ARTICLE · 23 OCTOBER 2026

Improved Rules For Swedish Tonnage Taxation

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Sweden has expanded its tonnage taxation regime to include specialised shipping operations, lowered minimum vessel requirements, and increased bareboat charter limits. The amendments, approved by the European Commission under EU state aid rules, represent a significant broadening of the elective tax system that allows qualifying shipping companies to compute taxable income based on net tonnage rather than conventional profit taxation.

SwedenTax

Ebba Perman Borg

Victor Elovsson

On 11 June 2026, the Swedish Parliament adopted the government’s bill on improved rules for Swedish tonnage taxation (prop. 2025/26:243). See the bill here.

Tonnage taxation is an elective regime under which qualifying shipping companies compute their taxable income from qualified shipping operations as a fixed amount based on net tonnage, rather than under conventional profit taxation. In force since 2017, the regime has primarily covered traditional freight and passenger transport, with a minimum gross tonnage of 100 for qualifying vessels and a bareboat charter limit of 20% of aggregate gross tonnage, for at most three years during a ten-year period.

The amendments expand the regime in three main respects. First, specialised shipping — including towing, salvage, icebreaking, bunkering, cable- and pipe-laying, sea rescue, environmental remediation, and construction, repair, service and dismantling of offshore installations — is brought within the system through an exhaustive

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