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Foreign citizens in Sweden blocked from BankID after several banks roll out new rules

Several readers have got in touch with The Local after their bank implemented new terms and conditions which make it harder for non-Swedish citizens to get a new mobile BankID.

Foreign citizens in Sweden blocked from BankID after several banks roll out new rules
Some Swedish banks have stopped issuing new BankID to foreign citizens due to new rules. Photo: Fredrik Persson/TT

When Charlie, a software developer from the US, contacted his bank to order his first BankID after moving to Sweden, he was surprised to learn that new rules about how customers verify their identity meant that he – as a foreign citizen – was no longer able to get one from his bank, despite having a Swedish personal number and ID card issued by the Tax Agency (Skatteverket).

This came after his bank, ICA Banken, changed its terms and conditions on January 10th, following a broader tightening of the rules of Sweden’s BankID system to improve security and crack down on ID fraud.

“Several expatriate friends had recommended ICA Banken for its ease of initial setup online. Since they were students when they got their accounts, they appreciated the relative speed and low financial requirements,” said Charlie, one of several readers who got in touch with The Local after they found they were affected by the new rules.

“We have been working systematically for six months to get residence permit cards, then a personal number, then a Skatteverket national ID card, and finally bank accounts. To our shock, we were just told by ICA Banken that the Skatteverket National ID – the only one available to non-citizens – is not a valid source of identification for BankID.”

More than eight million people in Sweden use electronic IDs in their daily lives, to do their banking, shop online or access vital public services – it is for example only possible to access your health records online if you have an electronic ID. Issued by ten banks, BankID is by far the most widely used.

But the recent rule change requires new users to have a Swedish passport or a national ID card issued by the Swedish police to verify the user’s identity when applying online for a mobile BankID if you don’t already have one (existing BankIDs won’t be revoked).

This is because these IDs contain a scannable chip, which can be validated digitally, meaning that the applicant can prove their identity online. But these forms of ID are only available to Swedish citizens, and the ID issued by the Tax Agency does not contain that chip.

“If you’re collecting your first BankID you should be able to go to your branch and confirm that you are you, using a physical ID, for example the Tax Agency’s ID and all other approved IDs (comparable to picking up a passport from the police). But if you’re collecting your first BankID remotely, you need a passport or a national ID card,” a BankID spokesperson told The Local in an email.

The spokesperson said that BankID and the banks follow the framework for electronic IDs set up by Sweden’s Agency for Digital Development (DIGG). “By scanning ID cards, a lot of people don’t have to visit a bank branch physically, which is much appreciated and requested. But those who do not have a passport or national ID card need to visit a branch.”

The spokesperson told The Local that so far not all banks had implemented the new rules, which it introduced last autumn. It remains possible for banks to accept IDs that are available to foreign citizens – such as a Swedish driving licence or the Tax Agency’s ID card – at for example an in-person meeting, which some banks in Sweden have chosen to do. But with banks in an increasingly digital society operating fewer and fewer brick-and-mortar branches, turning up at a physical location to confirm your identity in person is not always possible.

“Each bank must answer for its own checks and requirements, and we are aware that there are banks that are able to for example verify the customer’s identity at an office, which ICA Banken cannot,” a spokesperson for ICA Banken told The Local, adding that customers with an existing BankID can still use that to prove their identity and renew it online.

“We have assessed the risk we see based on our capacity as a distance bank, and decided that we were not able to offer driving licences as an option in certain circumstances where the customer does not have a previous BankID,” added the spokesperson.

ICA Banken’s website advises: “If you don’t have a Swedish passport or a national ID card issued by the police, you should get one of these.”

swedish passports

Only Swedish citizens can get a Swedish passport or a national ID card issued by the police. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

Sparbanken Syd and the Skandia bank also confirmed that you need a Swedish passport or national ID to download a BankID from them, but a Skandia customer service officer stressed that it is still possible to use their banking services without a BankID.

Several other banks, however, told The Local they could still issue BankIDs to foreign citizens.

Nordea writes on its website: “If you don’t have a Swedish passport or a Swedish national ID card issued by the Swedish police, call customer service and we will help you. In a few cases, you have to visit one of our branches for in-person identification.”

SEB, Handelsbanken, Swedbank and Länsförsäkringar also confirmed to The Local that customers with a personal number and another kind of valid Swedish ID than a passport or police-issued national ID card could still visit their branches in person to get their first BankID. Ålandsbanken said that all of its customers had to make an in-person application to receive their first BankID.

