Abstract Language skills are becoming increasingly important for international trade and the aimof this study is to investigate the language needs of Swedish exporting companies.The study was conducted, taking into account the fact, that there is a decreasing interestin learning foreign languages. As Sweden and Denmark are both small neighbourcountrise, comparions were also made with Denmark.  Eight questionnaires and four interviews were conducted in different exportingcompanies in the southern part of Sweden.  The results of the questionnaires and interviews indicate that the participatingcompanies encounter problems due to a lack of language skills, which leads to lostbusiness. The comparison between Swedish and Danish companies shows that Denmarkachieves better results as Danish companies have a language strategy.  The present study also shows that Swedish companies need several and improvedlanguage skills to survive and to compete on the international market