Can I Claim Equipment and Machinery (Inventarier) as a Business Expense in Sweden?
Business equipment costing under SEK 29,400 (2025) qualifies for immediate full deduction (direktavdrag). Equipment above this threshold is depreciated: typically 30% declining balance for machinery and equipment, or straight-line over useful life for computers and fixtures.
What Skatteverket (Swedish Tax Agency) says
Inkomstskattelagen 18 kap 4 § (direktavdrag for inventarier of limited value)
When you can claim
- Office furniture, computers, phones, and peripherals under SEK 29,400 — immediate deduction in year of purchase
- Machinery and production equipment — 30% declining balance depreciation
- Computer hardware above SEK 29,400 — typically 20% straight-line (5 years) or 30% declining balance
- Company mobile phones — generally deductible (private use creates a taxable benefit if personal use is more than business use)
- Software licences and subscriptions — deductible as they arise (monthly SaaS costs are immediate deductions)
When you cannot claim
- Equipment primarily for personal use — only business-use proportion deductible
- Art purchases for the office (not depreciable assets — capital investment)
- Land (never depreciable)
Good to know
Pro tip: The SEK 29,400 direktavdrag threshold (equivalent to a half-price base amount, halvt prisbasbelopp) is very useful for small businesses. Plan purchases to keep individual items below this threshold where possible — a SEK 28,000 item is deducted 100% in year one; a SEK 35,000 item starts a multi-year depreciation schedule.
Important: The threshold is per item (per inventariepost), not per invoice. Buying five identical monitors on one invoice does not let you direct-deduct them all — each monitor is a separate asset. Conversely, a complete computer system (computer + keyboard + monitor + mouse) bought together may be treated as a single asset.
Related expenses
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