IMMIGRATION
The last four years have seen a dramatic tightening of immigration law, with stricter requirements for citizenship, work permits, and family reunion brought as part of the Tidö government's paradigm shift on migration. So does the opposition plan to roll any of it back, and do the government parties plan to push it further?
Opposition (Social Democrats, Green Party, Centre Party, Left Party)
While the leading opposition party, the Social Democrats, is promising voters that "the strict migration policy will remain in place", it in fact wants to roll back quite a bit of it. The Green and Left Parties, and also to an extent the Centre Party, want to go still further.
The Social Democrats want to launch a new etableringstillstånd residency permit. This basically means bringing back the asylum-related permanent residency permits phased out by the Tidö parties on July 12th, with the added requirement that applicants need to demonstrate language and civics knowledge.
It also wants to replace the salary-threshold-based work permit system brought in by the current government with “labour market testing”, which means unions and employers negotiate over which jobs employers can recruit for internationally.
The party has also said it will add transitional arrangements to the stricter citizenship rules enacted last June.
The Green Party wants to reverse still more Tidö reforms, promising to bring back the "particularly distressing circumstances" safety clause that previously protected the elderly and people with young children from deportation.
It wants to re-enact the track-change law that allowed rejected asylum seekers to switch to a work permit, and to return Sweden to the work permit system it had before 2023, when the minimum salary for a work permit was set by collective bargaining agreements.
Both the Green Party and the Left Party also want to make permanent residency the default permit for asylum seekers, reversing a reform brought in during the refugee crisis of 2015.
Tidö parties (Moderates, Sweden Democrats, Christian Democrats, Liberals)
After driving through so much immigration policy over the past four years, a Tidö 2.0 government is likely to make fewer changes, particularly as the far-right Sweden Democrats will have to cede some policy wins in exchange for ministerial seats.
The Sweden Democrats want to push ahead with plans to revoke existing permanent residency permits held by foreigners with an asylum background. The Christian Democrats are in favour of this, the Liberals are against, and the Moderates are undecided.
The party also wants to give neighbourhoods a veto on new developments to prevent tvångsblandning, or "forced ethnic mixing", and to include anti-Swedishness or svenskfientlighet in hate crime laws.
The party's immigration spokesperson Ludvig Aspling told The Local he also wants Sweden to establish so-called "return hubs" in non-EU countries, wants to make immigrants' benefits payments contingent on fulfilling a language requirement, and wants to crack down on Long-Term Residence awarded by other EU countries.
The Moderate Party has said it wants a fast track to Swedish citizenship for foreigners who work, are well-integrated and "gör rätt för sig" (meaning something like "pull their weight" or "contribute their fair share"), a policy it voted against when proposed by the Centre Party in April.
It also wants to make all foreigners who come to Sweden sign a "Sweden Contract", the breaking of which will be grounds for losing a residency permit. Finally, it wants unemployed foreigners to have to look for work across the entire country and not only where they live.
ECONOMY
If this election is anything more than a referendum on giving power to the far-right Sweden Democrats, it's about the economy and cost of living, with the government parties and to a lesser extent the opposition pumping out promises that will put more money in voters' wallets.
Opposition
The left-wing bloc has, perhaps surprisingly, made less generous promises to voters on spending while also promising to raise more taxes, some of which could hit high-earning foreigners.
Both the Left Party and the Green Party have proposed versions of a billionaire's tax. The Social Democrats, meanwhile, want to levy a temporary tax on banks' excess profits, which the opposition parties claim will force banks to hike mortgage rates.
When it comes to cutting taxes, the Social Democrats wants to make the first 300,000 kronor saved in an individual savings account, or ISK, tax free. The Centre Party, meanwhile, wants the first 15,300 kronor anyone earns to be tax free, as well as bringing in other taxes for lower and middle income earners and businesses.
The big spending promise from the Social Democrats is to scrap the rule that means people who take sick leave receive no sick pay for their first day off.
The party on September 1st add another generous promise: to expand the recently introduced enhanced high-cost protection for dental care, where the patient only pays 10 percent of the reference price for most treatments, so that it covers all adults (more or less exactly copying the Sweden Democrats).
The Left Party wants to raise child benefit by 500 kronor per child per month, to give all first-time parents a one-off "baby bonus" of 15,000 kronor, and to freeze rent rises. The Social Democrats have promised to double child benefit in the months before Christmas and the summer holidays.
The Green Party is promising to raise both child benefit and housing benefit, and to bring in a new Sweden Card or Sverigekort, allowing use of all public transport for just 499 kronor an adult.
Tidö parties
The three current government parties, the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals are all promising a new tax rebate for working families, with the Moderates promising to put 5,000 kronor back in the pockets of the average family.
The Liberals want a child tax cut of 10,000 kronor per child per year, and another tax credit for families with children under 12 (Småbarns-RUT).
The Moderates want to change income tax at the state level (so for those who earn more than 55,033 kronor a month) so that no one pays more than 50 percent of their salary in total tax, while the Liberals want to halve the rate of state income tax. The Moderates want to cut corporate tax so that Sweden has "one of the EU's most competitive corporate tax rates", and cut employer social security contributions.
Both the Moderates and the Liberals want to raise the tax threshold on Swedish Investment Savings Accounts (ISK) to 500,000 kronor.
The parties on the right are combining these promised tax cuts with generous promises on welfare, largely intending to make up the difference with "efficiency savings" in the public sector.
The Moderates have so far come up with the most eye-catching proposal – the abolition of fees for daycare and after-school care, something the Social Democrats promised as long ago as 1998 and was never implemented.
The Christian Democrats have pledged increase the monthly child benefit by 750 kronor to 2,000 kronor per child. That's 250 kronor more than the big-spending Left Party.
The Sweden Democrats, meanwhile, want to expand the recently introduced enhanced high-cost protection for dental care, so that all adults only pay 10 percent of the reference price for most treatments.
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