Sweden

Yes, and this is the sharpest live risk in the Nordic region. On 6 June 2026 Sweden raised the residence requirement for citizenship from five to eight years. Critically, there were no transitional arrangements. That means applications already filed but not yet decided on 6 June 2026 are judged under the new rules. People who applied at five years and were sitting in Migrationsverket's queue were retroactively reset to eight, through no fault of their own and with no recourse. Nordic citizens still qualify at two years, and spouses at seven if they have cohabited five or more years. For everyone else, it is now a flat eight.

Not yet fully, but the tests are coming in phases. A civics test starts in August 2026, initially in Stockholm only. The language test is not expected before 1 October 2027 at the earliest. In the interim, Swedish is proven documentarily, through grade 9, upper secondary, SFI, Komvux or a university-used language test. Anyone naturalising in this interim window avoids the exams entirely, a narrow advantage that is closing. Sweden permits dual citizenship, so no renunciation is required.

Sweden offers an unusually clean environment for capital. There is no wealth tax, abolished in 2007. There is no inheritance tax, abolished in 2004, with the gift tax following in 2005. There is no exit tax either. Capital income is taxed at a flat 30%. The top marginal rate on employment income is high, around 52% combining municipal tax and the 20% state tax, but for a family whose wealth sits in capital rather than salary, Sweden's treatment is far cleaner than that headline rate suggests. One catch: what is known as the 10-year rule taxes gains on Swedish shares and other assets for ten years after you leave, even though there is no exit tax as such.

From 6 June 2026, applicants must show they are self-sufficient, on top of the existing eight-year residence rule. That means income of at least three income base amounts a year, roughly SEK 20,000 a month before tax, and that income cannot come from subsidised employment. You are disqualified if you received income support for more than six months in the prior three years. Pensioners and full-time higher-education students are exempt. There is also a proven-identity requirement. If you cannot prove your identity, the residence period rises to ten years instead of eight. Children now need their own individual applications rather than being included on a parent's.

Expertskatt makes 25% of income tax-free for seven years. On SEK 1.5m a year, that shelters SEK 375,000 annually. There are two routes. The salary route applies to recurring monthly income above 1.5 price base amounts, which is SEK 88,800 a month in 2026. The competence route is for genuinely scarce experts, researchers and strategic key personnel, and it has no salary floor at all. You must not have been Swedish resident in the five years before starting, and you must apply to the Forskarskattenaemnden within three months of starting work. Miss that window and you lose the relief entirely. Note that the old salary rule, which set the threshold at two price base amounts, is obsolete. It was cut to 1.5 from 2024.

No. A 2025 proposal to raise the relief from 25% to 30% was left out of the autumn 2025 budget bill. It did not take effect on 1 January 2026. It remains pending, and you should not plan around it. The relief stays at 25% of income tax-free for seven years for those who moved to Sweden after 31 March 2023. Combined with no wealth tax, no inheritance tax and no exit tax, it remains one of the more durable inbound reliefs in Europe even without the increase. That said, it covers employment income only and does nothing for the 30% capital income tax.

From 1 June 2026 the salary floor is set at 90% of the Swedish median salary. With the median at SEK 38,300 as of 16 June 2026, that works out to SEK 34,470 a month. But this is a moving target. It resets every time Statistics Sweden publishes a new median, so a package that clears the bar today can fail at extension without anything changing on your side. A reduced 75% tier, SEK 28,725, applies to named exemptions including IT and technical roles, healthcare, agriculture and forestry, food processing, and employees of young tech and life-science start-ups. Build headroom into any package. Sweden has raised this floor twice in three years, from 80% of median in November 2023 to 90% from June 2026.

Not as good as the 2026 headlines suggest. The reform on 1 January 2026 doubled the tax-free allowance from SEK 150,000 to SEK 300,000 per person, but it also raised the underlying rate to about 1.065%. That means the ISK got better for holdings up to roughly SEK 1m, and worse above that. For a UHNW client, it is now a less attractive wrapper than it was in 2025, even though the press coverage says the opposite. The allowance applies per person across all ISK and endowment-insurance accounts combined, so opening accounts at several banks will not multiply it. And you pay the deemed return whether or not the portfolio made money.