The housing market: who owns the homes?
Short answer: Of Sweden's 5.3 million homes, 39 percent were rentals in 2025, 24 percent tenant-owned cooperative flats and 37 percent owner-occupied, mostly detached houses. Since 1990 the share of cooperative flats has risen from 17 to 24 percent, most of all in Stockholm, where rentals went from 68 to 43 percent. The municipal housing companies own about 846,000 flats, roughly as many as in 2013. The owners that have grown most are private limited companies, with 60 percent more homes in twelve years; several of the largest are owned by pension companies and the AP funds. In Stockholm, those who got an ordinary rental through the housing queue had waited 9 years on average in 2025.
More on the site: Housing shows prices, rents and construction by municipality and what research says, The banks mortgage rates, Prices how much more expensive everything else has become, Wealth how much the home weighs in household wealth and Privatisation what happens when the public sector sells. Household loans and the amortisation requirements are on Household debt.
Rental, cooperative and owner-occupied since 1990.
A rental flat is rented from a landlord. A cooperative flat (bostadsrätt) is owned by an association, and the resident buys the right to use the flat. An owner-occupied home is in most cases a house of one's own. Nationally the shares have changed slowly, but in the big cities many rentals have become cooperative flats.
| Year | Housing | Rented | Tenant-owned apartment | Owner-occupied |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 4,044,768 | 40.8 % | 16.9 % | 42.3 % |
| 2000 | 4,295,730 | 41.4 % | 18.0 % | 40.5 % |
| 2010 | 4,551,433 | 38.6 % | 21.6 % | 39.9 % |
| 2020 | 5,037,444 | 38.2 % | 23.8 % | 38.0 % |
| 2025 | 5,291,493 | 39.1 % | 24.3 % | 36.6 % |
| Municipality | Rental 1990 | Rental 2025 | Cooperative 1990 | Cooperative 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stockholm | 67.8 % | 42.8 % | 22.1 % | 49.3 % |
| Göteborg | 61.0 % | 53.5 % | 20.1 % | 30.5 % |
| Malmö | 50.8 % | 46.7 % | 34.3 % | 40.0 % |
All homes, including special housing such as student rooms and care homes, on 31 December each year. Statistics Sweden, table BO0104T04. The share for your municipality is on Housing.
Who owns the buildings, 2013 and 2025.
Statistics Sweden also groups homes by who owns the building. Private individuals own almost all houses. In blocks of flats in 2025, cooperative associations owned 41 percent of the flats, the municipal housing companies 25 percent and private companies about the same.
| Owner | 2013 | 2025 | Share 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private individuals | 2,008,692 | 2,058,088 | 38.9 % |
| Cooperative associations | 1,024,865 | 1,281,139 | 24.2 % |
| Swedish limited companies | 533,095 | 854,329 | 16.1 % |
| Municipal housing companies | 822,131 | 846,105 | 16.0 % |
| State, municipality and region | 58,858 | 63,905 | 1.2 % |
| Cooperative rental associations | 8,923 | 12,424 | 0.2 % |
| Other owners | 173,384 | 174,808 | 3.3 % |
Statistics Sweden, table BO0104T03, which starts in 2013. Municipal housing companies are called public housing companies (allmännyttiga bostadsföretag) in the table. Other owners include foundations, economic associations and foreign companies.
Who owns the rental homes.
Public housing: about four in ten
The municipal housing companies owned 846,105 homes in 2025, about 41 percent of the country's 2.07 million rentals. According to their trade association, its members had 882,800 flats in 1990 and 724,400 in 2010; the fall came mostly from sales and conversions. Since then the companies have built and bought so that the number has risen again. The 30 largest companies own just over half of the flats.
Statistics Sweden BO0104T03 and BO0104T04; Sveriges Allmännytta, statistics. The share is computed from two tables and is therefore approximate. The association's figures cover its members, not exactly the same companies Statistics Sweden counts.
Private companies: the owners that have grown most
Swedish limited companies owned 854,329 homes in 2025, 60 percent more than in 2013. Among blocks of flats, Malmö was the big city where private companies had the largest share, 27 percent, against 16 percent in Stockholm and 15 percent in Gothenburg.
Statistics Sweden BO0104T03, blocks of flats.
Pension money in rental housing
Several of the largest private landlords are owned by pension companies and the AP funds, that is, with pension savers' money. Willhem, with 30,408 flats in September 2025, has since January 2026 been owned by the Third and Fourth AP Funds, after the Riksdag decided to wind up the First AP Fund, its previous owner. Rikshem, with about 29,000 flats, is owned half by AMF and half by the Fourth AP Fund. Heimstaden Bostad had 156,690 homes in several European countries in 2025; its largest owners are Heimstaden AB and the pension company Alecta.
Willhem, interim report January to September 2025; Rikshem, half-year report 2025; Heimstaden Bostad, annual report 2025.
Foreign owners: no overall figure
The Statistics Sweden table does not separate out foreign owners; they are included in other owners together with foundations and associations. Heimstaden has Norwegian principal owners, but we have not found an official figure for how many rentals are owned from abroad.
