Environmental taxes 2025 and industry allocated environmental taxes 2024
Environmental tax revenues decreased in 2025
Statistical news from Statistics Sweden 2026-06-04 8.00
The environmental tax revenue amounted to 95 billion SEK, representing a 7 percent decrease compared with the previous year. The decrease was mainly driven by lower energy tax revenues.
Sweden’s total environmental tax revenue amounted to 95 billion SEK in 2025. This represents a decrease of 7 percent compared to 2024, when the corresponding figure was 102 billion SEK. Environmental tax revenues accounted for 1.4 percent of Sweden’s GPD and 3.8 percent of total tax revenues.
- Lower fuel tax rates led to reduced tax revenue on energy, which contributed most to the overall decline, says Dimitra Kopidou, analyst at Statistics Sweden.
Both the share of GDP and the share of total tax revenues in Sweden decreased compared with the previous year. For several years, the share of total GDP has been around 2 percent. In 2024, environmental taxes, as a share of GDP, fell to 1.6 percent and in 2025 this share continued to fall to 1.4 percent. The same applies to the share of total taxes in Sweden, where environmental taxes have also decreased.
The share of environmental taxes in the Swedish economy has decreased over time
Energy taxes the main driver of lower environmental tax revenues
Environmental taxes are divided into energy taxes, transport taxes, pollution taxes, and resource taxes. Energy-related taxes which are the largest category over time and decreased from 75 billion SEK in 2024 to 69 billion SEK in 2025. They were the main contributor to the decrease in total environmental taxes in Sweden. Among energy-related taxes, the largest decreases were seen in energy tax on fuels, followed by carbon tax and taxes on emission allowances.
For environmental taxes related to transport, which declined by one billion SEK, the largest decrease was in air passenger tax. This is due to the abolition of the Swedish air passenger tax on 1 July 2025. Vehicle tax revenues also decreased by 300 million SEK in 2025 compared with the previous year. For pollution taxes, which decreased by 360 million SEK, the largest drop was noticed in the plastic carrier bag tax, which was abolished in November 2025, resulting in zero revenue from this category.
However, not all the environmental taxes decreased. Energy tax on electricity increased slightly compared with the previous year. Also, the chemical tax continued to show higher figures in 2025 after an increase in 2024. This increase is due to the tax rates being increased on January 1, 2024.
Energy taxes continued to decrease in 2025
Energy taxes the largest category for households and non-profit organizations
In 2024, which is the most recent year with industry-allocated environmental tax data, the business sector was on a par with households and non-profit organizations in terms of environmental tax revenues to the central government. The business sector paid 49 billion SEK, while households and non-profit organizations paid 50 billion SEK. The public sector is a significantly smaller category, paying 2 billion SEK to the central government in 2024.
Electricity capacity fees were introduced in the recent years, which have contributed to an increase in environmental tax revenues from the business sector. This can be seen in the graph below.
The business sector at the same level as households and non-profit organizations
There are significant differences in the types of environmental taxes paid across industries. For households and non-profit organizations, energy tax was the largest category and accounted for 52 percent of the industry’s total environmental taxes in 2024. For agriculture, forestry and fishing, as well as the manufacturing and construction industries, carbon tax exceeded energy tax. The business sector contributed the most to greenhouse gas emissions.
Large variation in the type of environmental tax across sectors
Revisions
Along with the production of the statistics on environmental taxes in 2026, the taxes on energy were updated to include electricity capacity fees from the year 2022. In addition, small changes were made to the energy tax on electricity. More specifically, the distribution of taxes on electricity for northern regions of Sweden and tax exemptions applied to certain sectors in these regions were revised for the years 2022–2023. The time series for the chemicals tax was also revised from the year 2021, and private consumption is the sector most affected by this revision.
General revisions to improve data quality occur annually in the air emissions accounts and they affect the statistics on environmental taxes in the entire time series. These revisions changed the distribution of fuels and thus, the distribution of energy and carbon taxes. Some sectors are more affected by this revision. Exemptions from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) were also revised, which had an impact on the carbon tax in some sectors.
Definitions and explanations
The definition of an environmental tax used by Statistics Sweden derives from the definitions of Eurostat and the OECD. It is found in the global statistical standard for environmental accounts, SEEA Central Framework, and enables comparative studies between different countries. Eurostat's definition of an environmental tax is:
“A tax whose tax base is a physical unit (or a proxy of a physical unit) of something that has a proven, specific negative impact on the environment, and which is identified in ESA as a tax."
According to this definition, it is the tax base and not its motive or name that determines whether the tax is an environmental tax. ESA refers to the European System of Accounts and refers to the guidelines for calculating National Accounts.
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