The Damallsvenskan: Your Questions Answered on Sweden's Women's Top Flight, Its Calendar, Relegation and European Places

The Damallsvenskan is Sweden's top division of women's football, founded in 1988 and played by 14 clubs over 26 rounds between late March and mid-November. Because that calendar runs against autumn-to-spring leagues, tables, transfers and European places on RubiScore need a date attached before they can be compared.

This Q&A covers format, calendar, points, relegation, Champions League places and champions, with one angle throughout: what a spring-to-autumn season does to a mid-table reading and to qualification timing. Fixtures, tables and results for the league are listed at https://rubiscore.com. Figures describe the 2026 season as of 19 October 2026 unless a date is given.

What Is the Damallsvenskan and When Did It Start?

The name means "Women's Allsvenskan". The first season was 1988, and 2026 is the 39th. Swedish women's champions are listed from 1973.

The early format differed. From 1988 to 1992 the top four clubs after the regular season played semi-finals and a final. Under the Swedish Football Association's 2026 competition rules, the series winner is now Swedish champion, so the table alone decides the title. The champion also receives a miniature of the Crown Princess Victoria trophy.

How Many Clubs and Rounds Does the Current Season Have?

Fourteen clubs play each other home and away, which gives 26 rounds and 182 matches. The league grew from 12 clubs to 14 in 2022, lengthening the schedule from 22 rounds to 26.

The 2026 season runs from 28 March to 15 November. The 2025 season ran from 23 March to 16 November. The second tier, Elitettan, also has 14 clubs and 26 rounds, and its 2026 season ends on 14 November, one day earlier.

Why Does a Spring-to-Autumn Calendar Matter?

The season carries a single-year label, so the current campaign is "2026", not "2026-27". It spans a different stretch of time from an autumn-to-spring season with a similar label. The 2026 season page lists July as a summer break.

Two consequences follow:

  • The share of the season differs. On 20 September 2026 every club had played 19 of 26 rounds, or 73 per cent. Two days later the first matchday of UEFA's Women's Champions League league phase began.
  • Form windows cross the break. A run of five results read in August can include matches from before and after July, and the squad may have changed in between.

How Do Points and Tie-Breakers Work?

A win earns three points, a draw one and a defeat none. Under the competition rules, clubs level on points are separated in this order:

  • Step 1: goal difference.
  • Step 2: most goals scored.
  • Step 3: head-to-head results.
  • Step 4: if the title, promotion or relegation is at stake and clubs are still level, a decider on neutral ground.

Season tables spell out the head-to-head step as points, then goal difference, then away goals.

Two cases from the 20 September table show the first step at work. Djurgården and Växjö both had 18 points, and Djurgården sat 10th on a goal difference of -11 against -14. Vittsjö and Brommapojkarna both had 26, and Vittsjö were 7th on -1 against -8.

How Do Relegation and Promotion Work With Elitettan?

Three positions at the bottom are in play under the federation's rules:

  • 13th and 14th: relegated to Elitettan.
  • 12th: plays a qualifier against Elitettan's third-placed club.
  • Elitettan 1st and 2nd: promoted.

The 2025 season shows the route. Brommapojkarna finished 12th and met KIF Örebro, third in Elitettan, on 20 and 23 November, winning 4-0 on aggregate. Eskilstuna United and IK Uppsala were promoted, and Linköping FC went down for the first time in their history.

Two details are easy to miss. The qualifier began four days after the final round on 16 November, so a club's status can stay open after the table closes. And a reserve side cannot move up: BK Häcken II are ineligible for promotion from the 2026 Elitettan.

Which Places Lead to the UEFA Women's Champions League?

UEFA's regulations give each association one, two or three entries, taken from the winner, runner-up and third-placed club of its top league. The number depends on the association coefficient ranking. Sweden ranked seventh in the access list for 2026-27, which carries three entries.

The 2025 table filled those places as follows:

  • Häcken (champions): due in the second qualifying round, but as holders of the first Women's Europa Cup they took the league-phase place that UEFA's rules pass to the Europa Cup holders when the Champions League holders qualify through their own league. Häcken were Sweden's only league-phase club.
  • Hammarby IF (second) and Malmö FF (third): entered the second qualifying round, League Path.

The ranking uses five seasons of results and is fixed ahead of time. The 2026-27 list rests on seasons 2020/21 to 2024/25, so it was settled while the 2025 Damallsvenskan was still being played. By the same pattern, the 2026 table feeds a 2027-28 list built on 2021/22 to 2025/26, and Sweden's place in it should be checked on UEFA's access list.

How Does a Nordic Calendar Shift Champions League Timing?