Statistics Sweden BO0104T03.
When rentals become cooperative flats.
In a conversion the tenants buy the building through a cooperative association. A municipal company may only sell if the municipality agrees, and how much has been sold has varied with who governs the municipality.
Stockholm 2007 to 2013: 25,456 flats
That many of the municipal companies' rentals in Stockholm became cooperative flats over those seven years. It is the main reason Stockholm today has more cooperative flats than rentals.
Stockholm from 2020: at most 5,000
The city offered about 20,000 households in eleven outer-city areas the chance to buy their buildings, but set a cap of 5,000 flats. Conversion stops in an area if rentals there would fall below 60 percent. Two thirds of the households must vote yes. By June 2022, 1,217 flats had been converted.
SVT, 23 April 2019; Mitt i, 4 June 2022.
What research finds
A study of inner-city Stockholm finds that the conversions made residents more alike: the inner city gained more high earners, while the municipal rentals left in the suburbs got a larger share of low-income households. An older study of Östermalm saw little change at the conversion itself but clearer change in the following years, as new residents moved in.
Andersson and Turner (2014), International Journal of Housing Policy 14(1); Magnusson (2005), Open House International.
How long you wait for a rental in Stockholm.
Bostadsförmedlingen, Stockholm's housing agency, allocated 20,861 homes in 2025, the most since it started in 1947. 13,257 of them were ordinary rentals. On 31 December, 894,592 people were in the queue. The wait depends mostly on where the home is.
| Area | Average queue time |
|---|---|
| Inner city | 21.1 years |
| Inner suburbs | 15.3 years |
| Stockholm municipality | 12.4 years |
| Outer city | 10.5 years |
| Whole region | 9.0 years |
| Other municipalities in the county | 6.1 years |
| New builds | 5.8 years |
Bostadsförmedlingen i Stockholm, annual review 2025. The queue time is counted for those who got a home, not for everyone in the queue. What queues mean for who gets to live where is in the research on Housing.
How rent is set, and the fight over market rents.
Rents in Sweden are not set freely. Under the utility value system (bruksvärdessystemet) a flat should cost about as much as comparable flats in the area, and rents are mostly negotiated each year between the landlord and the Swedish Union of Tenants. A tenant who thinks the rent is too high can have it tried by the rent tribunal.
New buildings have an exception, presumption rent (presumtionshyra). The landlord may negotiate a rent that covers the building cost, and it applies for 15 years before the utility value takes over. From 1 January 2026 these rents may also rise in line with rents in the area.
The question of free rents in new builds brought down a government. The proposal was part of the January agreement between S, MP, C and L, and when the Left Party threatened a vote of no confidence, the Riksdag voted out Prime Minister Stefan Löfven on 21 June 2021. Löfven returned as prime minister in July the same year, without the proposal.
Supporters argue that freer rents bring more rentals and shorter queues. Critics argue that it raises rents for sitting tenants and makes things harder for low-income households. What studies say on both sides is on Housing.
The Tenancy Act, chapter 12 of the Land Code; Committee on Civil Affairs report 2025/26:CU5, An improved model for presumption rent; Riksdag minutes of 21 June 2021.
Owners, tenants and those in the queue.
Homeowners may deduct 30 percent of their interest from their tax, up to 100,000 kronor of interest a year, and 21 percent of anything above. Tenants get no equivalent deduction. Owners have also gained as prices rose: a house cost almost twice as much in 2025 as in 2010, see Housing. How interest rates have moved is on The banks.
Tenants with a first-hand lease pay a rent that is negotiated and can be tried by the rent tribunal. Those without a lease have to wait in the queue or sublet, usually at a higher price.
In a conversion the tenants buy their flats at the price the association and the owner agree on, and can then sell them on the open market. The municipality gets money but has fewer rentals to offer those in the queue. What research says about the interest deduction, rent control and queues is collected on Housing, and about when the public sector sells on Privatisation.
The interest deduction: Income Tax Act chapter 42 section 1 and chapter 67 section 10, Swedish Tax Agency. The deduction covers interest on all loans, not only mortgages.
Where the figures come from.
- The housing stock: Statistics Sweden, table BO0104T04 (tenure, from 1990) and BO0104T03 (owner category, from 2013), retrieved in October 2026.
- Public housing: Sveriges Allmännytta's statistics on its members' flats.
- The companies: Willhem's interim report and Rikshem's half-year report 2025, Heimstaden Bostad's annual report 2025.
- Conversions: SVT 2019 and Mitt i 2022 on Stockholm, Andersson and Turner (2014) and Magnusson (2005).
- The housing queue: Bostadsförmedlingen i Stockholm's annual review 2025.
- The Tenancy Act, presumption rent and the interest deduction: the Riksdag and the Swedish Tax Agency.
The figures are copied by hand from the sources, autumn 2026. Foreign ownership, debt by tenure and queue times outside Stockholm are still missing.