to a grant on the same footing as Sweden's other recognized faith communities — about 25 of them, according to jw.org, which is a party to the case. A spokesperson for the organization, André Hugó, said on jw.org that the ruling "does much to reaffirm both religious freedom and equal treatment under the law in Sweden."

The state's appeal

The matter is not final. In early June 2026, MUCF — which absorbed SST's grant-administration duties on 1 January 2026 — appealed the ruling to the Kammarrätten, Sweden's administrative court of appeal, and asked that the legal question be tested there.

MUCF's appeal, as reported by QX, Dagen, and Sveriges Radio, presses two grounds. First, the agency accepts that a faith community may choose its own religious leaders even where that involves distinctions based on sex or sexual orientation, but contends the line is drawn at membership: a community must not deny or restrict membership because of a person's sexual orientation. Second, MUCF raises Jehovah's Witnesses' opposition to blood transfusions for children, an issue it says the administrative court did not examine on the merits.

The grant was ordered restored, but the litigation continues. As of 10 July 2026, no appellate ruling has been reported.

A pattern mirroring Norway

The Swedish legal thread closely tracks a parallel saga in Norway, where authorities denied Jehovah's Witnesses registration under a 2020 law and withdrew subsidies, prompting a multi-year court fight that also ended in the organization's favor. JW Files covers the Norwegian case separately; the two disputes share the same core question — whether a state may withhold public funding from a religious group because of its internal membership and shunning practices — and, so far, similar judicial answers.