Which Swedish banks have the lowest mortgage rates?
Many banks in Sweden have started to lower their interest rates on mortgages after years of hikes. Which banks currently have the lowest rates? (article updated in April 2024)
For most of the banks, rates have only been lowered on fixed-term mortgages. These rates all refer to the listräntor, the rate which the bank lists on its website and offers as a starting point, but many mortgage holders will have negotiated a lower rate, so the average interest rate – which they legally also have to show on their website – is actually lower.
These rates were all correct to the best of our knowledge in April 2024 when this article was updated.
Danske Bank
Danske Bank's mortgage rates are lower than 5 percent for all fixed-term mortgages, with the lowest rates for the longest term - ten years.
These rates were most recently changed in February 2024. The central bank is due to make a key interest rate announcement on May 8th, so Danske Bank may change their rates again following that announcement. The actual rate offered to you when you take out a mortgage is decided the day your mortgage is paid out, and then altered each time your term is renewed.
The bank currently offer list rates of 4.89 percent on one year fixed-term mortgages, dropping to 4.59 percent for two years, 4.09 percent for three years, 4.19 for four, 3.99 for five and six year mortgages, and 3.92 percent for ten year mortgages.
The list rate for variable rate mortgages, which are technically three month fixed-term mortgages, varies depending on the type of mortgage you have with Danske Bank. Their 'Bolån Premium' variable rate mortgage has a rate of 5.79 percent, 'Bolån Online' has a rate of 5.35 percent and Bolån Premium Plus has a rate of 5.99 percent.
Again, these are just the listed rates, and the actual rates are often lower – the average variable rate offered to customers in March 2024 was 4.67 percent, for example, so well below the list rates – more than an entire percentage point lower in the case of the Bolån Premium and Premium Plus rates.
You may be able to get a discount on your interest rate if you are a member of a union which has an agreement with Danske Bank, or if you move other financial products to their bank, such as your savings, investments, or tjänstepension pension fund.
According to a report by public authority Finansinspektionen (FI) on the Swedish mortgage market, the average size of a new mortgage taken out in 2023 was 2.1 million kronor, with a loan size of 64 percent of the value of the property.
If you had a 2.1 million kronor mortgage and you had borrowed 64 percent of the value of your property, your home would be worth 3.28 million, so we can use those figures to calculate Danske Bank's mortgage rates for the average new mortgage in Sweden.
Here, the rates are slightly lower than the listed rates – 4.71 for a variable rate mortgage, 4.65 for one year, 3.93 for two, 3.89 for three, 3.95 for four, 3.75 for five or six years, or 3.68 for ten years.
If you're a member of a Saco or TCO union, you can get a 0.10 percentage point discount on all of those rates.
SBAB
State-owned mortgage provider SBAB provides differing interest rates depending on how much you want to borrow in relation to the value of your property, so it's difficult to compare with other banks.
Their maximum rates offered vary from 4.92 percent for variable rate mortgages to 4.01 percent for seven or ten year fixed-term mortgages, although the actual rates offered are lower depending on how much you want to borrow.
Their average rates for March 2024 were 4.74 for a variable rate mortgage, 4.57 for a one year term, 3.96 for two, 3.79 for three, 3.69 for four, 3.65 for five, 3.59 for seven or 3.74 for ten years.
Let's calculate SBAB's rates for the average Swedish mortgage – a loan of 2.1 million on a property worth 3.28 million.
Many of SBAB's fixed-term rates offered for this mortgage are under 4 percent: 3.86 percent for three years, 3.73 for four years, 3.69 for five and 3.64 for seven or ten years.
Two year fixed term mortgages have a rate of 4.09 percent, one year terms are at 4.35 percent and fixed terms have the highest rate of all (unsurprisingly), at 4.55 percent.
You can get a 0.10 percentage point discount on all of those rates if you're buying a home with an energy class of A or B, or a 0.5 percentage point discount for energy class C.