Danske Bank, the remaining bank that issues BankID in Sweden, had not responded to requests for comments by the time of publication.

Another alternative for foreign citizens may be the Freja eID, which is used by many online services in Sweden but is not as widely accepted as BankID. Europeans may in some cases in Sweden also be able to use an electronic ID from an EU country.

An inquiry into Swedish ID cards proposes introducing a state-run electronic ID system in addition to the privately-owned companies that exist today, which would include allowing the police to issue national ID cards to foreign citizens. Such a system was originally proposed to come into force in January 2022, but the report is still being processed by the government and other authorities.

Many thanks to the members of The Local who got in touch for this article. You are always welcome to email [email protected] to send a news tip to our editorial team.

Member comments

  1. This situation has its origins in the Government Report SOU 2019:14 regarding ID cards. The report contains 450 pages in Swedish, with a summary in English on pages 29-37. Basically, it says that ID cards issued by various agencies and organisations in Sweden only meet the SIS standard, which in the opinion of the Report is insufficient to prevent ID fraud. This includes even the Swedish Tax Agency’s ID card and the Swedish driving licence because the photograph is provided by the applicant and is not biometric and is therefore open to falsification. The photograph for a Swedish passport or an ID card is taken at the police station, which meets their biometric standards. A fingerprint of your forefinger is also taken and is registered in the chip.

    Apparently, there’s a transition period as of late 2021 and currently in 2022, with full implementation as of 2023. As both a Swedish passport and the national ID card are only issued to Swedish citizens, I don’t know how this will work out for non-Swedish residents. Perhaps it’s mentioned somewhere in the Government Report, but I couldn’t see anything during a quick browse.

    As for the coveted electronic BankID, it seems like one can still physically visit a bank branch (as said above in the article). Bank branches are indeed disappearing, especially in rural communities, but they do still exist even in most small towns, so perhaps that’s the best solution.

  2. Interesting. When I got my ID from skateverket, I took photo there.

    Same for the resident card issued by immigrationsverket.

    1. Hmm. Perhaps their photos aren’t biometric standard. Or they’ve upgraded their equipment since the Government Report was published. Mystery.

      1. I’ve just looked at Migrationsverket’s website, and in the section concerning uppehållstillståndskort it says “Kortet kan inte användas som identitetshandling eller resehandling.” In other words, it is a residence card but not an ID card.

        As for Skatteverket, it’s not clear from their website how their ID card is produced. I can only guess that their photo is not biometric standard and/or for other reasons the card doesn’t meet the new ID requirements. But it would be interesting if anyone here has more specific info.

  3. So wait, are the banks going to rescind BankID access for those of us who already have it but don’t have a Swedish ID (police issued) or Passport?

    1. As far as I understand, it’s the initial online application for an electronic BankID that has become (or rapidly becoming) difficult. For example, quoting from the above article concerning ICA Banken:

      ” “Each bank must answer for its own checks and requirements, and we are aware that there are banks that are able to for example verify the customer’s identity at an office, which ICA Banken cannot,” a spokesperson for ICA Banken told The Local, adding that customers with an existing BankID can still use that to prove their identity and renew it online.”

      ICA Banken is a bit special because they don’t have any bricks-and-mortar branches that you can physically visit in person, whereas most other banks still do, albeit gradually fewer in number.

      To conclude, one can obtain an electronic BankID by physically visiting a branch of your bank, normally with an appointment and not just drop-in. Once you’ve obtained your first BankID in person, it will then subsequently be easy to renew it online provided you do so before it expires.

      The websites of Swedish banks provide guidance as to how to obtain a BankID both online and in-person. Even Swedish nationals can make an in-person visit to their branch for a BankID because not all Swedes necessarily have a passport or a national ID card, so they are now finding themselves in the same situation with the new rules as non-Swedes.

    2. Sorry Jacob, my reply didn’t really answer your question – The banks will not rescind access for those who already have a BankID, it’s just the initial application that’s become more difficult 🙂

      1. Thanks for taking the time to pen out such a thoughtful message!

        I’m very pleased to hear they’re not revoking access. That would have, if I may, really pissed me right off. I feel like getting “set up” here in Sweden is already so monumentally opaque and often so convoluted that if they took back a thing that already took so much time and energy to obtain… well. Obviously that would be maddening in the extreme.

