Jan Eliasson was born in a working-class family in Gothenburg in Sweden. He was an AFS exchange student in Indiana, United States, from 1957 to 1958 and was commissioned a naval officer in the reserve after training at the Royal Swedish Naval Academy in 1962. In 1965 he earned a master's degree in economics from the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg where he was also a president of the local AIESEC committee. He also holds honorary degrees from American University (1994), University of Gothenburg (2001) and Uppsala University (2005).