Handelsbanken
Handelsbanken don't allow you to calculate your interest rate based on the size of your mortgage compared to the size of your property on their website, but we can still look at their list rates and average rates to see how they compare to the other banks on this list.
In March 2024, the average list rates were all between four and five percent on fixed-term mortgages: 4.94 for one year, 4.64 for two, 4.39 for three, 4.18 for five or 4.19 for eight or ten year mortgages.
Variable rate mortgages had a list rate of 5.94 percent, although the average actual rate offered was significantly lower at 4.75 percent.
The average actual rates offered in March were lower for fixed-term mortgages too – 4.6 percent for one year, 4.01 for two, 4.05 for three, 3.83 for five, 3.98 for eight and 4 for ten.
Handelsbanken does allow you to calculate your potential mortgage costs on its website, but the interest rate given is just an average of the 3 year rate from the previous month, so it's not useful for the purpose of this article.
Landshypotek
Landshypotek Bank, one of Sweden’s top ten largest mortgage providers, only provides mortgages for houses - villas or summer homes.
Like SBAB, they decide your interest rate based on the amount you want to borrow proportionate to the size of your property, so we've calculated their rates based on borrowing 2.1 million kronor for a property worth 3.28 million.
Landshypotek offer a 4.62 percent rate for a variable mortgage, 4.44 percent for a one-year fixed rate, 4.04 for two years, 3.9 for three, 3.8 for four or 3.74 for five. If you borrow less than 60 percent of the value of your property – remember in this example we're borrowing 64 percent – you can knock 0.10 percentage points off those figures.
Their list rates – i.e. the maximum rates they charge – are higher: 5 percent for a variable rate, 4.84 for one year, 4.44 for two years, 4.27 for three years, 4.17 for four or 4.11 for five.
Nordea
Next up is Nordea.
Like Handelsbanken, their calculator just gives you an average of the most recent rates, so we'll just look at those for now.
Their average rates offered in March 2024 were 4.9 percent for a variable rate mortgage, 4.68 for a one year fixed term, 4.12 for two years, 3.98 for three, 3.93 for four, 3.71 for five or 3.74 for eight years.
They offer discounts if you bank with Nordea and depending on how much of the value of the property you'll be borrowing.
Let's look at their list rates, too. Variable rates were much higher at 5.99 percent. Fixed rates were also a lot higher – 4.99 percent for a one year term, 4.64 for two, 4.44 for three, 4.34 for four, and 4.19 for a five or eight year term. The average rates show, however, that the actual rate you're likely to be offered is much lower.
Skandia
Pension company Skandia also offer mortgages, with their rates varying depending on how much you borrow, the value of the property, whether you move your tjänstepension pension savings to their bank, and the energy class of your new property.
Let's start with their list rates. For a variable rate mortgage, they offer a 5.54 percent interest rate, dropping to 5.19 for one year, 4.74 for two years, 4.54 for three years and 4.35 for four years.
Now, let's see what those figures look like if we use our average mortgage of 2.1 million on a home worth 3.28 million - meaning a deposit of 1.18 million kronor.
Here, the variable rate drops to 4.74 percent, the one year fixed term rate drops to 4.39 percent and the two year rate 3.84. A three year term is 3.74 percent and a five year fixed term is 3.55 percent.
You can also get a 0.10 percentage point discount on these rates if you have a A or B energy class property, and a further 0.10 percentage point discount if you move your tjänstepension to Skandia, meaning your variable rate could be as low as 4.54 percent.
Swedbank
Next, let's look at one of Sweden's largest banks, Swedbank. They don't have a calculator on their website which enables you to calculate how much interest you'll actually be paying, but they do say that it varies depending on how much you borrow, your income, how much you amortise per month, as well as if you use them for any other aspects of your personal finances.
Let's compare their average rates for March.
