A well known result from functional analysis states that any compact operator between Hilbert spaces admits a singular value decomposition (SVD). This decomposition is a powerful tool that is the workhorse of many methods both in mathematics and applied fields. A prominent application in recent years is the approximation of high-dimensional functions in a low-rank format. This is based on the fact that, under certain conditions, a tensor can be identified with a compact operator and SVD applies to the latter. One key assumption for this application is that the tensor product norm is not weaker than the injective norm. This assumption is not fulfilled in Sobolev spaces, which are widely used in the theory and numerics of partial differential equations. The aim of this work is the analysis of the SVD in Sobolev spaces. We show that many properties are preserved in Sobolev spaces. Moreover, to an extent, SVD can still provide "good" low-rank approximations for Sobolev functions. We present 3 variants of SVD that can be applied to a function in a Sobolev space. First, we can apply the SVD in the ambient L 2 space. Second, the Sobolev space is an intersection of spaces which are the product of a Sobolev space in one coordinate and L 2 spaces in the complementary variables, and we can apply SVD on each of the spaces. Third, with additional regularity, we can apply SVD on the space of functions with mixed smoothness. We conclude with a few numerical examples that support our theoretical findings.