The Swedish payment clock
56.7% paid on time
Share of Swedish companies paying B2B invoices on time in Q4 2025.
56.7%paid on time
43.3%paid late
Last updated 14 August 2026 · 15 figures · 10 primary sources
Late payment statistics: Sweden
Sweden pays fast, pays digitally, and increasingly pays on time even from the public sector, while insolvencies ease from an elevated post-pandemic peak.
Sweden's rank on the World Justice Project's Civil Justice factor: one of the strongest civil-justice systems measured anywhere
World Justice Project, 2025 →of Swedish businesses say late payment from customers has left them behind on paying their own suppliers, tied with Finland, mid-table of 20 European countries
Intrum, 2026 →forecast fall in Swedish business insolvencies in 2026, to 10,250 cases, though that would still run 52% above the 2016–2019 average
Allianz Trade, 2026 →Debitura Risikobewertung für Forderungen
Sweden scores 2.7 out of 10 for collection risk
A Swedish B2B receivable is among the most straightforward in the world to collect. The World Justice Project ranks Swedish civil justice 3rd of 143 countries (one of the strongest civil-justice systems measured anywhere), and Allianz Trade rates Swedish collection procedure ‘Notable’ complexity, the 9th least complex of the 52 economies it tracks. Sweden sits in the lowest of the four risk bands: for a creditor, the practical friction shows up in payment behavior and the odd late invoice, not in the courts.
Schweden
2.7Low
Basierend auf 4 von 4 Quellen
Sweden's Allianz Collection Complexity Score for 2026, rated ‘Notable’ complexity and ranked the 9th least complex of 52 economies tracked
Allianz Trade, 2026 →the chance of collecting an overdue Swedish B2B debt, on Atradius Collections' own assessment, tied with the Netherlands and Poland for the strongest outlook of the countries covered so far
Atradius Collections, 16. Auflage →Bewertungskomponenten
| Verlag | Veröffentlichter Wert | Zugeordnet: 1–10 |
|---|---|---|
| Coface-Länderrisikobewertung | A2, abgerufen am 6. August 2026 | 2.3 |
| Allianz Collection Complexity Score 2026 | 35 / 100Statistical Appendix 1, p. 24 | 3.5 |
| Weltbank B-READY 2025 | 66.36 avgDispute Resolution 59.87 + Business Insolvency 72.85, Table B1.1, Appendix B p. 45 | 3.4 |
| WJP Rule of Law Index 2025: Civil Justice | 0.83ranked 3rd of 143 | 1.7 |
Wie die Punktzahl berechnet wird – und was sie nicht ist
The Debitura Collection Risk Score is an editorial comparison index covering every country in our dataset, built from four public, independently published sources and shown on a 1–10 scale where 10 is the highest collection risk. It displays in four bands: Low below 3.5, Moderate 3.5–4.9, Elevated 5.0–6.4, High 6.5 and above. Sweden's 2.7 falls in the lowest band.
Each available component is mapped onto the common 1–10 scale with a fixed linear mapping, and the score is the simple average of whichever components exist. Coface: A1=1.0, A2=2.3, A3=3.6, A4=4.9, B=6.1, C=7.4, D=8.7, E=10.0. Allianz: max(1, score ÷ 10). B-READY: max(1, (100 − the average of the Dispute Resolution and Business Insolvency topic scores) ÷ 10). WJP: max(1, (1 − score) × 10). A country needs at least two of the four to receive a score. For Sweden, all four are available: (2.3 + 3.5 + 3.4 + 1.7) ÷ 4 = 2.7.
Sweden is covered by all four score components, unlike Germany, which is not among the World Bank's 101 B-READY economies. This is a coincidence of dataset coverage, not a sign that Sweden's data is stronger or weaker overall.
Dies ist kein Kreditrating. Der „ Debitura -Inkasso-Risikowert“ ist ein redaktioneller Vergleichsindex für ein Produkt aus den Bereichen Statistik und Journalismus. Er ist kein Kreditrating, keine Ausfallwahrscheinlichkeit, kein Maß für die Bonität eines einzelnen Unternehmens und stellt keine rechtliche oder finanzielle Beratung dar. Er wird nicht von einer regulierten Ratingagentur erstellt und darf nicht als Ersatz für eine solche verwendet werden.
