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Building permits for campsite cabins and capsule houses in Sweden

On a Swedish campsite, a cabin, a glamping cabin or a capsule house set up for guests is a building under the Planning and Building Act, even when it stands on plinths or pallets, and a building permit (bygglov) is, as a rule, required for every unit. Here is what the law and the courts say, who decides, and each step from the application to the day you can let the units.

Which rules apply, and who decides?

Three sets of rules apply to a unit placed on a campsite or in a cabin village (stugby):

• the Planning and Building Act (plan- och bygglagen, SFS 2010:900, PBL): when a permit is required, how the municipality handles the application and how the work is controlled;
• the Planning and Building Ordinance (plan- och byggförordningen, SFS 2011:338, PBF): the details, such as the exemptions from the quality controller requirement and the penalty charges;
• the regulations of Boverket, the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, published in its code of statutes (BFS): the technical requirements, such as loads and fire safety.

Your municipality decides. Planning the use of land and water is a municipal matter, and every municipality has a building committee (byggnadsnämnd), whose name varies: in Region Gotland, for example, it is the miljö- och byggnämnd. The committee examines permit applications, issues the start and final notices and supervises compliance. If you ask, it must give you written information on planning and building. Apart from a few provisions it can write into a detailed development plan (detaljplan), the municipality may not set technical requirements of its own.

If the units' toilets are to be connected to a sewage facility of the campsite's own, rather than to the municipal network, the municipality's environment committee may also have to grant a permit.

Is a cabin on a campsite a building?

Yes. The PBL defines a building (byggnad) as a lasting construction with a roof, or a roof and walls, that is placed permanently on the ground and designed for people to stay in. The definition says nothing about wheels or foundations. New construction (nybyggnad) means putting up a new building, and also moving an existing building to a new place.

Cabins, glamping cabins and capsule houses that stand on plinths or pallets and are let to guests season after season are therefore buildings, and setting them up is new construction. Our units are set in place by crane, on plinths without cast foundations, and connected to electricity, water and drainage: each one is a building.

When is a building permit required on a campsite?

The PBL requires a building permit for new construction (chapter 9, section 3). The exemptions set out in the following sections cover annexes, farm and forestry buildings outside a detaljplan, and small buildings for public transport or on public land owned by the municipality. None of them is designed for accommodation let to campsite guests: a permit-free annex is either a komplementbostadshus, which must complement a one- or two-dwelling house, or a komplementbyggnad, such as a shed, a garage or a sauna, which may not contain a self-contained dwelling. Each of our units has its own shower room and is let as accommodation in its own right, so we plan each project with a permit covering every unit. Remember too that moving a unit to a new place is new construction again.

The campsite itself also needs a building permit: to lay it out, build it, move it or substantially alter it. Ask your municipality whether adding a group of units counts as a substantial alteration.

Within a detaljplan, a permit is granted only if the units comply with the plan, although a small deviation consistent with its purpose can be accepted. Check what the detaljplan allows (use, building rights, height) before you order. A campsite project, or a cabin village (fritidsby) outside built-up areas, that can be expected to have a significant environmental impact must be examined in a detaljplan. A project on an area of less than 5,000 m² is presumed not to have such an impact, with some exceptions.

What did the courts decide in 2022?

The Land and Environment Court of Appeal (Mark- och miljööverdomstolen, at Svea Court of Appeal) ruled on the question in a judgment of 17 February 2022, case P 14400-20, reported as MÖD 2022:6.

• The facts. A company running a campsite on Gotland set up ten campsite cabins of 19.11 m² each on pallets and let them to its guests. It had applied for a building permit, but placed the cabins before the permit was granted and before the start notice.
• The permit. The court agreed with the Land and Environment Court at Nacka District Court (judgment of 1 December 2020, case P 2050-20): setting up the cabins required a building permit, and moving them to another place on the same property did not put the breach right.
• The penalty. The construction penalty charge (byggsanktionsavgift) was calculated for each cabin separately, and not on their combined floor area, since each cabin was a new building.

The judgment cannot be appealed. For a campsite, the lesson is simple: wait for both the permit and the start notice before placing a single unit, because each unit counts separately. The charge is due even when the breach was neither intentional nor negligent. Since 1 December 2025, the same requirement of a permit for new construction has been in chapter 9, section 3 of the PBL.

Parliament has kept the rule: on 25 February 2026, the Riksdag rejected a motion to replace the permit with a simple notification in planned campsite areas (motion 2025/26:61, committee report 2025/26:CU19).

Can a building permit be temporary?

Yes, on conditions. A temporary building permit (tidsbegränsat bygglov) can be sought for a measure meant to last only a limited time. It can be granted if you ask for it, the site can be restored, and the measure meets some, but not all, of the conditions for a permanent permit, for example when the units do not comply with the detaljplan. It runs for up to ten years and can be extended, at your request, by up to five years at a time, although the total may not, as a rule, exceed fifteen years. The site must be restored before the permit expires, and no demolition permit is needed to remove a building put up under it.

If a permit is used for a seasonal purpose, so that the measure has to be repeated two or more years in a row, it may be carried out again without a new examination, provided this happens within one year of the time it last ended.

How long does the municipality take?

