Sweden Statutory social-insurance contributions

What this value means

What a payroll engine gets wrong in Sweden, in order of how much money it costs: 1. THE EMPLOYEE SIDE IS EFFECTIVELY NIL, AND THAT IS THE HEADLINE FACT. Sweden has exactly one employee contribution — the 7 % allmän pensionsavgift — and it is cancelled in full by a matching tax reduction under inkomstskattelagen 67 kap. The Swedish employee bears no net social contribution. It is not withheld as a separate payslip line and the tax tables already account for it. AN ENGINE THAT DEDUCTS 7 % FROM SWEDISH NET PAY IS SIMPLY WRONG. The entire cost of Swedish social insurance sits on the employer's 31,42 %. 2. THE TOTAL IS UNCHANGED FOR 2026 BUT THE COMPOSITION IS NOT. The headline remains 31,42 %, but föräldraförsäkringsavgift fell from 2,60 % to 2,00 % and the allmän löneavgift rose to absorb the difference. An engine that stores the seven components and refreshes them piecemeal will end up with a set that does not sum to 31,42 %. 3. THE OLDER-WORKER AGE THRESHOLD MOVED FROM 66 TO 67 ON 1 JANUARY 2026. Skatteverket's wording is «Från och med den 1 januari 2026 ska du bara betala ålderspensionsavgift, 10,21 procent, på ersättning för arbete till personer som vid årets ingång har fyllt 67 år eller mer» — for 2026 that means employees born in 1958 or earlier. Below that age the full 31,42 % is due. A payroll still applying the old 66 rule under-collects 21,21 percentage points on every employee who turns 67 during 2026. For persons born in 1937 or earlier no employer contributions are payable at all. 4. A NEW YOUTH REDUCTION RUNS FROM 1 APRIL 2026 TO 30 SEPTEMBER 2027. For employees born 2003–2007 — broadly ages 19 to 23 — the rate is 20,81 % on monthly pay up to SEK 25.000, with the full 31,42 % on the excess. THE SEK 25.000 IS A BAND, NOT A CLIFF: the reduced rate applies to the first SEK 25.000 and the full rate to the part above, which is the opposite of the Irish employer threshold. The reduction is 10,61 percentage points, which is worth up to SEK 2.652,50 a month per qualifying employee. Both the birth-year window and the period are hard-coded in the measure and neither rolls forward automatically. 5. NOTHING ON THE EMPLOYER SIDE IS CAPPED. All seven components run on the whole of pay. The only ceiling anywhere in the Swedish system is the SEK 673.038 limit on the employee's allmän pensionsavgift, which nobody actually pays. Above 7,5 inkomstbasbelopp the employer's 10,21 % pension contribution buys no further pension entitlement and is a pure tax. 6. THE BIGGEST COMPONENT IS NOT A SOCIAL CONTRIBUTION AT ALL. The allmän löneavgift of 12,62 % — 40 % of the total — is a payroll tax under its own Act that confers no entitlement. The five genuine insurance contributions plus the pension contribution come to 18,80 %. Any comparison that treats Sweden's 31,42 % as social insurance is comparing unlike things. 7. OCCUPATIONAL PENSION AND ITS TAX ARE THE MISSING LAYER. Collectively agreed tjänstepension covers around nine in ten employees and is not in the 31,42 %. Typical ITP1 terms are 4,5 % of salary up to 7,5 inkomstbasbelopp and 30 % above it — so the marginal employer cost of a high salary is far above 31,42 %. On top of the premium the employer pays särskild löneskatt på pensionskostnader at 24,26 % OF THE PENSION COST, not of pay. Ordinary arbetsgivaravgifter are not charged on the pension premium, so SLP substitutes for them rather than duplicating them. 8. THE FIRST FOURTEEN DAYS OF SICKNESS ARE THE EMPLOYER'S OWN COST. Sjuklön is paid directly by the employer, subject to a karensavdrag, before Försäkringskassan's sjukpenning begins. The 3,55 % sjukförsäkringsavgift does not fund it. An employer-cost model built only on the contribution table understates the true cost of absence. 9. WORK-INJURY COVER IS FLAT AND FULLY VISIBLE. At 0,10 %, not risk-rated, with no industry tariff and no separate commercial premium in the statutory scheme. This is the opposite of Denmark, Finland, Norway, Belgium and Portugal, where a commercially priced accident premium sits outside the published rates. Sweden's collectively agreed TFA supplementary cover is a separate, agreement-based layer. 10. UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT IS TWO-TIER AND ONLY ONE TIER IS IN THE CONTRIBUTION. The 2,64 % arbetsmarknadsavgift funds the basic benefit and labour market programmes. Earnings-related unemployment benefit requires voluntary membership of an a-kassa, whose fee the member pays out of net pay. That fee is not a payroll deduction and is not served here. 11. DEDUCTIBILITY. The question barely arises. The employee's only contribution is offset by a tax reduction rather than deducted from the tax base, so tax_deductible is false for it; every other branch is employer-borne. SUB-NATIONAL VARIATION: none in the contributions. Arbetsgivaravgifter, the allmän löneavgift and the allmän pensionsavgift are national and uniform. Swedish MUNICIPALITIES and REGIONS levy their own income tax at rates that differ materially between kommuner, and there is a church fee for members of the Svenska kyrkan and other registered communities, but none of these is a social contribution and none varies the branches above. A regional employer-contribution reduction for the far north (stödområde A) existed historically and has been abolished; do not model it. The only differentiation inside the contributions is by EMPLOYEE AGE, never by geography or industry. WHAT WE DO NOT PUT A NUMBER ON: 1. Occupational pension contributions — all null. There is no statutory rate; the typical ITP1 figures of 4,5 % and 30 % are indicative of one major collective agreement, not derived from any instrument, and must be read off the applicable agreement. 