  4. All right, so one can pay tax to the STATE on basis of a registration and card. But that same state-issued card is not a sufficient instrument to get access to banking facility, cause it can be forged and hence almost a non-identifiable entity in totally digitized society.

    These all inadequacies are okay for agencies and policy makers – as who are impacted and would complain? a legal immigrant non-working spouse! Hmmm, hardly a concern.

  5. Requesting a face to face for positive identification for something as important as BankID makes lots of sense to me.
    Not so difficult to visit a bank branch office for something as critical as Bank ID.

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MONEY

How this American won a 3 billion kronor tax fight against the Swedish government

Hugh O’Brian, an American who has lived in Helsingborg in southern Sweden for 26 years, took a fight about unfair tax rules for people born in 1957 to the government – and won.

How this American won a 3 billion kronor tax fight against the Swedish government

In mid-2022, Sweden’s parliament passed a 300-page bill raising the retirement age for people born in 1958 to 66.

At the same time, they raised the age at which people born in 1957 would qualify for a whole range of retirement-related benefits to 66, despite many in this group retiring at their official retirement age: 65.

“It’s very complicated, because it only affected the people born in ‘57,” O’Brian told The Local. “So the retirement age was increased for the people born in ‘58, which was publicly announced in a 300-page bill. And there were only two pages of this motion concerning the people born in 1957.”

In these two pages, the bill stated that those born in 1957 would be able to retire at their pension age – 65 – but that the tax cuts and other benefits, like lower employer contributions for the self-employed, which pensioners usually qualify for, wouldn’t kick in for them until a year later, when they turned 66. This effectively meant that they were the only group ever who had to pay taxes at this higher rate for the first year of their retirement.

O’Brian estimates that the government gained 5 billion kronor – 3 billion in income taxes and 2 billion in employer contributions – as a result of this.

The government did not inform people in the affected year group of the change, and O’Brian struggled initially to determine whether it was actually going to happen or not.

“It was cleverly hidden among the other 298 pages which concerned people born in 1958,” he said.

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The law was changed in May 2022. Around six months later, O’Brian started to hear rumours that his year group would not be eligible for the promised tax cuts the next year.

“I thought ‘how could this be?’ That’s deliberate and blatant age discrimination by the Swedish government against just one year group, with absolutely no warning. And then we weren’t informed at all, even after it had been changed.”

He checked the website of the Pensions Agency, which still – incorrectly – said that pensioners would be eligible for the basic tax-free allowance the year they turned 66, as well as a cut in the egenavgifter fees for the self-employed from 31 percent to 10 percent.

“Then I called the Tax Agency, introduced myself and said ‘I own my own company and I heard some rumours that the employer tax – arbetsgivaravgift – is not going to go down for those of us born in 1957. The woman said: No, no, ta det lugnt, take it easy. The taxes will be lower, as planned, nothing’s changed. So I said ‘can you send that to me in writing’. And then she called me back to tell me ‘oh, I was wrong, actually, you’re going to pay an extra year’.”

O’Brian’s first reaction was to write to his local politician – the Swedish equivalent of writing to your local Congressman or MP.

“In America, which is clearly far from perfect, at least you know who your representative is. But here… you don’t know who’s representing you. I found someone here, a young woman in the Riksdag from Helsingborg but she was not at all helpful – she actually made a repulsive sexist joke about the situation. So then I started writing letters straight to the higher levels of the government.”

In September 2022, the government changed, with the Moderates, in coalition with the Christian Democrats and Liberals, and with the support of the Sweden Democrats, taking over from the Social Democrats, who were originally responsible for the tax change.

“The Moderates are known as a low tax, fair tax party,” O’Brian said. “So I wrote to them, thinking ‘they’ll fix this in five minutes.”

Things didn’t quite turn out how he had expected.

“I wrote perhaps 20 mails to various Moderates and basically got the reply ‘sorry, the previous government did this’. Which isn’t true, because the Moderates voted for that change as well.”

After this, O’Brian decided to take his story to the media, with Scanian newspaper Helsingborgs Dagblad (HD) picking up the story, which was then published in HD and its sister newspaper, Sydsvenskan.

He also started a Facebook group for other people in the same situation as him, titled Född 57 – Åldersdiskriminerad och Straffbeskattad av Riksdagen (Born 57 – Age discriminated against and penalty taxed by the Riksdag). The group eventually grew to over 6,500 members. There are around 112,000 people living in Sweden who were born in 1957.

Out of this Facebook group came a local group of Helsingborgers who were affected by the law change, who, along with O’Brian, started to organise protests with group members from all over Sweden.

