Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

READER QUESTIONS

When are you eligible for a Swedish pension?

A reader of The Local got in touch to ask how long he had to work in Sweden before he was eligible for a pension. Here are Sweden's pension rules, and how you can get your pension when the time comes.

Published: 1 March 2022 15:59 CET
Updated: 22 February 2024 13:08 CET
When are you eligible for a Swedish pension?
A woman working at a standing desk in an office in Stockholm. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

The Swedish pension is part of the country’s social insurance system, and it can seem like a confusing beast at times. The good news is that if you’re living and working here, you’ll almost certainly be earning towards a pension, and you’ll be able to get that money even if you move elsewhere before retirement.

You will start earning your Swedish general pension, or allmän pension, once you’ve earned over 24,238 kronor in a single year (in 2024), and – for almost all kinds of pension in Sweden – there is no time limit on how long you must have lived in Sweden before you are eligible.

The exception is the minimum guarantee pension, or garantipension, which you can receive whether you’ve worked or not. To be eligible at all for this, you need to have lived in Sweden for a period of at least three years before retirement.

“There’s a limit, but it’s a money limit,” Johan Andersson, press secretary at the Swedish Pension Agency told The Local about the general pension. “When you reach the point that you start paying tax, you start paying into your pension.”

“But you have to apply for your pension, make sure you get in touch with us when you want to start receiving it,” he said.

You can start claiming your general pension from the year you turn 63, and the guarantee pension can for most people be claimed from the age of 66. You have the right to keep working until the age of 69 (although you can obviously keep working longer than that if your employer agrees).

Here’s our in-depth guide on how you can maximise your Swedish pension, even if you’re only planning on staying in Sweden short-term.

Those who spend only a few years working in Sweden will earn a much smaller pension than people who work here for their whole lives, but they are still entitled to something – people who have worked in Sweden will keep their income pension, premium pension, supplementary pension and occupational pension that they have earned in Sweden, even if they move to another country. The pension is paid no matter where in the world you live, but must be applied for – it is not automatically paid out at retirement age.

If you retire in the EU/EEA, or another country with which Sweden has a pension agreement, you just need to apply to the pension authority in your country of residence in order to start drawing your Swedish pension. If you live in a different country, you should contact the Swedish Pensions Agency for advice on accessing your pension, which is done by filling out a form (look for the form called Ansök om allmän pension – om du är bosatt utanför Sverige).

The agency recommends beginning the application process at least three months before you plan to take out your pension, and ideally six months beforehand if you live abroad. It’s possible to have your pension paid into either a Swedish bank account or an account outside Sweden.

Since 2023, Sweden no longer offers the guarantee pension – for those who live on a low income or no income while in Sweden – to people who move abroad.

It is also the only Swedish pension which is affected by how long you’ve lived in Sweden.

“The guarantee pension is residence based,” Andersson said. “But it’s lower if you haven’t lived in Sweden for at least 40 years. You are eligible for it after living in Sweden for only three years, but it won’t be that much.”

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

MONEY

How Sweden’s 2024 spring amendment budget could affect you

The Swedish government announced its spring amendment budget on April 15th. How will it affect people living in Sweden in the coming year?

Published: 15 April 2024 10:51 CEST
How Sweden's 2024 spring amendment budget could affect you

What is the government aiming for with this budget?

The government has said that this budget, negotiated with the support of the Sweden Democrats, is part of its long-term plan to navigate Sweden’s difficult economic situation, which has the following aims:

  • Fight inflation and support households and welfare

The aim here is “to pursue well-balanced fiscal policy to help drive down inflation while more evenly distributing the burden of high prices”, the government explains on its website.

  • Re-institute the “work-first” principle

The work-first principle is essentially the idea that it should be more profitable for an individual to work than to be unemployed.

The government predicts that an additional 40,000 people could become unemployed this year due to the current state of the economy, and plans to address this by providing training and education initiatives to better equip jobseekers, as well as “remedying the labour market’s structural problems” and “reinforcing the motivating factors behind work and self-sufficiency”.

  • Structural reforms for stronger growth

Here, the government plans to “shift the focus back to economic development”, by introducing structural reforms to increase productivity and improve long-term growth.

How will proposals in the spring amendment budget affect us living in Sweden?

Much of the budget is aimed at mitigating any adverse effects of the current state of the Swedish economy, with these proposals aiming to keep the status quo and stop things from getting worse.

For example, one of the largest posts in the new budget is 6 billion kronor to Sweden’s regions, which will go towards compensating for the effects of inflation and avoiding dismissals of healthcare staff. This is in addition to 1.5 billion kronor for increased pharmaceutical costs and a 500 million kronor “extra knowledge grant” in additional regional funding for schools.

There are also proposals designed to help anyone who becomes unemployed over the next year, like a proposal to allocate 167 million kronor to creating more places in adult education, as well as extending the temporarily increased housing allowance for economically disadvantaged families with children at a cost of 650 million. The government has also proposed an allocation of 130 million kronor to Swedish municipalities which will be used to fund summer jobs.

There are also investments designed to strengthen law enforcement and improve the safety and security of people living in Sweden, like an allocation of 260 million kronor to the Tax Agency, customs and the Swedish Enforcement Authority which will be used to “crush” criminal finances, as well as 1.38 billion kronor to fund more prison places, 1.035 billion kronor in funding to improve security and baggage handling in airports and 100 million kronor to the Swedish courts.

Some of the proposals are also aimed at improving Swedish defence, like a 300 million kronor allocation to the Swedish Armed Forces and 385 million kronor for strengthening civil defence.

The government has also announced plans to lower tax on both pensions and income, lower fuel tax, and remove tax on the first 300,000 kronor of savings in ISKs – investment saving accounts.

In terms of budget proposals which will affect immigrants in particular, 25 million kronor has been allocated to attracting international talent, 20 million kronor will go towards funding Swedish courses for Ukrainian refugees, and 138 million will cover costs associated with getting Ukrainians on to Sweden’s population register.

How has the opposition reacted?

The Social Democrats’ economic spokesperson, former Finance Minister Mikael Damberg, called it “a tangled mess of proposals” and an “odd budget”, adding that it was “not a budget for the Swedish people”.

He added that the government should not just be focusing on growing the police force, but also on identifying young people who are at risk of sliding into a life of crime, so that social services can step in at an early stage.

The opposition also criticised the government for not doing enough to support Swedish regions, arguing that six billion kronor is not a sufficient investment to solve the healthcare crisis.

The Social Democrats will present their shadow budget in two weeks.

“We think that families with children are in a much worse position due to this crisis. We think that banks have taken out too much in profits, and that there’s a possibility to work with the power of consumers and use the state bank, SBAB,” Damberg said, adding that his party would like to see a bank tax in the new budget.

The government’s decision to scrap tax on ISK savings has also been criticised by two major authorities: the Financial Management Authority (ESV) and the National Institute of Economic Research (NIER, KI in Swedish). 

NIER said in a response to the proposal that the tax cut benefits represents a large tax cut to people who already have substantial savings, rather than encouraging people to save more.

“If you’re trying to get more people to save, it’s difficult to understand why the government is setting the limit at 300,000 kronor,” the author of NIER’s response to the proposal, Sebastian Escobar-Jansson, told Swedish news agency TT. 

Over half of people with ISK accounts have savings of less than 74,000 kronor.

“More than half of the tax cut benefits those who already have more than 300,000 kronor in an ISK,” ESV added.

In 2024, tax on ISK accounts is 1.086 percent, which is paid whether the account’s investments are making a profit or a loss.

SHOW COMMENTS