Sweden · Mortgages
The bolånetak is now 90% but the KALP stress test is unchanged. Most rejections aren't about your deposit. They're about your monthly cash flow at 6-8% kalkylränta.
Sweden raised the bolånetak (mortgage ceiling) from 85% to 90% of a property's market value on 1 April 2026 as part of a new law, Lag 2026:226. That means you need a kontantinsats (down payment) of just 10% instead of 15%. On a SEK 3 million apartment that's the difference between needing SEK 450,000 and needing SEK 300,000 upfront. For a first-time buyer without well-off parents, that's enormous.
The old rules came from Finansinspektionen's own regulations. Parliament has now folded them into law and made several adjustments in the process. The core change is the higher ceiling, but there's also a notable relaxation: the rule that forced households borrowing more than 4.5 times their gross annual income to amortize an extra 1% per year has been completely scrapped.
Here's what most articles don't explain: the down payment requirement and the actual borrowing limit are two different things. You might scrape together 10%, put in your application, and still get rejected, or get offered far less than you need, because of the KALP-kalkyl (kvar att leva på, literally "left to live on" calculation).
Every bank in Sweden runs this affordability check before approving a mortgage. They take your income, subtract estimated taxes, then subtract the mortgage cost (calculated at a stress-test rate of 6-8%, not the actual rate you'd pay), amortization, living expenses, BRF fees, and any other debt payments. What's left has to be above a minimum threshold. If it isn't, the loan gets declined regardless of your down payment.
Banks don't publish a universal pass mark, but the general accepted thresholds are around SEK 3,000-4,000/month for a single person, SEK 5,000-6,000/month for a couple, and SEK 10,000-12,000/month for a family with two kids. Fall below that after all deductions and you'll likely be turned down, or have to apply for a smaller loan.
For living expenses, most banks use Konsumentverket's annual standardised cost tables (beräknade hushållskostnader), covering food, clothes, utilities, insurance and more, but not housing or transport. These fell noticeably in 2026: the food component for a single adult dropped from SEK 3,730 to SEK 2,730/month (about 27% lower), driven by new Nordic dietary guidelines. Total costs for a single adult across all Konsumentverket categories run to approximately SEK 8,250/month. These aren't your actual costs; they're the bank's assumed schablons. You can download the full 2026 table as a PDF from Konsumentverket.
| Rule | Before April 2026 | From 1 April 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Mortgage cap (new purchase) | 85% LTV | 90% LTV easier |
| Down payment needed | 15% of value | 10% of value easier |
| Tilläggslån cap (top-up / remortgage) | 85% LTV | 80% LTV tighter |
| Amortization: LTV 50-70% | 1%/year | 1%/year (unchanged) |
| Amortization: LTV above 70% | 2%/year | 2%/year (unchanged) |
| Extra amortization: debt-to-income above 4.5× | +1%/year extra | Abolished easier |
| Property revaluation frequency | Every 5 years (for amortization rate) | Every 5 years (now also applies to expanding loan capacity) |
| KALP affordability test | Required | Required (unchanged) |
Sources: income tax rates from Skatteverket (brytpunkt 2026: SEK 660,400/year); kommunalskatt average 32.38% from SCB 2026. Kalkylränta is set by each bank, not regulated. Typical range 6-8% confirmed by Riksbanken staff memo.
Enter your details to see what a Swedish bank sees when assessing your mortgage application.
| Item | SEK/month |
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Under the old rules, if your mortgage was more than 4.5 times your annual gross income, you had to amortize an extra 1% of the loan every year. That was on top of the normal 1-2% requirement. For a SEK 3M mortgage with a gross salary of SEK 50,000/month (SEK 600,000/year), the debt ratio was 5.0x, above the threshold, forcing you to amortize 3% per year, or SEK 7,500/month. That made many loans unaffordable in the KALP.
That extra requirement is gone from April 2026. Same household, same loan, now amortizes 2%/year (SEK 5,000/month). That frees up SEK 2,500/month in the KALP calculation, enough to push some borderline applications over the line.
The cap for tilläggslån (top-up loans / equity release) has actually been tightened: from 85% to 80% of the property's value. So if you own a home and want to borrow more against it, you have less room than before. If your current LTV is between 80% and 85%, you can't expand your loan at all under the new rules, even if you could before. Worth checking with your bank before assuming you can release equity for a renovation.