Among the state-owned museums that lost a lot when free admission disappeared is the National Museum in Stockholm, whose visitor numbers decreased by 117,525 visitors, which corresponds to 23 percent or more than one in five visitors.

Moderna Museet (including ArkDes) in Stockholm, in turn, lost 99,964 visitors, or one in five visitors.

Reinstated entrance fees had a major impact

Despite the decline, however, both art museums had more than twice as many visitors individually as the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm, which counted 163,313 visitors last year. Nationalmuseum was also somewhat more popular than Moderna Museet.

"The category of museums that has lost the most visitors are those that had free admission in 2022 and then had to reintroduce the entrance fee in 2023. The reintroduced fees have had a major impact on the number of visitors," says Gunnar Ardelius, Secretary General of the Swedish Museums.

Museum visits increase overall

On the other hand, 17.7 million museum visits were made last year to the 146 museums that responded to the survey from the Swedish Museums. This represents an increase of 6.5 percent.

Skansen in Stockholm had the highest number of visitors, followed by the Vasa Museum and the Nordic Museum. Malmö Museum and Gamla Linköping Open-Air Museum also attracted many visitors.

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After free admission to state museums was removed, they were forced to find creative solutions to attract visitors – see what measures the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm took to take action. Photo: Martin Ekelin/SVT