Variable rate mortgages had an average rate of 4.81 percent. Fixed term mortgages were lower, as with the other banks on this list. A one year term had a rate of 4.66 percent, two years had 4.18 percent, three years had 3.96 percent, with 3.85 percent for four years, 3.72 percent for five years, 3.64 percent for six years, 3.54 for eight years or 3.79 percent for ten years.
These are significantly lower than the list rates, which were 5.94 percent in March for variable rate mortgages, 4.99 for a one year term, 4.64 for two years, 4.42 for three, 4.29 for four, 4.19 for five, six, or seven years, 4.14 for eight or nine year terms and 4.09 for ten years.
SEB
It's not possible to calculate your applicable interest rate on SEB's website either, but they state that you can lower your rate by moving your savings or pension over to SEB (the size of the discount varies depending on how much money you move over), by being a member of a Saco or TCO union or the Företagarna and Ledarna unions (0.10 percentage point discount), or by buying an environmentally-friendly home, which essentially means an A or B energy classification or a home with another qualifying classification.
The size of your mortgage compared to the value of the property you're buying will also affect the rate you get.
Let's look at the average actual rates offered to customers in March 2024 first.
Variable rate mortgages had an interest rate of 4.78 percent, dropping to 4.43 percent for a one year term, 3.88 for two years, 3.67 for three years, 3.45 for five, 3.59 for seven or 3.63 for ten.
The list rates were, again, much higher, at 5.99 for variable rate mortgages, 4.99 for a one year term, 4.64 for two years, 4.44 for three, 4.19 for five or seven years, or 4.29 for ten years.
Länsförsäkringar
Finally, we'll look at Länsförsäkringar. Now, Länsförsäkringar is technically made up of 23 different companies, all representing different Swedish counties (län is the Swedish word for county).
This means that interest rates can vary depending on which county you live in, but at the time of writing Länsförsäkringar's rates were identical in the counties where Sweden's three largest cities are located: Stockholm county, Gothenburg and Bohuslän county and Skåne.
They also offer discounts if you move more of your personal finance over to them, the size of your mortgage in proportion to the property's value, your own financial situation and whether your property is environmentally friendly.
Länsförsäkringar's average rates for March 2024 were 4.69 percent for variable rate mortgages, 4.36 percent for a one-year term, 4.15 percent for a two year term, 3.97 percent for three years, 3.82 for four years or 4 percent for five years.
Their list rates were higher - 5.94 percent for variable rate mortgages, 4.94 for a one year fixed rate mortgage, 4.64 for two years, 4.4 for three years, 4.24 for four years, 4.19 for five, 4.2 for seven or 4.25 for ten years.
So... which Swedish bank has the lowest interest rate?
It's difficult to say, as your own personal finances, the type of property you're planning to buy and which bank you already use all play into your potential rate.
The vast majority of people taking out a mortgage recently have chosen a variable rate – according to SBAB, as many as 94 percent of new mortgage customers chose variable rates in December last year, so we'll look at the variable rates for each bank here.
If we look at the average interest rates for each bank for March 2024, the lowest variable rate offered to customers was 4.6 percent from Handelsbanken, followed by Landshypotek at 4.62 percent, Danske Bank at 4.67 and Länsförsäkringar at 4.69. Next up was SBAB and Skandia, both on 4.74 percent, followed by SEB on 4.78, then Swedbank on 4.81, with Nordea coming in most expensive at 4.9 percent.
Remember that these rates can change – you will most likely not get the same rate if you take out a mortgage with them now than you would have in March, and it could even be higher.
It can be difficult for foreigners to get mortgages in some banks, too – not all banks offer them to people without permanent residency in Sweden, and some require you to be registered in Sweden's population register to buy property, so your choice of bank may be limited.
Other banks and mortgage providers
We've limited this article to the major mortgage providers in Sweden, but they're not the only options. Here's a list of other banks offering Swedish mortgages for you to do your own research: Sparbanken Syd, Ålandsbanken, ICA Banken, Ikano Bank and Söderberg & Partners (these five banks all use the same loan provider, Borgo), Hypoteket and Stabelo.
