This is general information, not tax advice. All figures in the examples are estimates. The rules and dates are for income year 2026, the year you declare in spring 2027. Check your own case in the sources at the end, most of them official Swedish pages.
How rental income from your own home is taxed
When you rent out your own home in Sweden as a private person, you pay tax on the surplus: the rental income minus a standard deduction of 40,000 SEK and one more deduction that depends on the type of home. The surplus is capital income, and the tax is 30%. Your actual costs do not count; the two deductions replace them (Skatteverket; Income Tax Act, chapter 42, sections 30 and 31).
If the deductions are as large as the income, there is no surplus, no tax and nothing to declare. Most people renting out a room for a few months land there. A whole home rented out for a year rarely does.
For how much rent you may charge under the new private rental law, see How much rent can I charge when I rent out my home in Sweden? This post is about the tax on that rent.
What counts as rental income
Rental income is the rent you agreed with the tenant, plus anything else the tenant gives you for living there. In practice:
- The agreed rent, for every month the home was let during the year.
- Flat-rate charges for electricity, water or heating. If the tenant instead pays for what they actually use, measured, that is not rental income.
- Work instead of rent. If you agreed that the tenant paints or repairs in return for a lower rent, the value of the work counts as income.
- The whole rent when you let through a platform. If the platform only passes on the booking and the payment, you are the landlord, and you declare the full rent, including the platform's fee. If the platform lets the home in its own name and runs everything, you declare what it pays you.
- A parking space that belongs to the home, and income such as surplus solar power sold from it. These share the home's single standard deduction.
Platforms report what they paid you to Skatteverket, but that does not file anything for you. You still declare the surplus yourself.
The standard deduction: 40,000 SEK per home and year
Every home you rent out gets one standard deduction of up to 40,000 SEK a year. It is per home, not per person.
- Two owners share it by their share of the home: 20,000 SEK each for a home owned half and half.
- Part of the year: if you owned the home for nine months, you get nine twelfths, 30,000 SEK.
- Two homes, two deductions: each home you rent out gets its own.
- Never more than the income: a parking space let for 12,000 SEK a year gets a 12,000 SEK deduction, not 40,000.
Image courtesy of Kelly Sikkema via Unsplash
The second deduction depends on the type of home
On top of the 40,000 SEK you get one more deduction, and which one depends on what you rent out.
| Type of home | Extra deduction |
|---|---|
| House (småhus) or ägarlägenhet | 20% of the rental income |
| Bostadsrätt (co-op flat) | Your monthly fee to the association for the rented part and the rented days, without any capital contribution, plus the association's fee for letting it out |
| Hyresrätt (a flat you rent yourself) | The rent you pay your landlord for the rented part and the rented days |
Renting out a room: only the space the tenant alone uses counts as the rented part. A shared kitchen or bathroom does not. In a co-op flat, a 30 square metre room in a 100 square metre flat is 30% of the fee, for the days it was let.
A bostadsrätt in an oäkta association follows other rules: no standard deduction, and the surplus goes in a different box. Your association can tell you whether it is äkta or oäkta.
Worked example: one rent, three types of home
The example: a whole home let for all twelve months of 2026. The figures are estimates to show the method; your own rent and fee decide your result.
| House | Bostadsrätt | Hyresrätt | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rent a month | 14,000 | 12,000 | 10,500 |
| Rental income for the year | 168,000 | 144,000 | 126,000 |
| Standard deduction | −40,000 | −40,000 | −40,000 |
| Second deduction | −33,600 (20%) | −55,200 (fee 4,500 × 12, letting fee 1,200) | −114,000 (your rent 9,500 × 12) |
| Surplus | 94,400 | 48,800 | none (−28,000) |
| Tax at 30% | 28,320 | 14,640 | 0, nothing to declare |
All amounts in SEK. The co-op flat assumes no capital contribution in the fee. The deficit on the rented flat cannot be used against other income; it simply means there is no tax.
The type of home decides most of the result. A house deducts a share of the rent; a co-op flat or a rented flat deducts what you actually pay to live there.
What you cannot deduct
Your real costs for the rental are not deductible, even when they are higher than the two deductions. The standard deduction is meant to cover them. That includes:
- higher running costs, such as more electricity or water,
- repairs, renovation and new furniture,
- extra insurance for the rental,
- your loan costs, against the rental income.
Your mortgage interest is still deducted as usual, separately, at item 8.1 of the tax return, where the bank's figure is usually already filled in. Renting out does not change that. From income year 2026 there is no deduction at all for interest on a loan without the required security (Skatteverket on interest).
Where it goes on the tax return
The surplus goes in item 7.3 of Inkomstdeklaration 1, the Swedish income tax return, as capital income. If you own the home with someone else, each of you declares your own share of the surplus.
- Working it out: Skatteverket has a calculator for renting out a private home, and a help form, Uthyrning m.m. (SKV 2199), for when the home has several kinds of income. You keep the help form; you do not send it in.
- Oäkta bostadsrätt: the surplus goes in item 7.2 instead.
- Short stays like a hotel: if you let a furnished home for short stays, more than now and then, and your turnover is over 120,000 SEK a year, you may also have to register for and pay VAT.