2. The employer's sjuklön cost for the first fourteen days of sickness — not priced. It is a direct wage liability whose size depends on absence, not a rate. 3. A-kassa membership fees — not modelled. Voluntary, set by each fund, paid from net pay, not a payroll deduction. 4. Collectively agreed insurance premiums (TFA, TGL, AGS and the like) — not priced. They are agreement-based, insurer-set and vary between the salaried and blue-collar systems. 5. The särskild löneskatt på pensionskostnader is served with its rate but its BASE is the employer's own pension cost, which cannot be derived from pay alone; it must not be added to the 31,42 % as though it were a wage percentage. ALREADY LEGISLATED, NOT YET IN FORCE: 1. THE YOUTH REDUCTION FOR EMPLOYEES BORN 2003–2007 RUNS FROM 1 APRIL 2026 TO 30 SEPTEMBER 2027 and then stops. Both the start and the end are fixed in the measure, and the birth-year window does not roll forward. TWO HARD DATES: apply the reduction from 2026-04-01 and remove it on 2027-10-01. 2. THE OLDER-WORKER RULE'S BIRTH-YEAR BOUNDARY MOVES EVERY 1 JANUARY as the cohort that has reached 67 at the start of the year changes. For 2027 it will be those born in 1959 or earlier. This is arithmetic, not a policy change, but it must be recomputed annually. 3. THE INKOMSTBASBELOPP IS RE-FIXED EVERY AUTUMN BY THE GOVERNMENT and moves the SEK 673.038 ceiling on the employee's pension contribution and the 7,5-inkomstbasbelopp point at which ITP1 steps from 4,5 % to 30 %. RE-VERIFY FROM 2026-11-01. 4. ALL SEVEN EMPLOYER COMPONENTS AND THE SÄRSKILD LÖNESKATT RATE ARE RE-SET WITH EFFECT FROM 1 JANUARY each year, normally announced in the autumn budget. The total has held at 31,42 % for several years while the composition has moved. RE-VERIFY FROM 2026-11-01. SOURCING CAVEATS: VERIFIED BY FETCHING — Skatteverket's own arbetsgivaravgifter page for income year 2026, from which were read the total of 31,42 % and all seven components (sjukförsäkringsavgift 3,55, föräldraförsäkringsavgift 2,00, ålderspensionsavgift 10,21, efterlevandepensionsavgift 0,30, arbetsmarknadsavgift 2,64, arbetsskadeavgift 0,10, allmän löneavgift 12,62), the 2025 comparison showing föräldraförsäkringsavgift at 2,60 %, the youth reduction with its 20,81 % rate, the SEK 25.000 monthly limit, the birth years 2003–2007 and the 1 April 2026 to 30 September 2027 period, the older-worker rule quoted verbatim with its 1 January 2026 change to age 67 and the born-1937-or-earlier exemption, and the särskild löneskatt rate of 24,26 % for both SLP and SLF. The inkomstbasbelopp of SEK 83.400 for 2026, the resulting SEK 673.038 ceiling (8,07 × 83.400) and the derivation of the 8,07 factor as 7,5/(1 − 0,07) were confirmed from the Government's own announcement of the 2026 inkomstbasbelopp and Pensionsmyndigheten's explanation. INFERRED, NOT READ AS A STATED FIGURE: the 18,80 % sum of the six genuine contributions excluding the allmän löneavgift; the SEK 2.652,50 maximum monthly value of the youth reduction; the approximately SEK 47.100 maximum allmän pensionsavgift; the roughly 5,59 % all-in cost of a 4,5 % ITP1 premium once särskild löneskatt is added. The statutory chapter and section references for socialavgiftslagen are as commonly cited; the Act's consolidated text was not opened in this pass, and every RATE served is from Skatteverket's own published 2026 table. Reported branches are those applying to an ordinary private-sector employee. Not covered: the self-employed (egenavgifter), sole traders, employees born 1937 or earlier, seafarers, employers with no permanent establishment in Sweden who may agree that the employee pays the contributions, and posted workers whose applicable law is determined by Regulation (EC) No 883/2004. Employee and employer shares are stated separately: the employee figure is what leaves the payslip, the employer figure is cost of employment and is not a deduction.

Get it programmatically

curl https://euroref.dev/v1/se/social-contributions
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://euroref.dev/v1/se/social-contributions/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://euroref.dev/provenance/se/social-contributions

Other Sweden series: Policy interest rate (styrräntan) · Late-payment interest (dröjsmålsränta) · Statutory default interest (dröjsmålsränta) · Value added tax (mervärdesskatt, 'moms') · VAT registration threshold · National minimum wage · Public holidays · Consumer price inflation (KPI, year-on-year) · corporate tax rate · Withholding tax rates · Personal income tax (statlig inkomstskatt på förvärvsinkomster) · Riksbank SEK exchange rates

The same figure elsewhere: Switzerland · Türkiye · Ukraine · United Kingdom · Austria · all 34