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Sweden: a cap that floats with the reference rate, and a cap on the total

Sweden's consumer credit rules do two things at once, and only the first is what people expect. The rate cap limits interest to the Riksbank's reference rate plus 20 percentage points, so the ceiling moves with monetary policy rather than sitting at a fixed number; when the reference rate rises, so does the legal maximum. Both figures changed on 1 March 2025: the addition came down from 40 points to 20, and the caps stopped being a special regime for high-cost credit and now cover essentially every consumer credit except a mortgage, a card balance included.

The second cap is the more effective one. The cost cap limits the total of interest, fees and charges to the amount borrowed, counted per drawdown on a revolving account. However long a Swedish consumer credit runs, it cannot cost more than double what was drawn on it. That is a ceiling this calculator does not model: it works out the interest the schedule produces, so on a long minimum-payment plan the total interest above may exceed what a Swedish lender is allowed to collect.

Issuers typically require about 3% of the balance a month, with the month's interest taken from within it and a floor of about 150 kr on small balances. Swedish card interest is not deductible in the way mortgage interest is, so the headline rate is the rate you pay.

For how the calculation works, the formula behind it and what it leaves out, see the full guide.

Data sources

  • Swedish consumer finance conventions

    Effective 2026-01-01 onward · retrieved 2026-08-30

    Sweden replaced a fixed pension age with a target age that moves with life expectancy.

    How we checked these figures

    Pensionsmyndigheten publishes the target retirement age, which is 66 for 2026.

    Current

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Each country has its own rates, thresholds and rules, and its own page with the official sources they came from.

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