Leaving Sweden for Dubai: no exit tax, ten years of exposure

Sweden does not have an exit tax. There is no deemed disposal on the day you leave, no bill on unrealised gains, nothing resembling the Norwegian utflyttingsskatt or the Danish fraflytterskat.

That is genuinely good news, and it is also why Swedes moving to Dubai relax at the wrong moment. What Sweden has instead is a rule that works quietly for a decade, and a second rule that puts the burden of proof on you for five years.

The tioårsregeln: ten years of share gains

The operative provision is Inkomstskattelag (1999:1229), 3 kap. 19 §:

“Den som är begränsat skattskyldig är skattskyldig för kapitalvinst på sådana tillgångar och förpliktelser som avses i andra stycket, om han vid något tillfälle under det kalenderår då avyttringen sker eller under de föregående tio kalenderåren har varit bosatt i Sverige eller stadigvarande vistats här.”

In plain terms: if you were resident or habitually present in Sweden in the year of the sale or in any of the ten preceding calendar years, Sweden taxes the capital gain.

What is covered:

Covered by the ten year rule	Outside it
delägarrätter, shares and share-like rights under 48 kap. 2 §	units in värdepappersfonder and specialfonder
interests in Swedish partnerships	delägarrätter on an investeringssparkonto (ISK), apart from the assets in 42 kap. 38 §
interests in foreign legal persons taxed transparently	foreign securities acquired while you were not unlimitedly liable in Sweden

That ISK exclusion is worth reading twice. The same shares are treated differently depending on the account they sit in. In a normal custody account they carry ten years of Swedish exposure after you leave. On an ISK, 3 kap. 19 § second paragraph number 2 takes them out. What we can document is the statutory position. How Skatteverket treats an ISK in administrative practice after a departure is not something we were able to verify from a primary source, so treat it as a question for your Swedish adviser rather than as a settled answer.

Five years where you carry the burden of proof

Deregistration is only an indicator. You remain unlimitedly liable under 3 kap. 3 § number 3 if you have väsentlig anknytning to Sweden. The criteria in 3 kap. 7 § first paragraph include Swedish citizenship, the length of your previous residence, the absence of a permanent home at a specific place abroad, a stay abroad only for study or health reasons, a home in Sweden usable all year round, family in Sweden, a business in Sweden, economic involvement giving significant influence over a Swedish company, property in Sweden, and similar circumstances.

Then comes the second paragraph, which is the one that shapes the first five years:

“Under fem år från den dag då en person har rest från Sverige anses han ha väsentlig anknytning hit, om han inte visar att han inte har en sådan anknytning.”

For five years the person leaving has to prove the ties are gone. It applies to Swedish citizens and to anyone who lived in Sweden for at least ten years. Proving a negative is harder when the destination levies no personal income tax, because the simple counter-evidence of a foreign tax assessment is not available.

On the registration side, you notify Skatteverket if the stay abroad is intended to last at least a year, “senast en vecka före flytten”, so at the latest one week before the move. The personnummer stays.

Property in Sweden is named in the statute

This is the most expensive single mistake, because it does not merely add a tax, it can stop your tax residency from ending.

“Om han har en fastighet här” is an explicit criterion for väsentlig anknytning. A retained home that can be lived in all year round can keep unlimited Swedish tax liability alive, which in turn means Swedish tax on worldwide income, Dubai included.

Even as a limited taxpayer, Swedish property stays in the net. Under 3 kap. 18 §, ongoing income from a privatbostadsfastighet or privatbostadsrätt (number 9) and gains on Swedish property (number 10) remain taxable. On a sale, 45 kap. 33 § brings twenty two thirtieths of the gain into charge, which at 30 percent capital tax gives an effective 22 percent. The same applies to a privatbostadsrätt under 46 kap. 18 §.

The running municipal charge, kommunal fastighetsavgift:

Object	Income year 2025	Income year 2026
Småhus, 0.75 percent of the taxeringsvärde, capped at	10,074 SEK	10,425 SEK
Småhus på ofri grund, half cap	5,037 SEK	5,212 SEK
Hyreshus per dwelling, 0.3 percent, capped at	1,724 SEK	1,784 SEK

The statliga fastighetsskatt is 1 percent on undeveloped småhus plots.

No treaty, so nothing softens the ten years

There is no double tax treaty between Sweden and the United Arab Emirates. The only Swedish tax act relating to the UAE is Lag (2016:409) on the agreement for the exchange of information in tax matters.

For destinations with a treaty, the treaty usually limits Swedish taxation of share gains to a few years or removes it entirely. Against the UAE there is nothing to limit it. So 3 kap. 19 § runs at full length, and through the exchange of information agreement Sweden hears about your circumstances in the UAE at the same time.

Pensions and social security follow the same logic. Leaving permanently for a country outside the EU and EEA ends membership of Swedish social insurance and access to subsidised healthcare, and child benefit normally stops: “Du har oftast inte rätt till barnbidrag när du flyttar utomlands.” Rights already earned in the allmän pension remain. Moving does not trigger avskattning of a Swedish pension insurance, since the exhaustive list of triggers in 58 kap. 19 and 19 a §§ does not include a change of residence. Where avskattning is triggered, the capital is brought into charge as earned income with a factor of 1.5.

Ongoing payments to people living abroad fall under SINK. Under Lag (1991:586) 5 § numbers 4 to 7, pensions, payments from private pension insurance and from a pensionssparkonto are taxable to the extent the monthly total exceeds one twelfth of 0.77 prisbasbelopp. The rate is 22.5 percent and drops to 20 percent from 1 January 2027.

What this means in practice

The order that works:

1. Count the ten years, not the five. The reversed burden of proof runs for five, but the tax exposure on share gains runs for ten calendar years after the year you left.
2. Look at where the shares are held. Direct custody and an ISK are not the same position under 3 kap. 19 §.
3. Decide about the property early. It is a statutory tie, and a tie can mean your unlimited tax liability never ends.
4. Assemble the evidence as you go. For five years you are the one proving the ties are gone, and the UAE gives you no foreign tax assessment to point at.
5. Watch the review. There is no exit tax bill today, and reform of the ten year rule is stated to be under consideration. Plans built on the current wording should be revisited, not assumed permanent.

The Dubai side is the easy half. A company, a residence visa, an Emirates ID and a corporate tax registration all carry published fees and fixed deadlines, and you can work the first year total out yourself in our company cost calculator.

We handle the UAE half: the accounting, the tax registrations and the deadlines here. The Swedish half belongs with a Swedish adviser who works with 3 kap. 7 § and 19 § regularly, and it belongs there before the move rather than after it.

This article is part of a series comparing what leaving costs across fifteen countries. The overview, with a table of every exit charge and how long each tail runs, is in what leaving costs, by country.