- Living abroad: if you rent out a home in Sweden, you file a Swedish tax return for it, with a special registration number (a GD number), even if you also file one where you live (Skatteverket in English).
Image courtesy of Christian Lue via Unsplash
The dates for income year 2026
Rent received during 2026 is declared in the tax return you file in spring 2027. The last day is 3 May 2027. The law sets 2 May (Tax Procedure Act, chapter 32, section 1), and a deadline that falls on a weekend moves to the next weekday (Lag (1930:173), section 2). 2 May 2027 is a Sunday.
Expecting a large tax bill? Pay in early. The tax on a rental surplus is not taken from your salary, so it usually arrives as tax to pay after the return. To avoid cost interest (Skatteverket on extra payments; Tax Procedure Act, chapter 65, section 4):
- More than 30,000 SEK to pay: pay the part above 30,000 SEK so that it reaches your tax account by 12 February 2027, and the rest by 3 May 2027.
- 30,000 SEK or less: pay it so that it reaches your tax account by 3 May 2027.
In the example, the house owner's 28,320 SEK fits the second rule. Skatteverket publishes each year's exact dates on its site; check them in January.
If you have not declared earlier years
You can correct an earlier year by asking Skatteverket to review it, an omprövning, up to six years back. If you do it on your own initiative, before Skatteverket has asked you about it, you pay no tax surcharge and cannot be convicted of a tax crime (Skatteverket on correcting on your own initiative).
- How far back: six years. During 2026 you can ask for a review of income year 2020 onwards; during 2027, of 2021 onwards (Skatteverket on changing a return; in English).
- How: by email through Skatteverket's form or by letter for earlier years, with the year, what you want to change and why.
- What you still pay: the tax itself, and any cost interest. Correcting removes the surcharge, not the tax.
- If Skatteverket finds it first: the surcharge is normally 40% of the tax that would have been left out (Skatteverket on the tax surcharge). It is not charged when that tax is at most 10% of the price base amount, which was 59,200 SEK for the 2026 return.
- Too late to count as your own initiative once Skatteverket has asked you about it, or when you correct more than two months after the month Skatteverket announced a general check on its site that covers it.
If it has been several years, correct them all in one request. Platforms already report payments, so the safest time to correct is now.
How Hyrea helps at year end
The hardest part of the tax return is often finding the income: twelve months of rent spread over bank statements. In Hyrea, each rent payment is recorded against the home it belongs to, whether you enter it yourself or bring it in from an imported bank statement, so the year's rental income is a figure you can check rather than rebuild. The Free plan covers up to 3 units. If the rent sometimes comes in late, see Late Rent: What to Do on Each Day It Is Late.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I pay tax if the rent is under 40,000 SEK a year?
Usually not. The standard deduction alone covers up to 40,000 SEK of rent per home, and the second deduction comes on top. If there is no surplus, there is nothing to declare.
Do I have to declare the rental if there is no surplus?
No. When the deductions are as large as the rental income, you leave it out of the return. A deficit cannot be deducted from other income either.
We own the home together. How do we split it?
You share the 40,000 SEK by your shares of the home, and each of you declares your share of the surplus at item 7.3. Two equal owners get 20,000 SEK each.
Can I deduct my mortgage interest from the rent?
Not from the rental income. You deduct mortgage interest separately, as before, at item 8.1 of the tax return, whether or not you rent out.
The platform already reported my income. Do I still declare?
Yes. The report tells Skatteverket what you were paid, but you work out and declare the surplus yourself. You can see the reported figures in Skatteverket's e-service for your income statements.
I live abroad. Do I declare in Sweden?
Yes. Skatteverket requires a Swedish tax return from anyone living abroad who rents out a privately owned home or co-op flat in Sweden. The tax treaty between Sweden and your country decides how double taxation is avoided.
Sources
- Skatteverket: Hyra ut privatbostad: income, deductions per type of home, item 7.3 (in Swedish)
- Skatteverket: Owning property (in English)
- Skatteverket: Resident abroad with Swedish property or capital income (in English)
- Inkomstskattelag (1999:1229), the Income Tax Act: chapter 42, sections 30 and 31 (in Swedish)
- Skatteförfarandelag (2011:1244), the Tax Procedure Act: chapter 32 section 1 and chapter 65 section 4 (in Swedish)
- Lag (1930:173) om beräkning av lagstadgad tid: section 2 (in Swedish)
- Skatteverket: Extra inbetalning till skattekontot (in Swedish)
- Skatteverket: Ändra, ompröva eller överklaga din deklaration (in Swedish); English version
- Skatteverket: Rätta en oriktig uppgift på eget initiativ (in Swedish)
- Skatteverket: Skattetillägg för privatpersoner (in Swedish)
- Skatteverket: Avdrag för ränteutgifter (in Swedish)
See it with your own homes
The Free plan covers up to 3 units, with no card. Add a property and a tenant and watch Hyrea put the rest in order. Missing something you need? Tell us. Every rental business is run a little differently, and we want to hear how you run yours. What you tell us shapes the features other landlords and property managers rely on next.