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For most of the banks, rates have only been lowered on fixed-term mortgages. These rates all refer to the listräntor, the rate which the bank lists on its website and offers as a starting point, but many mortgage holders will have negotiated a lower rate, so the average interest rate – which they legally also have to show on their website – is actually lower.
These rates were all correct to the best of our knowledge in April 2024 when this article was updated.
Danske Bank
Danske Bank's mortgage rates are lower than 5 percent for all fixed-term mortgages, with the lowest rates for the longest term - ten years.
These rates were most recently changed in February 2024. The central bank is due to make a key interest rate announcement on May 8th, so Danske Bank may change their rates again following that announcement. The actual rate offered to you when you take out a mortgage is decided the day your mortgage is paid out, and then altered each time your term is renewed.
The bank currently offer list rates of 4.89 percent on one year fixed-term mortgages, dropping to 4.59 percent for two years, 4.09 percent for three years, 4.19 for four, 3.99 for five and six year mortgages, and 3.92 percent for ten year mortgages.
The list rate for variable rate mortgages, which are technically three month fixed-term mortgages, varies depending on the type of mortgage you have with Danske Bank. Their 'Bolån Premium' variable rate mortgage has a rate of 5.79 percent, 'Bolån Online' has a rate of 5.35 percent and Bolån Premium Plus has a rate of 5.99 percent.
Again, these are just the listed rates, and the actual rates are often lower – the average variable rate offered to customers in March 2024 was 4.67 percent, for example, so well below the list rates – more than an entire percentage point lower in the case of the Bolån Premium and Premium Plus rates.
You may be able to get a discount on your interest rate if you are a member of a union which has an agreement with Danske Bank, or if you move other financial products to their bank, such as your savings, investments, or tjänstepension pension fund.
According to a report by public authority Finansinspektionen (FI) on the Swedish mortgage market, the average size of a new mortgage taken out in 2023 was 2.1 million kronor, with a loan size of 64 percent of the value of the property.
If you had a 2.1 million kronor mortgage and you had borrowed 64 percent of the value of your property, your home would be worth 3.28 million, so we can use those figures to calculate Danske Bank's mortgage rates for the average new mortgage in Sweden.
Here, the rates are slightly lower than the listed rates – 4.71 for a variable rate mortgage, 4.65 for one year, 3.93 for two, 3.89 for three, 3.95 for four, 3.75 for five or six years, or 3.68 for ten years.
If you're a member of a Saco or TCO union, you can get a 0.10 percentage point discount on all of those rates.
SBAB
State-owned mortgage provider SBAB provides differing interest rates depending on how much you want to borrow in relation to the value of your property, so it's difficult to compare with other banks.
Their maximum rates offered vary from 4.92 percent for variable rate mortgages to 4.01 percent for seven or ten year fixed-term mortgages, although the actual rates offered are lower depending on how much you want to borrow.
Their average rates for March 2024 were 4.74 for a variable rate mortgage, 4.57 for a one year term, 3.96 for two, 3.79 for three, 3.69 for four, 3.65 for five, 3.59 for seven or 3.74 for ten years.
Let's calculate SBAB's rates for the average Swedish mortgage – a loan of 2.1 million on a property worth 3.28 million.
Many of SBAB's fixed-term rates offered for this mortgage are under 4 percent: 3.86 percent for three years, 3.73 for four years, 3.69 for five and 3.64 for seven or ten years.
Two year fixed term mortgages have a rate of 4.09 percent, one year terms are at 4.35 percent and fixed terms have the highest rate of all (unsurprisingly), at 4.55 percent.
You can get a 0.10 percentage point discount on all of those rates if you're buying a home with an energy class of A or B, or a 0.5 percentage point discount for energy class C.