Payment behavior
Fast, and getting faster in the public sector
Swedish companies pay each other quickly by European standards, and government buyers closed a stubborn gap in 2024: the average time a Swedish public authority takes to pay an invoice fell by six days, the largest such improvement recorded anywhere in the EU that year.
of Swedish companies paid their B2B invoices on time in Q4 2025
CRIBIS D&B-Zahlungsstudie 2026 →average B2B / G2B payment period in 2024, both down (63→61 and 75→69), the largest G2B improvement in the EU
EU-Zahlungsbeobachtungsstelle, 2025 →of invoices from Sweden's largest companies are paid late to their own suppliers, on mandatory reporting by 813 companies
EU-Zahlungsbeobachtungsstelle, 2025 →of Sweden's SEPA payment providers had adopted instant payments (SCT Inst) by June 2025, the highest of 7 non-euro markets shown
EU-Zahlungsbeobachtungsstelle, 2025 →Payment infrastructure
Sweden leads non-euro Europe on instant payments
50%of Sweden's SCT-participating providers had adopted
instant payments by June 2025 EU Payment Observatory →
Five of Sweden's ten SCT-participating payment service providers had adopted the instant-payments scheme by June 2025, the highest adherence rate of the seven non-euro SEPA markets the EU Payment Observatory tracks, comfortably ahead of Bulgaria (46%) and well clear of Poland and Denmark (13% each). EU Payment Observatory → It sits alongside a lighter burden elsewhere in the payment chain: 45% of Swedish companies reported issues from late payments in 2024, unchanged from 2023 and persistently below the EU average. EU Payment Observatory →
Instant-payments (SCT Inst) scheme adherence
EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025, Table 3, non-euro SEPA markets, June 2025
Source: EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025, Table 3, report p. 136.
How Sweden compares on country risk
Coface rates Sweden one notch ahead of its neighbors
Coface's Country Risk Assessment places Sweden at A2: one notch better than the A3 it assigns to Germany, France, Poland and the United Kingdom, a small but real signal that international credit insurers see marginally less macro-level risk in Swedish counterparties than in several of its larger neighbors. Coface →
A2
Sweden's Coface Country Risk Assessment: one notch better than the A3
rating Coface gives Germany, France, Poland and the United Kingdom
Source: Coface Country Risk Map, retrieved 6 August 2026.
What late payment costs
Even a short chain has links
Sweden's payment chain is comparatively short, but it isn't frictionless: even with instant payments and a punctual public sector, delay still travels downstream to the companies least able to absorb it.
The cascade
How a Swedish late payment becomes somebody else's late payment
Sweden's incidence of late-payment problems sits well below the EU average, but the businesses that are affected pass the pressure on at a rate close to the European norm.
of Swedish companies reported issues from late payments in 2024, unchanged from 2023 and persistently below the EU average. EU Payment Observatory →
of invoices from Sweden's largest companies are paid late to their own suppliers, based on mandatory reporting by 813 companies. EU Payment Observatory →
say the resulting squeeze has left them behind on paying their own suppliers in turn, tied with Finland, roughly mid-table of Intrum's 20 European markets. Intrum →
How Swedish firms respond
Two in three Swedish businesses have brought AI into collections
66% of Swedish businesses report adopting AI in payments or collections processes, tied with the Czech Republic, France, Greece and Italy for 9th–13th of the 20 European countries Intrum surveys, one of several signs that Swedish firms are automating work that used to run on phone calls and spreadsheets. Intrum →
66%
of Swedish businesses report adopting AI in payments or collections processes
Source: Intrum European Payment Report 2026, p. 24.
Sweden and its region
Sweden against Western Europe and its nearest peers
Two independent surveys place Sweden at or near the front of its region on the measures they each track. Each row compares Sweden with the benchmark or nearest peers the publisher itself reports; figures from different publishers are not combined.
Share of B2B sales written off as bad debt (under 0.5% bracket), 2026
Sweden vs. Western Europe average · Atradius →
AI adoption in payments and collections, 2026
Sweden vs. its nearest neighbors on the value · Intrum →
Über uns dieser Vergleich
Each row uses a single publisher and that publisher's own comparison table, so the bars within a row are directly comparable. Rows are not comparable with one another: Atradius surveys companies in Western Europe, and Intrum surveys 20 European markets. Bar lengths are drawn proportional to the percentage shown; no figure has been rescaled, imputed or harmonized across sources.