• The building committee must decide within ten weeks. The period runs from the day the application arrives, or from a later day if you send in new documents on your own initiative or put right a deficiency that the committee asked you, within three weeks, to remedy. The committee can extend the period once, by up to ten weeks, if the handling or investigation of the case requires it, and must then tell you in writing before the original deadline expires.
• If it misses the deadline, its fee for the permit is reduced by one fifth for each week begun, except when it was waiting for a decision on a shoreline dispensation.
• If the site is covered by shoreline protection, the committee can wait for the dispensation decision before deciding on the permit.
• A permit lapses if the work has not begun within two years and been completed within five years of the day the decision gained legal force.

For a spring opening, prepare the project in the autumn. The application must include, among other things, the property designation, your organisation number, the proposed quality controller, the date you intend to start and the drawings and descriptions needed. If you also enclose the documents required for the start notice, the committee can decide on both at the same time.

Start notice, quality controller and final notice

Start notice (startbesked). No work may begin before the building committee has issued it, and that includes setting a unit on its pitch: this is exactly what led to the penalty in the 2022 case. The committee issues it after examining your proposed inspection plan (kontrollplan) and, unless it is obviously unnecessary, your waste management plan, normally after a technical consultation (tekniskt samråd) with you and your quality controller. If no consultation is needed, it can issue the start notice in the permit decision.

Quality controller (kontrollansvarig). The checks set out in the inspection plan must be overseen by a quality controller: a person certified for the task and independent of whoever carries out the work, so not the installer. The exemptions in the PBL and the PBF cover small changes to one- or two-dwelling houses, annexes, signs, walls, fences, decks and similar works, not new rental units. The committee can, however, decide in a given case that a simple project needs no inspection plan. The permit decision states whether a quality controller is required, and who. The quality controller helps you draw up the inspection plan, attends the technical consultation and the checks, and gives the committee a statement for the final notice. You appoint and pay the quality controller yourself.

Final notice (slutbesked). The units may not be used, and therefore not let, until the committee has issued the final notice, unless it decides otherwise. You obtain it by showing that the requirements of the permit, the inspection plan and the start notice are met. No climate declaration is needed: the law exempts buildings with a gross floor area of 100 m² or less, and each of our units is well below that.

What about shoreline protection?

Many campsites lie by the sea or a lake. Shoreline protection (strandskydd) normally covers the land and water up to 100 metres from the shoreline, and the county administrative board can extend it to at most 300 metres. Since 1 July 2025, it normally no longer applies to lakes of one hectare or less or to stretches of watercourses two metres wide or less, and it no longer applies at all to lakes and watercourses created after 30 June 1975.

Within the protected zone, no new building may be put up without a shoreline dispensation (strandskyddsdispens). It is normally granted by the municipality, and only for special reasons listed in the Environmental Code (chapter 7), for example that the area is already used in a way that removes its importance for shoreline protection, or that the area is needed to expand an ongoing business and the expansion cannot take place outside it. Apply for it at the same time as the building permit.

Which technical requirements apply?

When it examines the permit, the committee checks that a building is suitable for its purpose, has a good form, colour and material effect and, where the requirement applies, is accessible to and usable by people with reduced mobility or orientation. The technical properties listed in the PBL, among them load-bearing capacity, fire safety, hygiene, health and environment, safety in use, protection against noise, and energy efficiency and thermal insulation, are your responsibility as the developer: they are checked through the inspection plan and the technical documents the committee examines before the start notice. Boverket's regulations set out what these requirements mean. Two of them shape how you lay out the pitches and what you order:

• Snow: the ground snow load ranges from 1.0 to 5.5 kN/m² depending on the location (BFS 2024:6, chapter 4, section 30 and figure 4:2, in force since 1 July 2025). The permissible snow load of the roof for your location is confirmed in writing in our quote.
• Fire: buildings must have a protective distance of 8 metres to other buildings or, if the distance is shorter, be designed with fire separation (BFS 2024:7, chapter 6, section 5). Plan the pitches with this distance in mind.

Who does what on a Lodgeyard project?

As the developer (byggherre), your campsite applies for the building permit and, if needed, the shoreline dispensation, appoints the quality controller and requests the final notice before letting the units. The application comes before the order, and we produce the drawings it requires. We supply the documents you need for the permit, for your electrical contractor and for your insurer:

• drawings showing dimensions, height and method of placement;
• a single-line diagram and a component list with EU declarations of conformity;
• the available fire classifications of the panels and the manufacturer's instructions.

The partner installer named in your quote sets up and connects the units once the start notice has been issued. The municipality's fees and the quality controller are paid by you directly: they are not part of our turnkey price, which covers the unit delivered to your pitch (normally via the port of Gothenburg), customs duty and the customs broker, and installation and connection.

• Alcôve 14, capsule house for two, 13.8 m²: turnkey from SEK 529,000 excl. VAT;
• Belvédère 27, family capsule house, 27.4 m²: turnkey from SEK 745,000 excl. VAT;
• Escale 36, expandable container house with two bedrooms, 37.2 m² overall: turnkey from SEK 429,000 excl. VAT.

The rules on electrical connection, fire safety equipment, import and VAT are summarised on our page Which rules apply to your campsite?

Frequently asked questions

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