“The government mostly ignored us, or if we got any reply at all it was simply ‘No, we’re not going to change anything’. So some of the Facebook group members organised a small protest in Stockholm, and then a larger one, and the government still tried to ignore us. So we planned a third protest to take place the day before the opening of [Sweden’s parliament] the Riksdagen in September.”

“We started organising and realised we were gonna have probably four or five hundred people coming. Finally, a week before the protest, they caved and said ‘okay, okay, we’ll give you the money back.”

“It was an enormous victory. I woke up on a Saturday morning and opened Facebook, and saw this: Nu ska vi kompensera 57:orna [Now we are going to compensate the 57’ers]. I said to my wife ‘am I awake, or am I dreaming?’”

O’Brian describes the government’s slow response in agreeing to give his year group their money back as “incredibly disappointing and frustrating”.

“Some people in the group, it turns out, are living on a pension of 13 or 14,000 kronor a month, before tax. That’s very low.”

“And the government had no problem with trying to secretly take extra tax money from them. I did an Excel spreadsheet, and it showed that the people with the lowest income were getting the highest percentage increase in tax compared to what was promised.”

“And the tax numbers for self-employed were ridiculous,” O’Brian added.

For the self-employed, they didn’t just have to pay extra income tax, but also much higher employer contributions too. This meant that people who took out a salary of between 10 and 40,000 kronor had a total tax bill of between 111 and 154 percent more than expected. 

“I took about 20,000 a month salary last year, and I had to pay 154 percent more than what was promised – two and a half times what I was supposed to be paying.”

Many of those affected had planned to retire at 65 for some time, meaning that they couldn’t change their plans once they discovered they would be taxed at the higher rate for a year longer than expected.

The way that Sweden’s government has handled the issue has left O’Brian disappointed in Swedish politicians.

“Our supposed leaders rudely, secretly, drastically changed the rules of the game when it was almost over… and they didn’t even tell us, before or after doing so,” O’Brian said.

“I’ve lived in Sweden for 26 years and I love it here. But everyone knows that Swedish politicians sometimes pretend to be the moral conscience of the world. When it’s happening right in front of their faces, though, when we’re being discriminated against and paying penalty taxes, they want to just sweep it under the rug and ignore us. That’s very arrogant and totally disappointing.”

O’Brian believes that the government was expecting his year group to either not notice the tax change, or to be too conflict-averse to challenge the decision.

The Swedish parliament building in Stockholm. File photo: Jonas Ekströmer/TT

The fight for the 57’ers isn’t over yet. Despite the government setting aside 3.2 billion kronor in its budget to refund the year group’s extra taxes, 2 billion kronor in extra employer fees for self-employed people still remain.

“They still haven’t fixed the self employment fees yet, and they’re doing the exact same thing they did with the income tax, saying ‘we can’t do anything, we have other spending priorities’… but we’ve won 90 percent of the battle.”

The money is scheduled to be repaid directly to the tax accounts of the affected year group, although it is not yet clear whether the government will pay any interest.

Bizarrely, O’Brian even discussed the tax change, in a very roundabout way, in a supermarket in the French city of Nice in March 2022 with former prime minister Stefan Löfven, who happens to also have been born in 1957.

“At that point, I didn’t know anything about this tax rule change. I was renting an apartment with my wife in Nice and she said ‘we need yoghurt for breakfast, can you go to the store?’”

“I walk into the store, into the yoghurt section, and I look at a guy and think ‘he looks familiar’, and say: ‘you’re Stefan Löfven!’ And he said ‘yes, yes I am.”

After introducing himself, O’Brian explained that he lives in Sweden, and asked Löfven, who had just stepped down as prime minister, about his retirement plans, before remembering that they were both born in the same year.

“‘57, that was a good vintage’, he said. So I smiled, and I said ‘maybe you should start your own company. You’re turning 65 this year, like me, and the income taxes and employer contributions go down a lot after 65.’”

Instead of continuing the conversation, Löfven changed the subject.

“He just said: ‘can you tell me: which yoghurt do you think is best here in France?’”

“I don’t think Löfven engineered this problem, it was his finance minister and successor [as prime minister], Magdalena Andersson,” O’Brian said.

“When I spoke to him, I had no idea we were being cheated. I have a feeling that he might have had an idea about the ‘57 tax steal, but he just changed the subject to which yoghurt was best. It’s rather humourous to think about that conversation now.”

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