Sweden · Tax regime
Expert Tax Relief (Expertskatt)
Open. Duration extended from 5 to 7 years for those who moved to Sweden after 31 March 2023. A 2025 proposal to raise the relief from 25% to 30% was left out of the autumn 2025 budget bill and did NOT take effect on 1 January 2026 — it remains pending.
Seven years of 25% tax-free income is one of the longer inbound reliefs in Europe, and the competence route means a genuinely scarce expert can qualify with no salary threshold at all. Paired with no wealth tax, no inheritance tax and no exit tax, Sweden's capital treatment is cleaner than its 52% headline rate suggests.
Qualifying routes
recurring monthly income above 1.5 price base amounts — SEK 88,800/month in 2026
expert, researcher or strategic key personnel with hard-to-recruit specialist skills — no salary floor
The facts
- Qualifying figure
- 88.8k SEK
- Total landed cost
- No fee. 25% of income is tax-free for 7 years — on SEK 1.5m a year that shelters SEK 375,000 annually.
- Timeline
- 1–4 months — application to the Forskarskattenämnden (Taxation of Research Workers Board) within 3 months of starting work
- Physical presence
- Swedish tax residence; must not have been Swedish resident in the 5 years before starting
- Family
- individual to the employee
- Permanent residency
- n/a — a tax regime
- Citizenship
- n/a
- Language test
- n/a
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- not Swedish resident in the 5 years before starting workmonthly income above 1.5 price base amounts (SEK 88,800 in 2026), OR qualification as an expert/researcher/key personemployer is Swedish or a foreign company with a Swedish permanent establishmentapplication to the Forskarskattenämnden within 3 months of starting
- The 'two price base amounts' rule is obsolete — it was cut to 1.5 price base amounts from 2024. Any adviser quoting two is out of date.
- The proposed increase from 25% to 30% was NOT enacted. It was dropped from the autumn 2025 budget and remains pending. Do not plan around it.
- Apply to the Forskarskattenämnden within 3 months of starting work or you lose the relief entirely.
- You must not have been Swedish resident in the 5 years before starting.
- The relief covers income tax on employment income only — it does nothing for the 30% capital income tax.
- Sweden's 10-year rule taxes gains on Swedish shares and assets for 10 years after you leave, even though there is no exit tax as such.