Income and wealth percentile in Sweden
a year per adult, before tax; half of adults in Sweden earn less
The wealth ladder in Sweden
The middle adult in Sweden holds SEK 945,064 in net worth. The top 10% of holders begins at SEK 7,575,030 and the top 1% at SEK 49,524,060, which is 52 times the middle.
In Sweden the middle adult earns SEK 629,071 a year before tax and holds SEK 945,064 in net worth. The top 10% of earners begins at SEK 1,161,077, and the top 1% of wealth at SEK 49,524,060. Figures are per adult, in SEK.
Built for Sweden
Calculators and reference pages that answer for Sweden specifically.
Every published line
Income and net worth per adult in Sweden, in SEK.
| The line | Income | Net worth |
|---|---|---|
| Median | SEK 629,071 | SEK 945,064 |
| Average | SEK 756,711 | SEK 5,212,596 |
| Top 10% | SEK 1,161,077 | SEK 7,575,030 |
| Top 1% | SEK 2,768,381 | SEK 49,524,060 |
| Top 0.1% | SEK 8,108,870 | SEK 312,475,696 |
| Top 0.01% | SEK 22,411,955 | SEK 1,971,588,353 |
What the numbers say about Sweden
Swedish median income is around SEK 629,000 per adult, roughly $59,000 at current exchange rates. The average sits at SEK 757,000. The income distribution itself looks moderate by international standards, with the top 1% threshold at SEK 2.77 million, well below the equivalent in Switzerland or the United States. The reputation for equality still holds on the wage side, supported by strong sectoral wage agreements and a labour market with high union coverage.
Wealth tells a story the income figures do not. Median household net worth per adult is around SEK 945,000, but the average runs over SEK 5.2 million. The top 1% threshold for wealth sits above SEK 49 million, and the top 0.1% above SEK 312 million. Sweden has one of the most concentrated top-end wealth distributions in Europe today, partly because the country abolished its wealth tax in 2007 and its inheritance tax in 2004. A generation of private-equity, listed-company founders, and venture-backed tech operators have built fortunes that would have been politically unthinkable in 1980s Sweden.
Housing and pension assets shape the middle of the distribution. Swedish homeownership runs around 65 percent, with the rest in a tenant-cooperative system or in the shrinking municipal-rental sector. Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö have all seen sharp property-price rises since 2013. The premium-pension system, where workers direct part of their mandatory contributions into investment funds, has become a meaningful wealth component for the cohort approaching retirement. Both factors lift median wealth well above what wages alone would suggest.
Stockholm pulls disproportionately on high-end income. The capital region holds tech, finance, consulting, and a disproportionate share of corporate headquarters. Spotify, Klarna, and a long tail of venture-backed firms have produced equity-rich employees who show up at the top of the distribution. Outside the metropolitan areas, median wages are reasonably uniform across the country, partly because of national wage bargaining.
Two themes shape the next decade. The end of zero-rate interest in 2022 has cooled the property market, exposing households that took on heavy mortgage debt during the boom. And immigration policy has tightened sharply, which may slow the labour-supply expansion the economy relied on for a decade.
Common questions
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Where do these figures come from?
Nearby by median income
Every free tool
Method and sources
- World Inequality DatabasePretax national income per adult and net household wealth per adult.
- World Bank Informal Economy DatabaseInformal output as a share of GDP, the input to the level correction.
How the lines are worked out
The national distribution is fitted as a log-normal body with a Pareto top tail and read at each published point, per adult. Where a country’s own records measure less activity than its output implies, the level of the distribution is lifted toward the implied figure and the spread is left as published: that correction is set out in full on how we measure.
How a percentile is read off it
A percentile is the share of adults at or below a figure. The percentile methodology page states the fit, the anchors and the vintage.
What these figures do not cover
- Per adult, not per household. Couples are counted separately, so household figures run higher.
- Income is gross, before income tax and employee contributions.
- Local currency at the reference rate carried with the record, SEK 1 = $0.095.
- A national figure says nothing about a region or an occupation inside it.
Last updated July 2026.
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