Handelsbanken
Handelsbanken don't allow you to calculate your interest rate based on the size of your mortgage compared to the size of your property on their website, but we can still look at their list rates and average rates to see how they compare to the other banks on this list.
In March 2024, the average list rates were all between four and five percent on fixed-term mortgages: 4.94 for one year, 4.64 for two, 4.39 for three, 4.18 for five or 4.19 for eight or ten year mortgages.
Variable rate mortgages had a list rate of 5.94 percent, although the average actual rate offered was significantly lower at 4.75 percent.
The average actual rates offered in March were lower for fixed-term mortgages too – 4.6 percent for one year, 4.01 for two, 4.05 for three, 3.83 for five, 3.98 for eight and 4 for ten.
Handelsbanken does allow you to calculate your potential mortgage costs on its website, but the interest rate given is just an average of the 3 year rate from the previous month, so it's not useful for the purpose of this article.
Landshypotek
Landshypotek Bank, one of Sweden’s top ten largest mortgage providers, only provides mortgages for houses - villas or summer homes.
Like SBAB, they decide your interest rate based on the amount you want to borrow proportionate to the size of your property, so we've calculated their rates based on borrowing 2.1 million kronor for a property worth 3.28 million.
Landshypotek offer a 4.62 percent rate for a variable mortgage, 4.44 percent for a one-year fixed rate, 4.04 for two years, 3.9 for three, 3.8 for four or 3.74 for five. If you borrow less than 60 percent of the value of your property – remember in this example we're borrowing 64 percent – you can knock 0.10 percentage points off those figures.
Their list rates – i.e. the maximum rates they charge – are higher: 5 percent for a variable rate, 4.84 for one year, 4.44 for two years, 4.27 for three years, 4.17 for four or 4.11 for five.
Nordea
Next up is Nordea.
Like Handelsbanken, their calculator just gives you an average of the most recent rates, so we'll just look at those for now.
Their average rates offered in March 2024 were 4.9 percent for a variable rate mortgage, 4.68 for a one year fixed term, 4.12 for two years, 3.98 for three, 3.93 for four, 3.71 for five or 3.74 for eight years.
They offer discounts if you bank with Nordea and depending on how much of the value of the property you'll be borrowing.
Let's look at their list rates, too. Variable rates were much higher at 5.99 percent. Fixed rates were also a lot higher – 4.99 percent for a one year term, 4.64 for two, 4.44 for three, 4.34 for four, and 4.19 for a five or eight year term. The average rates show, however, that the actual rate you're likely to be offered is much lower.
Skandia
Pension company Skandia also offer mortgages, with their rates varying depending on how much you borrow, the value of the property, whether you move your tjänstepension pension savings to their bank, and the energy class of your new property.
Let's start with their list rates. For a variable rate mortgage, they offer a 5.54 percent interest rate, dropping to 5.19 for one year, 4.74 for two years, 4.54 for three years and 4.35 for four years.
Now, let's see what those figures look like if we use our average mortgage of 2.1 million on a home worth 3.28 million - meaning a deposit of 1.18 million kronor.
Here, the variable rate drops to 4.74 percent, the one year fixed term rate drops to 4.39 percent and the two year rate 3.84. A three year term is 3.74 percent and a five year fixed term is 3.55 percent.
You can also get a 0.10 percentage point discount on these rates if you have a A or B energy class property, and a further 0.10 percentage point discount if you move your tjänstepension to Skandia, meaning your variable rate could be as low as 4.54 percent.
Swedbank
Next, let's look at one of Sweden's largest banks, Swedbank. They don't have a calculator on their website which enables you to calculate how much interest you'll actually be paying, but they do say that it varies depending on how much you borrow, your income, how much you amortise per month, as well as if you use them for any other aspects of your personal finances.
Let's compare their average rates for March.
Variable rate mortgages had an average rate of 4.81 percent. Fixed term mortgages were lower, as with the other banks on this list. A one year term had a rate of 4.66 percent, two years had 4.18 percent, three years had 3.96 percent, with 3.85 percent for four years, 3.72 percent for five years, 3.64 percent for six years, 3.54 for eight years or 3.79 percent for ten years.
