In this study, the factor structure of German and Swedish students’ achievement goals in chemistry were investigated. The national culture of Germany and Sweden are very different in the masculinity versus femininity dimension, expressing the level of competitiveness and the way performance is evaluated in the society. Therefore, the structure of students’ achievement goals, in part based on their evaluation of performance, may very well differ between the countries. The results showed that a three-factor CFA model, separating mastery-approach, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals, fitted the German data best. In Sweden, the three-factor model and a two-factor model combining the two performance goals fitted the data equally well. However, the correlation between the performance approach and avoidance goals in the Swedish three-factor model was not significantly different from 1 and the separation thus lacked practical significance. Further, the same pattern was repeated for grade 5 – 11 individually within each country. Measurement invariance between grades within the countries support an invariant factor structure, and thus age-independent factor structures. We argue that differences in factor structures between the two countries are related to the differences in national culture.