Depreciation in a small Swedish AB: laptop, machine, write-off

You’ve bought a new laptop for the company, 18,990 kronor plus VAT, and you’re holding the receipt. Expense it now, or put it on the balance sheet and depreciate it for five years? It comes down to two things: what it cost and how long it will last.

Under 29,600 kronor you deduct the lot at once

Inventarier are the things the company uses over time to run the business: computers, furniture, tools, machines. The default is that you deduct them bit by bit. The exception is the immediate deduction, often called direktavdrag, for what Skatteverket (the Swedish Tax Agency) calls förbrukningsinventarier, low-value or short-lived equipment.

The threshold is half a prisbasbelopp, the price base amount that many Swedish limits are tied to. According to Skatteverket, the purchase price must be below 29,400 kronor for income year 2025 and 29,600 kronor for 2026, excluding VAT. The price base amount for 2026 is 59,200 kronor. If the company isn’t VAT-registered, the VAT counts as part of the price.

So the 18,990 kronor laptop goes straight in as a cost. Done.

That Skatteverket page is written for sole traders, but the rules come from chapter 18 of the Income Tax Act and apply to an aktiebolag (AB, limited company) in the same way.

Things that belong together are added together

This is where people slip. If you buy several items that naturally belong together, or that are part of one larger purchase, the total is what gets tested against the threshold. Skatteverket’s own example is a computer, monitor, printer, keyboard and mouse, which count as one item.

Say you buy a laptop for 21,000 kronor, a monitor for 6,000 and a docking station for 3,500. Each is under the limit, but together they come to 30,500 kronor. That is no longer low-value equipment.

The same goes for fitting out an office with six desks in one go. Splitting the invoice doesn’t help.

The three-year rule exists, but the burden of proof is yours

There is a second route. Equipment with an economic life of no more than three years can also be deducted immediately, whatever it cost. That is in chapter 18, section 4 of the Income Tax Act.

The catch is that you have to be able to show the life really is that short. Skatteverket publishes no ready-made list of what lasts three years or less. A phone you replace every other year is easy to argue. A 35,000 kronor computer you plan to keep for five is not.

My line: use the three-year rule when you actually replace the thing within three years and your own purchase history shows it. Otherwise, depreciate.

The 80,000 kronor machine, year by year

Above the threshold and with a longer life, you depreciate. Most ABs use räkenskapsenlig avskrivning, book-based depreciation, which requires the tax deduction to match your annual accounts. It has two rules, and each year you pick whichever gives the bigger deduction for all your equipment taken together.

Under the main rule, huvudregeln, you may deduct up to 30 percent of the book value at the start of the year plus the year’s purchases. Under the supplementary rule, kompletteringsregeln, you write off 20 percent of the purchase price each year, so everything is gone after five years.

Assume a calendar financial year and a machine bought for 80,000 kronor in October 2026, the company’s only piece of equipment. This is the lowest value you’re allowed to carry at each year-end:

• 2026: 56,000 kronor under the main rule, 64,000 under the supplementary rule
• 2027: 39,200 kronor versus 48,000
• 2028: 27,440 kronor versus 32,000
• 2029: 19,208 kronor versus 16,000
• 2030: 13,446 kronor versus 0

The main rule wins for the first three years. In year four you switch to the supplementary rule, and in year five the machine is fully written off. Stay on 30 percent and you never get to zero.

There is also restvärdesavskrivning, residual value depreciation, at up to 25 percent a year, where books and tax don’t have to match. For a small AB that prepares annual accounts it is rarely worth choosing.

A December purchase gives the same deduction as a January one

It makes no difference when in the year you buy. The machine in the example gives a 24,000 kronor deduction for 2026 even though it has only been on the floor for three months.

That makes autumn the right time to think through investments you were going to make anyway. But the equipment has to be acquired before the balance sheet date, and an order isn’t enough. And never buy something just for the deduction. You spend the whole amount to save the tax on it.

If the company’s financial year is shorter or longer than twelve months, the percentages are adjusted. Six months gives 15 percent under the main rule, eighteen months gives 45.

In the books it becomes two lines

In the årsredovisning, the annual report, depreciation should reflect how long the asset is used. If you follow K2, the simplified accounting framework most small ABs use, you don’t have to assess each machine separately. You can simply choose five years.

In the example you therefore book 16,000 kronor as planned depreciation. The gap up to the 24,000 allowed for tax, 8,000 kronor, becomes an överavskrivning, excess depreciation, shown as a year-end appropriation and an untaxed reserve. Most software works this out if the fixed asset register is filled in properly.

Go through this year’s purchases above roughly 15,000 kronor now, while you still remember what was bought together with what. One caveat: if the company has a financial year that doesn’t follow the calendar year, Skatteverket’s text doesn’t spell out which year’s amount applies to a purchase close to the limit, so ask Skatteverket before you book it.