Which is the dominant effect on evapotranspiration in northern forests, an increase by recent forests expansion or a decrease by the water use response due to increasing CO₂ concentrations? We determined the dominant effect during the period 1961–2012 in 65 Swedish basins. We used the Budyko framework to study the hydroclimatic movements in Budyko space. Our findings suggest that forest expansion is the dominant driver of long-term and large-scale evapotranspiration changes.