What the policy rate is
The policy rate is the interest rate at which banks can deposit money with the Riksbank, or borrow from it, for a seven-day period. It is the Riksbank's main tool for keeping inflation close to its target of 2% a year, measured by the CPIF, the consumer price index with a fixed interest rate. Until 8 June 2022 the same rate was called the repo rate, and the Riksbank publishes the whole run under one series, SECBREPOEFF.
The rate is set by the Executive Board. The Riksbank's table of its rates lists eight decisions in 2025, each applying from a Wednesday. Around the policy rate sit a deposit rate and a lending rate for banks' overnight balances, forming a narrow corridor that keeps the shortest market rates close to it.
A decision is announced on one day and applies from a later one, usually the following Wednesday. The press release says "applies from" with the date, and that is the date this page records.
How a change reaches your mortgage
Swedish mortgages feel a change quickly. Many households choose a variable rate, which in Sweden means a rate fixed for three months at a time, so a move in the policy rate reaches them at their next reset. Longer fixes of one to five years are available and do not move until the term ends; banks price them from market rates that reflect where the policy rate is expected to go.
Banks publish a list rate for each fixation period and then agree a discount with each customer, so the rate you pay depends on your bank, your loan-to-value and your negotiation. The average rate on new mortgages shows what households have actually been agreeing, month by month, beside the policy rate.
Two rules shape the cost of a Swedish mortgage beyond the rate. The amortisation requirement makes you repay part of the loan each year when it is large relative to the home's value: at least 1% a year above a 50% loan-to-value and 2% above 70%. From 1 April 2026 these rules moved from Finansinspektionen's regulations into law, and in the same change the government removed the stricter requirement that had applied to loans above 4.5 times income and raised the mortgage cap for a new purchase to 90% of the home's value. The interest deduction, ränteavdrag, gives you a tax reduction of 30% of your net interest costs up to SEK 100,000 a year and 21% above that, as Skatteverket explains.
To see what a new rate means in kronor, put it into the mortgage calculator. Remember that the deduction lowers what the interest costs you after tax, not the rate the bank charges.
How it reaches your savings
Savings account rates in Sweden tend to follow the policy rate down promptly and up more slowly. Fixed-rate deposits keep their rate for the term. The savings goal calculator and the compound interest calculator take the rate your bank pays you, not the policy rate.
Reading the chart and the table
The chart draws the rate as steps, because it holds exactly where the Executive Board set it until the next change. Each row is the day a new rate took effect, as the Riksbank's own daily series records it, which is a few days after the announcement. Decisions that left the rate unchanged are not in the table.
The series begins on 1 June 1994, and that first row is the rate then in force, not a change. In the mid-1990s the rate often moved in small steps a week or two apart, so that period has far more rows than any since. From February 2015 until January 2020 the rate was below zero, and the table shows those negative values as the Riksbank published them.