Written by:
Miles Brooks
Trying to calculate your crypto taxes in Sweden can be difficult. That's why it's important to prepare ahead for reporting your taxes. By taking the right steps to track your crypto transactions, you can save hours of time and effort during tax season.
In this guide, we’ll break down everything you need to know about how cryptocurrency is taxed in Sweden. By the time you’re finished reading, you’ll understand how you can report your transactions on your tax return in minutes.
In Sweden, cryptocurrency is subject to capital gains tax, income tax, and interest income tax.
Capital gains tax: When you dispose of your cryptocurrency, you’ll incur a capital gain or loss depending on how the price of your crypto has changed since you originally received it. Examples include selling your crypto or trading it for another crypto.
Interest income tax: When you earn cryptocurrency interest, you’ll recognize income subject to interest income tax. Examples include earning crypto from staking or earning crypto interest from centralized exchanges.
Income tax: When you earn cryptocurrency as income, you’ll recognize income based on the fair market value of your crypto at the time of receipt. Examples include earning cryptocurrency from mining.
Personal assets like cryptocurrencies are subject to tax if one of the following conditions are true.
In most cases, investors acquire crypto-assets with the expectation of a future return. As a result, cryptocurrency is subject to income tax in the vast majority of cases.
If you believe that your crypto-assets don’t fall into the ‘speculative asset’ category, you must provide evidence that you acquired your crypto without the intention to make a future profit.
For most Swedish taxpayers, you’ll pay a flat 30% on capital gains from cryptocurrency and other assets.
In Sweden, taxpayers pay income tax based on their total income from cryptocurrency and other sources.
There are two types of income tax in Sweden.
National income tax only applies for taxpayers who have more than 540,700 kr in income for the year. Municipal income tax varies based on where you live in Sweden.
Like capital gains, interest income is taxed at a flat rate of 30%.
When you dispose of cryptocurrency, you’ll incur a capital gain or loss depending on how its price changed since you originally received it.
You can use this formula to calculate your capital gains and losses.
In this case, the Sales Price is the value of your cryptocurrency in Swedish kroner at the time of the disposal.
Meanwhile, your cost basis is what you paid to acquire your cryptocurrency, including any relevant exchange/blockchain fees.
To better understand how this works, let’s take a look at an example.
In cases where you do not know your original cost basis for your cryptocurrency, you should consider your cost basis to be ‘0’. However, this will lead to higher capital gains and a higher tax liability.
In Sweden, the tax year runs from January 1st to December 31st. You’ll be taxed based on your income and capital gains during this period.
The deadline for filing your tax return is May 2nd. You can request an extension to May 16th or May 31st.
If you don’t report your taxes on time, you’ll be charged interest on your tax payment until the due date on your final tax return.
If you have tax arrears of more than 30,000 kr, you’ll get charged interest starting from February 14.
If you have tax arrears of less than 30,000 kr, you’ll get charged interest from May 4.
If you don’t pay your arrears by the date specified on your final tax statement, the interest on your tax payment rises from 2.5% to 17.5%.
If you bought the same crypto-asset at multiple price points, you can use the Average Cost Basis (ACB) method to calculate your cost basis. Essentially, your cost basis for your cryptocurrency is your average cost for acquiring that cryptocurrency.
Because crypto transactions are pseudo-anonymous, many investors assume that evading taxes through cryptocurrency is easy.
The European Union’s Sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive requires exchanges operating in the EU to collect customer information and share it with the EU upon request.
In addition, it’s important to remember that transactions on blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum are publicly visible and permanent. Tax agencies around the world use data matching to match anonymous wallets to known individuals.
The following cryptocurrency transactions are considered non-taxable in Sweden.
Buying cryptocurrency with fiat currency like the Danish kroner is considered tax-free.
However, you should keep careful records of your cryptocurrency purchases so that you can calculate your gains and losses in the case of a future disposal.
When you sell cryptocurrency, you’ll incur a capital gain or loss depending on how the price of your crypto has changed since you originally received it.
When you trade crypto for another cryptocurrency, you’ll incur a capital gain or loss depending on how the price of the crypto you’re trading away has changed since you originally received it.
Buying goods and services with crypto is considered a taxable disposal. You’ll incur a capital gain or loss depending on how the price of the crypto you’re trading away has changed since you originally received it.
