This study is about trust for public institutions and what the foundation is that builds this confidence. For this study I have used three dependent variables to define different aspects of public institutions. These are trust in the legal system, trust in political parties and state of health services nowadays.  The method that is used in the study is based on a comparative study between two countries, Sweden and Portugal.  The actual result is made up by comparing means and regressions by using 13 independent variables. Many of the independent variables that has been used is deriving from institutional theories of Putnam and Rothstein These theories points out the importance of strong traditions of civic engagement and that the success of the trust of the institutions depends in large part on the horizontal bonds that make up social capital. Other theories describe the malicious venom that is the outcome of corruption and the importance of happiness. The cultural dimensions by Hofstede are also included in the list of theories, especially those dealing with the freedom and free from collectivism and caring for others well-being. With help from these theories thirteen independent variables were emerged. The result that comes from the study is that the trust is first of all the obvious Sweden has a higher level of trust in all the different aspects than Portugal. Although the regressions shows that only 4,8 -11,2% can be explained, there is still possible to make clear conclusions. The clearest conclusion we can draw is that state of happiness makes a difference regarding trust for the institutions. Other things that influence the trust are civic engagement by working in another organization and believing in equality seems to correlate with higher trust. Caring for others seems to have a slightly negative effect on the trust. With this we can conclude that altruists do not have a higher trust on public institutions than others. A clearer tendency is that the sense of feeling free is negative on the trust for the public institutions.