Hi Fiona,
I think there is no direct bus - at least didn’t see any sign near the station when I was in Gällivare a few years ago.
I only found now that there is a bus connection from Pajala to Gällivare, which seems to run 2 times per day. Pajala would be only around 28km from Kolari. You might try hitchhiking if you feel confident enough and take the usual precautions. Also an idea would be to look for cars near the train/bus station/center with Swedish license plates and talk to them if they are heading to Sweden and give you a ride - this worked for me well in other countries.
Or if you have time and like to walk and your backpack is not too heavy… you might walk the 28km . And always when a car is passing try to get a ride.

Haven’t had a lot of hitchhiking experience in Sweden yet - only some tourists took me in their car once. I heard in Sweden it is not that easy. In Norway it worked well for me - hitchhiked through whole Lofoten from the West to Narvik, but almost only tourists gave me a ride! Waiting time was from 1 minute to maximum 45 minutes, but that’s a busy road - From Kolari to Pajala might be not that busy.

Chances that you meet someone on the train doing the same route are pretty low but everything is possible ;-)

Take care and safe trip!

Beside that fairly new INTernational exchange Fi-SE there are NO other regular bus/transpo links over the border-noone lives there.

The local buses in the part of SE are run by the ´län´=province´ and can be found as norrbottentrafik. Its not cheap nor often and most likely you also need to get some app to pay for the ticket-this is modern times Sverige after all.

ALL finnish transport is to be found on matkahuolta.fi.

@Fiona Hamilton 

A Plan B could be via Tornio/Happaranda :)

From there starts a Bus (Interrail valid) to Lulea from Lulea you have a train to Gällivare :)
From Happaranda is now even a train in service to Lulea :)

Thank you very much! Did not know that there is a Happaranda-Lulea train. Do I have to use a travel day for the Kemi-Tornio bus ride? And do I have to pay for all busse in sweden, except for happaranda-lulea?

I think you need a travel day, but I am not sure as I did it with the old 7pm rule using the nighttrain from Helsinki to Kemi and then continued to Lulea and further by nighttrain to Stockholm the same day.

Yes, for all other buses in Sweden you have to pay and they aren’t cheap AFAIK.

Yeah the buses needs a travelday of your pass :)

Ok thanks! I looked up busses from tornio to haparanda https://liput.matkahuolto.fi/connectionlist?lang=en&departurePlaceId=p1379&arrivalPlaceId=p2987&departureDate=2022-01-26#breadcrumb and there seems to be no earlier bus than the one that gets into haparanda at 7:40, but the train to boden/lulea leaves already at 7:34… is there really no possibility to do this in one day? :D

Why not walking the short distance from Tornio to Haparanda? I did the same back in 2014.

Oh sorry, of couse I mean kemi to tornio/happaranda

That's 7:40 Finnish time. Sweden is one hour behind, so that's 6:40 Swedish time. And then you have time to get from the bus station Haparanda/Tornio to the Haparanda train station.

Anyone want to share a taxi from Pajala to Kolari on December 8th 2024? 

I’m taking the same route as topic starter, in order to ‘win’ a day (not having to take the overnight ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, wait a day and take the overnight Helsinki/Kolari train) on my way to Kolari / Äkäslompolo / Ylläs. It might also be an option for people who found that the VR ‘Santa Claus Express’ Helsinki to Kolari was fully booked.

Instead: I’m taking the overnight Vy train from Stockholm to Gällivare. From there, as MartinM mentioned, no busses to take you further in the direction of Kolari, so I booked a taxi. 

If anyone needs a ride in that direction too, let me know and we can share.