Selling cryptocurrency at a loss comes with tax benefits.
70% of the value of your capital loss can be used to offset gains from cryptocurrency, stocks, and other assets.
Sweden’s gift tax was removed in 2005. As a result, giving and receiving cryptocurrency gifts are tax-free.
While cryptocurrency donations do not trigger a capital gains event, they are not tax-deductible. In Sweden, only fiat currency donations are considered tax-deductible.
When you receive cryptocurrency in compensation for your labour, you’ll recognize income based on the fair market value of your crypto at the time of receipt.
It’s likely that you’ll pay income tax in cases where you earn cryptocurrency rewards for referring a friend to a platform. Because you are taking action to receive a reward, it’s reasonable to assume that your earnings will be considered income at the time of receipt.
If you mine cryptocurrency as a hobby, you’ll recognize income subject to income tax based on the fair market value of your crypto at the time of receipt.
If you dispose of your mining rewards in the future, you’ll incur a capital gain or loss depending on how the price of your crypto has changed since you originally received it.
Crypto earned from staking is likely subject to interest income tax based on the fair market value of your rewards at the time of receipt.
It’s reasonable to assume that staking your cryptocurrency with a PoS blockchain or a DeFi protocol is considered equivalent to ‘loaning’ your cryptocurrency. Traditionally, income from loans is subject to interest income tax.
If you dispose of your staking rewards in the future, you’ll incur a capital gain or loss depending on how the price of your crypto has changed since you originally received it.
If you’ve earned cryptocurrency interest from a centralized exchange, you’ll pay interest income tax based on the fair market value of your crypto at the time of receipt.
At this time, Skatteverket has not provided guidance on how cryptocurrency airdrops are taxed.
It’s possible that Sweden will take a similar approach to other European countries and tax airdrops as income only if the user has taken action to receive the airdrop — for example, promoting the airdrop on social media.
In cases where the user did not take action to receive the airdrop, it’s likely that airdrops will not be subject to income tax. Instead, airdrop rewards will be taxed upon disposal as a capital gain with a cost basis of 0.
NFTs are taxed similarly to cryptocurrencies. When you sell an NFT, you’ll incur a capital gain or loss depending on how the price of your crypto has changed since you originally received it.
Buying an NFT with cryptocurrency is considered a crypto-to-crypto swap. You’ll incur a capital gain or loss depending on how the price of your crypto has changed since you originally received it.
In contrast, buying an NFT with fiat currency is not considered a taxable event.
If you are creating your own NFTs, you’ll pay income tax based on the revenue from your sales.
It’s important to keep careful records of your cryptocurrency transactions to keep track of your gains, losses, and income for the year. In addition, having records of your transactions will help you in case of a future audit by Skatteverket. These records should include:
Looking for an easy way to keep track of your cryptocurrency transactions? CoinLedger can help. Connect your wallets and exchanges and the platform will keep a complete record of your gains, losses and income.
All your cryptocurrency gains and losses should be reported on Section D of the K4 Tax Form. You will need to fill the following columns:
Tracking your cryptocurrency transactions can be difficult because of cryptocurrency’s unique properties.
If you’ve transferred your cryptocurrency between different wallets and exchanges, it can be difficult to track your cost basis and your capital gains and losses across all of your wallets. That makes it important to keep accurate records of your transactions.
There are two methods for reporting your crypto taxes: manually and automatically.
Here’s how you can report your cryptocurrency taxes manually.
This process can be difficult if you haven’t kept records of your cryptocurrency transactions, or you’ve transferred your cryptocurrency between different wallets and exchanges.
Luckily, there’s an easier way. Crypto tax software like CoinLedger can help you generate a complete tax report in minutes.
CoinLedger can help you keep track of your capital gains, losses, and income in just three simple steps.
Step 1: Import your transactions from your exchanges and wallets.
Step 2: Watch the platform calculate your income and capital gains.
Step 3: Generate your tax report!
Interested in getting started? Create a free CoinLedger account today.
Looking to take the stress out of your tax season? More than 500,000 investors around the world use CoinLedger to calculate their gains, losses, and income in minutes.
Let’s cap things off by answering some frequently asked questions about cryptocurrency taxes.
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This guide breaks down everything you need to know about cryptocurrency taxes, from the high level tax implications to the actual crypto tax forms you need to fill out.