Fees on income and work in Sweden In Sweden, the public sector is very developed, non-corrupt and provides the Swedish inhabitants with a great variety of services at low cost. But the government's ability to fulfill it's far-reaching promises is directly dependent on how able it is to create a sufficiently large enough income flow. As an employee in Sweden you pay ca. 30% tax to the municipality on all income. For yearly incomes over approximately 400 000 SEK (~45 000 USD) another 20%-points of income tax are levied. For incomes that pass the 600 000 SEK (~67 000 USD) mark, another 5%-points of income tax are imposed (for a total of 25%-points extra of tax, on top of the original 30%-points). The extra taxes of 20%-, and 25%-points respectively account for a fairly low share of the population, approximately only 11% of the Swedes has to pay these higher taxes on income (for an easy to view overlook of the Swedish income base, go to this site: http://pejl.svt.se/visualisering/inkomster/var-ar-du/ all numbers there, are monthly before tax incomes, sourced to the Swedish Taxtion Office). On top of these taxes, the employer has to pay pay-roll tax of 32,41% on income. Thus theoretically a self-employed person who bills 130 000 SEK from his customers get an after tax income of ca. 70 000 SEK (this is after 30% of income tax and 32,41% of pay-roll tax). The pay-roll tax accounts for 1/5 to 1/4 of the Swedish state's revenues.