This chapter analyses changes in the governance of subject time allocation in Swedish compulsory education. In Sweden, time governance has undergone significant shifts from strict state regulation in the 1960s to gradual deregulation in the 1980s, culminating in 1999 in an experiment that allowed 900 schools to freely distribute teaching hours across subjects, abolishing the national timetable. However, by the end of the experiment in 2005, a shift in political orientation was evident and national timetables gradually became more detailed. Applying a historical institutionalist approach, the chapter focuses on two key periods: the gradual deregulation and decentralisation ending in the timetable experiment (early 1990s – 2005) and the subsequent reintroduction and development of a more regulated national timetable (2012 – early 2020s). We conclude that time allocation in the Swedish case reflects broader education reform agendas, and that national timetables are instruments that can serve quite different purposes.