For the Swedish community in Philadelphia, this is the practical link to the administration back home — documents, identity, civil status, and help when something goes badly wrong far from home.
Everything on record about this office follows: where it is, how to reach it, what it does, and what to settle before you go.
📞 Quick Contact
- Address: 1500 Market ST Suite 3510, Philadelphia
- Phone: (610) 812-9134
- Official website: http://www.swedenabroad.com/en-GB/Embassies/Washington/Contact/Embassy--Consulates/#Philadelphia,PA
- Type of office: Consulate
🛂 Services normally available
Swedish consular offices generally handle the following, though not every post offers every service:
- Documents: certification of papers so they have legal effect abroad — either an apostille or the older legalisation chain, depending on the country.
- Visas: applications from people travelling to Sweden, where the category is not handled through an online system.
- Powers of attorney: authorising someone to act for you back in Sweden — selling property, dealing with a bank, handling an estate.
- Assistance: the part of consular work nobody plans for. An arrest, a hospital, a death in the family, documents gone.
- Passports: applications and renewals for Swedish nationals, with personal attendance required because of the biometric data.
- Civil status: births, marriages and deaths occurring here have to be entered in the home register, and that is done through the consulate.
📅 Getting an appointment
Most consular procedures need an appointment, and at a busy consulate the wait for one is usually the longest part of the whole process.
Check the official site for how this post takes bookings — online system, email or telephone all exist across the network. Whatever the method, it is free.
Bring originals and copies of everything. Counters keep the copy and return the original, and the reverse is the exception.
🤝 Before you make the trip
Jurisdiction decides everything and distance decides nothing. A file submitted to the wrong post is returned, however close that post happens to be.
Check that names and dates match across every document you bring. Mismatches stop files more often than missing papers do.
Where a document has to be produced back home, the appointment is the start of the timetable rather than the end of it.
Common questions before you go
How do I know which office is mine?
By the consular district assigned to it, not by distance. It is the first thing worth asking on the phone.
How do I get hold of this office?
By telephone on (610) 812-9134. Note who you speak to and what you are told, because requirements differ between posts of the same country.
Does this office handle passports?
It usually does, by appointment and with personal attendance for biometrics. Ask whether the booklet is collected at the counter or posted out.
Do I need a visa to visit Sweden?
That depends on your nationality and the length of the trip. Where Sweden does require one, it is increasingly applied for online rather than at a counter.
What if I lose my passport days before a flight?
That does not go through the ordinary appointment queue. Call and say it is an emergency: for imminent travel most networks issue a travel document valid for a single journey.