Dividends from Swedish limited companies can be divided into these categories
- K10 dividends
- K12 dividends also known as 5/25
- Other dividends
K10 dividends
K10 dividends are applicable to companies with a few shareholders and the shareholders are active in the company. The shares are sometimes called “qualified” shares.
K10 dividends are taxed with 20% capital tax as long as the dividends are under the dividend allowance. If the dividends are higher, they are taxed as salary.
Dividend allowance is accumulated for each full calender year that the share holder has owned the shares.
The allowance is calculated by either using the Alternative rule or the Main rule.
Alternative rule
The alternative rule can be used for one and only one company that the shareholder owns where K10 dividends are applicable.
This rule gives an annual increase in allowance of 2.75 multiplied by “inkomstbasbeloppet” for the year before the dividend. Think of it as the year when the profits for the dividends was earned.
Any non-used allowance from previous year is also multiplied by 1.0351 and added to the annual increase.
The allowance is distributed among the shareholders according to their share of the company.
For dividends paid out during 2022 the allowance would be 2.75 * “inkomstbasbelopp” for 2021 which was 2.75 * 68 200 SEK = 187 550 SEK.
Main rule
The main rule has no limitation on how many companies it can apply to.
The basic rule is that given the share holder has enough salary from the company / group, the dividend allowance will be half the total gross salaries paid out from the company.
Enough salary is either of:
- 6 * “inkomstbasbelopp” + 5% of the total gross salaries
- 9.6 * “inkomstbasbelopp”
The calculations are made for the year that the salaries where paid out.
For dividends payed out during 2022 (which applies to annual report of 2021 and salaries paid out during 2021) the limits where hence:
6 * 62500 + 5% of gross salaries = 409 200 + 5 % of gross salaries
9.6 * 62 500 = 654 720 SEK
K12 Dividends
K12 dividends are so called unqualified dividends where the owner of the shares has a provable and formal passive role in the company.
Dividends from such shares are taxed with 25% capital tax.
Other dividends
Other dividends are normally dividends from public companies listed on stock markets. These dividends are normally taxed 30% capital tax unless they are in a so called “ISK”-account.