These are significantly lower than the list rates, which were 5.94 percent in March for variable rate mortgages, 4.99 for a one year term, 4.64 for two years, 4.42 for three, 4.29 for four, 4.19 for five, six, or seven years, 4.14 for eight or nine year terms and 4.09 for ten years.
SEB
It's not possible to calculate your applicable interest rate on SEB's website either, but they state that you can lower your rate by moving your savings or pension over to SEB (the size of the discount varies depending on how much money you move over), by being a member of a Saco or TCO union or the Företagarna and Ledarna unions (0.10 percentage point discount), or by buying an environmentally-friendly home, which essentially means an A or B energy classification or a home with another qualifying classification.
The size of your mortgage compared to the value of the property you're buying will also affect the rate you get.
Let's look at the average actual rates offered to customers in March 2024 first.
Variable rate mortgages had an interest rate of 4.78 percent, dropping to 4.43 percent for a one year term, 3.88 for two years, 3.67 for three years, 3.45 for five, 3.59 for seven or 3.63 for ten.
The list rates were, again, much higher, at 5.99 for variable rate mortgages, 4.99 for a one year term, 4.64 for two years, 4.44 for three, 4.19 for five or seven years, or 4.29 for ten years.
Länsförsäkringar
Finally, we'll look at Länsförsäkringar. Now, Länsförsäkringar is technically made up of 23 different companies, all representing different Swedish counties (län is the Swedish word for county).
This means that interest rates can vary depending on which county you live in, but at the time of writing Länsförsäkringar's rates were identical in the counties where Sweden's three largest cities are located: Stockholm county, Gothenburg and Bohuslän county and Skåne.
They also offer discounts if you move more of your personal finance over to them, the size of your mortgage in proportion to the property's value, your own financial situation and whether your property is environmentally friendly.
Länsförsäkringar's average rates for March 2024 were 4.69 percent for variable rate mortgages, 4.36 percent for a one-year term, 4.15 percent for a two year term, 3.97 percent for three years, 3.82 for four years or 4 percent for five years.
Their list rates were higher - 5.94 percent for variable rate mortgages, 4.94 for a one year fixed rate mortgage, 4.64 for two years, 4.4 for three years, 4.24 for four years, 4.19 for five, 4.2 for seven or 4.25 for ten years.
So... which Swedish bank has the lowest interest rate?
It's difficult to say, as your own personal finances, the type of property you're planning to buy and which bank you already use all play into your potential rate.
The vast majority of people taking out a mortgage recently have chosen a variable rate – according to SBAB, as many as 94 percent of new mortgage customers chose variable rates in December last year, so we'll look at the variable rates for each bank here.
If we look at the average interest rates for each bank for March 2024, the lowest variable rate offered to customers was 4.6 percent from Handelsbanken, followed by Landshypotek at 4.62 percent, Danske Bank at 4.67 and Länsförsäkringar at 4.69. Next up was SBAB and Skandia, both on 4.74 percent, followed by SEB on 4.78, then Swedbank on 4.81, with Nordea coming in most expensive at 4.9 percent.
Remember that these rates can change – you will most likely not get the same rate if you take out a mortgage with them now than you would have in March, and it could even be higher.
It can be difficult for foreigners to get mortgages in some banks, too – not all banks offer them to people without permanent residency in Sweden, and some require you to be registered in Sweden's population register to buy property, so your choice of bank may be limited.
Other banks and mortgage providers
We've limited this article to the major mortgage providers in Sweden, but they're not the only options. Here's a list of other banks offering Swedish mortgages for you to do your own research: Sparbanken Syd, Ålandsbanken, ICA Banken, Ikano Bank and Söderberg & Partners (these five banks all use the same loan provider, Borgo), Hypoteket and Stabelo.
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