How much do households owe, and how many cannot pay their debts?
Short answer: Swedish household debt was 150 % of disposable income in 2025, against 80 % in the EU as a whole. The peak came in 2020 at 173 %. Just over eight in ten kronor that households have borrowed from the banks are mortgages. At the end of 2025, 449,703 people were in the Enforcement Authority's register of debtors, the most in over 20 years, and 33,469 applied for debt relief, the most ever.
Debt grew faster than incomes for twenty years.
The debt ratio is households' total loans divided by what they have left to live on over a year after tax. In 2000 it was 96 % and in 2020 it peaked at 173 %. Since rates rose in 2022 it has fallen, to 150 % in 2025, because incomes have grown faster than loans. Among EU countries only the Netherlands and Denmark have a higher debt ratio than Sweden.
Gross debt of households and non-profit institutions serving households, as a percentage of gross disposable income. Eurostat's measure, so the countries can be compared; other definitions give other figures. Norway is not in the series. Source: Eurostat, nasa_10_ki.
Mortgages are the big loans, consumer loans the ones that go unpaid.
By mid 2026 the banks had lent 4,320 billion kronor to households for housing, 311 billion for consumption and 587 billion for other purposes. Consumer loans are small in comparison but more often non-performing, meaning loans the bank does not expect to be repaid as agreed: 6.0 % of consumer loans at the end of 2025, against 0.2 % of mortgages. Choose non-performing loans to see the shares over time.
Outstanding loans in billions of kronor and share of non-performing loans, per quarter, from banks, mortgage institutions and other monetary financial institutions. Loans from lenders outside that group are not included. Source: Statistics Sweden, financial market statistics.
With a variable rate, a rise feeds through within a few months.
The Riksbank raised its policy rate from zero in spring 2022 to 4 % in September 2023 and began cutting it again in May 2024. How quickly households feel it depends on how much of the mortgage stock has a variable rate, here loans fixed for three months or less. The share was 45 % at the end of 2021 and has risen every year since, to 78 % in September 2026. How the mortgage rate and the policy rate have moved is on The banks, and what the bank's margin means in kronor for a mortgage on The banks, the mortgage.
Households' outstanding mortgages at monetary financial institutions with a fixed period of up to three months, divided by all their mortgages, per month. The share is our calculation. Sources: Statistics Sweden, financial market statistics and the Riksbank, policy rate.
The rules meant to keep debt down.
- Mortgage cap, highest loan to value
- 90 %
- From 1 April 2026, previously 85 %
- Amortisation at loan to value above 70 %
- 2 % per year
- Since 2016
- Amortisation at loan to value 50 to 70 %
- 1 % per year
- Since 2016
- Extra amortisation for loans above 4.5 times annual income
- Removed
- 2018 to 31 March 2026
Finansinspektionen, the financial supervisor, introduced the mortgage cap in 2010, the amortisation requirement in 2016 and the stricter requirement for borrowers above 4.5 times their gross annual income in 2018. On 4 March 2026 the Riksdag decided that the rules should be set in law instead, that the cap rises to 90 % and that the stricter requirement is removed from 1 April 2026. The basic amortisation requirement remains.
What have the rules done? Finansinspektionen's overall evaluation in 2021 found that they have largely had the intended effect: households borrow less, buy cheaper homes and amortise more. An earlier FI analysis found that the amortisation requirement affected older buyers more than younger ones, and that those affected bought cheaper houses, while purchases of tenant-owned flats were not noticeably affected.
Sources: Committee on Finance report 2025/26:FiU36 on government bill 2025/26:119, Finansinspektionen, Overall evaluation of macroprudential measures (2021) and FI Analysis 10.
More people in debt again, and the debts are growing.
- People with debts at the Enforcement Authority
- 449,703
- Enforcement Authority, end of
- Their total debt
- SEK 154 bn
- Enforcement Authority,
- Collected during the year
- SEK 13.4 bn
- Enforcement Authority,
- Applications for payment orders
- 1,146,000
- Enforcement Authority,
Someone who does not pay a bill can receive a payment order, and if the debt remains it ends up with the Enforcement Authority. At the end of 2025, 449,703 people had debts there, 52,542 more than in 2019 and 4 % of adults. The total debt has grown from just under 83 billion kronor in 2019 to 154 billion, and the 5 % most indebted hold just over half. Nearly one in four has been in the register for 20 years or longer.