Häcken clinched the 2025 title on 8 November 2025. UEFA's 2026-27 schedule put the second qualifying round semi-finals on 5 August 2026, about nine months later, and the first league-phase matchday on 22 and 23 September, over ten months later. A Swedish club therefore uses a place won in November in the middle of the next domestic season.

The offset also overlaps the league phase with the domestic run-in. The 2026-27 matchdays fall on 22/23 September, 30 September/1 October, 28/29 October, 10/11 November, 18/19 November and 16 December. Four of those six dates come before the Damallsvenskan's last round on 15 November.

Häcken led the league with 52 points after 19 rounds on 20 September. On 1 October, UEFA's standings had them 17th of 18 in the league phase with no points from two matches. Two tables, two clocks: the same club can look dominant in one and struggling in the other within a fortnight.

Those results also feed the coefficient. By the same two-year lag, Häcken's 2026-27 matches help set the 2028-29 list, which the 2027 table will fill.

Which Clubs Have Won the Title?

The list of champions, compiled from federation records, shows several eras:

  • Älvsjö AIK: five in a row, from 1995 to 1999.
  • Umeå IK: seven titles between 2000 and 2008.
  • Linköping FC: 2009, 2016 and 2017.
  • The Malmö lineage: the club that won as Malmö FF, then LdB FC Malmö and now FC Rosengård has 14 Swedish titles in the list, but the first came in 1986, before the Damallsvenskan began. Within the Damallsvenskan era the count is 13, the latest in 2024.
  • BK Häcken: 2020, as Kopparbergs/Göteborg FC, and 2025.
  • Hammarby IF: 2023, the club's second title overall.

Today's Malmö FF and FC Rosengård are separate clubs, so check which one a record belongs to.

How Does the Offset Affect Comparisons With Autumn-to-Spring Leagues?

  • Labels: a 2026 Damallsvenskan season overlaps the end of one autumn-to-spring season and the start of the next. Compare date ranges, not labels.
  • Share of season: compare the fraction of rounds played and points per match, not raw totals. After 19 rounds Häcken averaged 2.74 points per match, Hammarby 2.47 and Malmö FF 1.89.
  • Transfers: Swedish clubs trade inside the season. The 2026 top-scorer list carries two clubs against some names, such as Maja Bodin (Växjö and Häcken) and Älvali Lindström (Uppsala and Malmö FF), so one season total can belong to two squads.
  • Tournament summers: in 2023, SVT Sport described a long World Cup break in the Damallsvenskan. A gap in a fixture list can be a tournament or national-team break rather than a postponement.

How Do You Read a Damallsvenskan Table at a Given Date?

The 20 September 2026 table, after 19 rounds with 21 points still available, shows how "mid-table" depends on the date:

  • Top: Häcken 52 points, Hammarby IF 47 and Malmö FF 36. Malmö in third, the position that earned a qualifying place for 2026-27, was five points clear of AIK on 31.
  • Middle: from fifth to ninth, Kristianstad (29), Eskilstuna United (27), Vittsjö and Brommapojkarna (26 each) and Piteå (23) were within six points, the value of two wins.
  • Lower middle: from 10th to 13th, the points were 18, 18, 17 and 16, just two apart, with the qualifier place at 12th.
  • Bottom: Uppsala, on 6 points, were ten behind 13th.

With seven rounds left, a six-point gap is two wins, so ninth place was not yet clear of the qualifier and the clubs from 10th to 13th were still bunched together. Platforms such as RubiScore show tables by competition and season, which makes it easy to check how many rounds have been played before setting a Swedish table beside one from another league.

What Are the Common Misconceptions?

  • "Only two clubs are at risk." Two are relegated, but 12th also plays a qualifier against Elitettan's third-placed club.
  • "The champion always enters Europe at the same round." Häcken's 2025 title earned a qualifying slot, but their Europa Cup win moved them into the league phase.
  • "Rosengård have 14 Damallsvenskan titles." The list credits the lineage with 14 Swedish titles, 13 of them since 1988.
  • "The table winner has always been champion." Not in 1988 to 1992, when a play-off decided the title.

Checklist for Reading the Damallsvenskan

  • Rounds played: note the share of the 26 rounds completed.
  • Rates: use points or goals per match for cross-league comparisons.
  • Squad changes: check for mid-season moves and the July break.
  • UEFA stage: identify which round a club entered and when.
  • Title counts: define whether a total counts the Damallsvenskan era or all Swedish titles.

The league's rules on tie-breakers, relegation and European places are clear. What changes the reading is the calendar: a September table is three-quarters complete, and a title won in November is used the following summer. Reading each number with its date keeps comparisons honest.