Sweden legal and accounting and tax considerations in 2024

• Sweden accounting and tax

  • Corporate Tax

    • Sweden corporate income tax is a standard 20.6%;
    • Swedish companies must submit annual tax returns, in line with their financial year;

  • Value Added Tax (VAT)

    • The standard VAT rate is 25%.
    • All companies must register for VAT once their company meets the minimum threshold of SEK30,000 (€2,847).
    • VAT return filing obligations are determined by a company’s annual revenue:
      • Revenue less than SEK1 million (€94,890): annual filing;
      • Revenue between SEK1 million and SEK40 million (€3.79 million): quarterly filing;
      • Revenue above SEK40 million: monthly filing.
    • Reduced VAT rates of 12%, 6% and 0% may apply to certain products and services such as select foodstuffs, tourism services, qualifying medicines etc.

  • Tax Duties and Levies

    • Stamp duty is levied at 4.25% on the transfer of real estate and mortgage loans;
    • Property tax on Swedish real estate is levied annually at an average rate of 2%;
    • Standard capital gains tax is 21.4%;
    • Sweden imposes no withholding tax on interest payments and royalty payments;
    • The standard dividend withholding tax rate is 30%.

  • Auditing Requirements

    • An LLC, PLC or Branch is required to appoint an auditor if it has met any two of the following criteria for two consecutive years: i) more than 3 employees ii) balance sheet total exceeding SEK1.5 million and iii) a net turnover of SEK3 million;
    • Audited financial statements must be submitted to the Companies Registration Office. Healy Consultants Group can assist our Client fulfil this statutory obligation for an annual fee of €2,300.

  • Other tax considerations

    • Swedish resident companies are permitted to carry forward their business losses indefinitely;
    • Sweden has signed double taxation treaties with 92 countries including Australia, Canada, China, Singapore and USA. A full list is here;
    • Healy Consultants Group can help Clients meet their accounting and tax obligations in Sweden. Our estimated accounting and tax fees for an active Swedish company are US$2,300, and US$950 for a dormant company.

• Sweden legal and compliance

  • Incorporation regulations

    • Each Swedish LLC requires a minimum of two directors and one shareholder;
    • The shareholders can be of any nationality. At least half of the board of directors must be resident in the EEA, or a registered agent will be required as a local representative of the company;
    • The minimum initial share capital for incorporating an LLC will be SEK50,000 (€4,745) and SEK500,000 (€47,445) for a PLC. The entire amount must be fully paid up and a certificate of deposit must be presented during company registration.

  • Labour regulations

    • All employers are required to contribute 31.42% of the employee’s salary to the latter’s social security account, capped at SEK458,571 (€43,514). The employee must contribute 15.49% of their salary to the security account;
    • All firms hiring more than 25 employees must appoint an economic committee, comprising 3 management representatives and 2 employee representatives;
    • The Swedish Discrimination Act bars discrimination amongst employees on the basis of religion, ethnicity, sex, transgender identity or disability;
    • The Working Hours Act sets the maximum weekly working hours at 40 and maximum annual overtime hours at 200;
    • The Annual Leave Act provides employees the right to 5 weeks of annual holidays, of which the employee can take four weeks consecutively between June and August;
    • The Work Environment Act provides for health and safety standards to be maintained at the work place.

  • Other regulations

    • Although Sweden does not have any exchange controls, reporting requirements exist for all cross-border transactions higher than €16,300;
    • Mergers between two or more companies require approval from the Competition Authority if i) the revenue of at least two merging companies exceeds €2 million and ii) aggregate annual revenue of the merging companies exceeds €10 million.