Sources: Kolada for the municipalities and years, and the Enforcement Authority, Betalningsproblem och skulder hos Kronofogden 2026 (payment problems and debts, in Swedish) for the figures in the text and the cards.
A record number apply for debt relief.
Someone who cannot pay their debts in the foreseeable future can apply to the Enforcement Authority for debt relief and pay what they can for a few years, after which the rest is written off. 33,469 applied in 2025, 63 % more than in 2019. 43 % of decided applications were granted in 2025, against 32 % the year before. Overconsumption is more and more often given as the cause of the debts, 35 % of cases in 2024 against 18 % in 2019, while illness has fallen from 19 % to 10 %. 42 % of those who applied in 2025 had applied at least once before, and about 73 % live in rented housing.
Applications for and grants of debt relief per year. Source: the Enforcement Authority, Betalningsproblem och skulder hos Kronofogden 2026 (payment problems and debts, in Swedish), figures 25 and 28.
Caps on interest and cost since 2018.
Quick loans are small unsecured loans paid out fast, often after an application on a phone, and used to be called text message loans. Since 1 September 2018 the interest on such high-cost credit may be at most the reference rate plus 40 percentage points, and the total cost of the loan may never exceed the amount borrowed. In a follow-up, Finansinspektionen found that new unsecured lending below 50,000 kronor fell by nearly a quarter after the caps were introduced.
Sources: Government bill 2017/18:72, SFS 2018:478 and Finansinspektionen, FI Analysis 22.
Debts at the Enforcement Authority by municipality.
The table shows the lowest and highest municipality, the middle of all municipalities, Sweden as a whole and the municipality you chose above.
| Measure | Year | Lowest | Middle | Highest | Sweden | Chosen municipality |
|---|
The middle is the median: half of the municipalities are above and half below. Source: Kolada.
How the parties voted on the mortgage rules in 2026.
| Party | In brief | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Centre Party | Entered no reservation against the law. Voted against a separate evaluation of the changes | Report 2025/26:FiU36 |
| Christian Democrats | Entered no reservation against the law. Voted against a separate evaluation of the changes | Report 2025/26:FiU36 |
| Liberals | Entered no reservation against the law. Voted against a separate evaluation of the changes | Report 2025/26:FiU36 |
| Green Party | Entered no reservation against the law but wanted the changes evaluated, warning that they may lead to higher house prices and more debt | Report 2025/26:FiU36 |
| Moderates | Entered no reservation against the law. Voted against a separate evaluation of the changes | Report 2025/26:FiU36 |
| Social Democrats | Entered no reservation against the law but wanted the changes evaluated, warning that they may lead to higher house prices and more debt | Report 2025/26:FiU36 |
| Sweden Democrats | Entered no reservation against the law. Voted against a separate evaluation of the changes | Report 2025/26:FiU36 |
| Left Party | Entered no reservation against the law. Voted for evaluating the changes | Report 2025/26:FiU36 |
The Riksdag decided on 4 March 2026. The bill, which raises the mortgage cap to 90 % and removes the stricter amortisation requirement, received no reservation. The demand for an evaluation came in a motion from the Social Democrats and a reservation from them and the Green Party; the Moderates, Sweden Democrats, Christian Democrats, Liberals and Centre Party voted for the committee's proposal to reject it.
Where the figures come from.
- Source: Eurostat, nasa_10_ki. Household gross debt as a percentage of disposable income per country, from 2000.
- Source: Statistics Sweden, financial market statistics. Bank lending to households by purpose and non-performing loans per quarter from 2014, mortgages by fixed-rate period per month from 2010.
- Source: Kolada. Share of residents aged 18 and over with debts at the Enforcement Authority from 2015 and the median debt from 2017, by municipality.
- Source: the Enforcement Authority, the report Betalningsproblem och skulder hos Kronofogden 2026. National figures on debtors, debt relief and payment orders.
- Our own processing: the share of mortgages with a variable rate.
- Not included: quick loans in kronor and payment orders by municipality, which are not available as open data in a form we have been able to retrieve.
The banks' profits, interest rates and margins are on The banks, house prices on Housing, ownership and the interest deduction on Who owns the homes and evictions on Homelessness.