The AI-adoption row shows Sweden against the countries nearest to it on the published value, rather than a regional average, because Intrum does not report one for this specific metric. Peers were chosen strictly by proximity on the value, from the source's own complete 20-country list.
Insolvenz
A forecast easing, from a level still well above normal
Swedish business insolvencies are forecast to fall in 2026 for the first time in three years, but even the lower figure remains far above where the count sat before the pandemic.
The five-year picture
Down from the peak, still well above the old normal
−4%forecast change in Swedish business insolvencies
for 2026, to 10,250 cases Allianz Trade →
Allianz Trade counted 10,711 Swedish business insolvencies in 2025, essentially flat on 2024's 10,748, and forecasts a further pullback to 9,500 in 2027. Allianz Trade → The direction is encouraging, but the level is not: even the forecast 2026 figure would still run 52% above the 2016–2019 average, and 2027's projected 9,500 would still sit 41% above it. Allianz Trade →
Swedish business insolvencies, actual and forecast
Allianz Global Insolvency Outlook 2026, statistical appendix, 2023–2027
Source: Allianz Global Insolvency Outlook 2026, statistical appendix, Sweden row, p. 26.
Für einen Gläubiger
What this means if your customers are in Sweden
Three things the Swedish figures on this page imply for anyone holding a receivable from a Swedish customer.
A Swedish B2B invoice clears in about two months, and the trend is improving
The average Swedish B2B payment period fell from 63 to 61 days in 2024, while the government's own payment period fell from 75 to 69 days, the largest such improvement recorded anywhere in the EU that year. EU Payment Observatory →
Late-payment problems are the exception, not the rule
45% of Swedish companies reported issues from late payments in 2024, unchanged from 2023 and persistently below the EU average. EU Payment Observatory → Where a delay does turn into a real problem, it tends to travel: 59% of affected businesses say it has left them behind on paying their own suppliers in turn. Intrum →
A Swedish claim sits inside one of the world's strongest civil-justice systems
The World Justice Project ranks Sweden 3rd of 143 countries on its Civil Justice factor. World Justice Project → Statutory default interest runs at the Sveriges Riksbank reference rate plus 8 percentage points a year, and expected insolvency proceedings (enforced dissolution, reorganization or bankruptcy) take one to three years. Atradius →
Sweden statistics library
Find a Swedish statistic to cite
15 curated figures from 10 primary sources. Each carries its publisher, year and exact locator, and each has a permanent anchor you can link to directly.
15 Statistiken
Payment terms & delays
Sweden · settled payment records
Q4 2025
56.7% of Swedish companies paid their B2B invoices on time in Q4 2025.
CRIBIS/D&B Payment Study 2026 (22nd edition) CRIBIS D&B · Payment Study 2026, section ‘Denmark is the most punctual country for payments’
Insolvency
Sweden · forecast
2026 (forecast)
Sweden's business insolvencies are forecast to fall 4% in 2026 to 10,250 cases, but this would still run 52% above the 2016-2019 average.
Allianz Global Insolvency Outlook 2026 Allianz Trade / Allianz Research · Global Insolvency Outlook 2026, statistical appendix Sweden row, p. 26
Consequences
Sweden vs. EU-27
2024
45% of Swedish companies reported suffering issues from late payments in 2024, unchanged from 2023 and persistently below the EU average, per the EU Payment Observatory.
EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025 European Commission (DG GROW) · EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025, Sweden chapter, report p. 129 (PDF p. 130)
Payment terms & delays
Sweden vs. EU-27
2024
Sweden's average B2B payment period fell from 63 to 61 days in 2024, while the G2B (government-to-business) payment period fell from 75 to 69 days, the most significant G2B improvement recorded across the EU that year.
EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025 European Commission (DG GROW) · EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025, Sweden chapter, report p. 129 (PDF p. 130)
Payment terms & delays
Sweden · large companies
1 Jul 2024–30 Jun 2025
More than a quarter of invoices from Sweden's large companies (>249 employees) are paid late to their suppliers (28% for micro and small suppliers, 27% for medium-sized suppliers) based on mandatory reporting by 813 companies.
EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025 European Commission (DG GROW) · EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025, Sweden chapter, report p. 130 (PDF p. 131)
Payment terms & delays
Sweden vs. 7 non-euro markets
June 2025
50% of Sweden's SEPA payment service providers adhered to the instant-payments (SCT Inst) scheme as of June 2025 (5 of 10 SCT-participating PSPs), the highest adoption rate of the 7 non-euro SEPA markets shown, well ahead of Poland (13%) and Denmark (13%).
EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025 European Commission (DG GROW) · EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025, Table 3, report p. 136 (PDF p. 137)
Consequences
Sweden vs. 20 European markets
2026
59% of Swedish businesses say late payments from customers force them to pay their own suppliers late, tied with Finland, roughly mid-table at 13th–14th of the 20 European countries Intrum surveyed.
Intrum European Payment Report 2026 Intrum · European Payment Report 2026, p. 14, chart ‘Businesses are passing on late payments to suppliers’
Consequences
Sweden vs. 20 European markets
2026
66% of Swedish businesses report adopting AI in payments/collections processes, tied with Czech Republic, France, Greece and Italy for 9th–13th of the 20 European countries Intrum surveyed.
Intrum European Payment Report 2026 Intrum · European Payment Report 2026, p. 24, chart ‘AI adoption in payments by country’
Collection complexity
Sweden
retrieved 6 August 2026
Coface rates Sweden's Country Risk Assessment at A2: one notch better than the A3 it assigns to Germany, France, Poland and the United Kingdom.
Coface Country Risk Map Coface Country Risk Map, live dashboard, Sweden country tile
Collection complexity
Sweden vs. 52 economies
2026
Sweden scores 35 out of 100 on the Allianz Collection Complexity Score 2026, rated ‘Notable’ complexity and ranked the 44th most complex (9th least complex) of 52 economies tracked, up from 30 in 2022 and 2018, and 31 in 2014.
Allianz Collection Complexity Score 2026 Allianz Trade / Allianz Research · Collection Complexity Score 2026, Statistical Appendix 1, p. 24
Courts & enforcement
Sweden vs. 143 countries
2025
The World Justice Project ranks Sweden 3rd of 143 countries on its Civil Justice factor, with a score of 0.83: one of the strongest civil-justice systems measured worldwide.
World Justice Project Rule of Law Index 2025 WJP · Civil Justice 2025 dataset (143-country rankings table)
Collection complexity
Sweden
2025
The World Bank's B-READY 2025 assessment scores Sweden 59.87 out of 100 on Dispute Resolution and 72.85 on Business Insolvency.
World Bank B-READY 2025 Table B1.1, Appendix B, report p. 45 (PDF p. 57)
Courts & enforcement
Sweden
16th edition (2024)
Atradius rates the chance of collecting a Swedish B2B debt at 75-100%, tied with the Netherlands and Poland for the strongest collection outlook of the countries covered by this report so far.
Atradius International Debt Collection Handbook (16th ed.) Atradius Collections · International Debt Collection Handbook, 16th edition, Sweden chapter, p. 6
Courts & enforcement
Sweden
16th edition (2024)
Sweden charges statutory default interest at the Sveriges Riksbank reference rate plus 8% per year (fixed twice yearly, 1 January and 1 July), and expected insolvency proceedings (enforced dissolution, reorganization or bankruptcy) take one to three years.
Atradius International Debt Collection Handbook (16th ed.) Atradius Collections · International Debt Collection Handbook, 16th edition, Sweden chapter, p. 7 (interest) and p. 8 (insolvency timeframe)
Write-offs & bad debt
Sweden vs. 14 Western European markets
2026
Only 40% of Swedish companies report writing off less than 0.5% of annual B2B sales as bad debt, tied with Finland for the lowest share of the 14 Western European markets in Atradius's 2026 barometer, against a 51% Western Europe average.
Atradius Payment Practices Barometer Western Europe 2026 Statistical Appendix Western Europe 2026, p. 7, ‘Share of annual B2B sales written off as bad debt’, Sweden row
Es gibt keine Statistik, die diesen Filtern entspricht.
Hilfe erhalten
Need help collecting debt in Sweden?
If you are chasing an overdue invoice from a Swedish customer rather than researching the market, our Sweden page covers how recovery works locally, who handles it and what it costs.
1–3 years
the expected timeframe for Swedish insolvency proceedings (enforced
dissolution, reorganization or bankruptcy) to conclude
Source: Atradius International Debt Collection Handbook, 16th edition, Sweden chapter, p. 8
Methodik und Quellen
Wie diese Seite aufgebaut ist
So funktioniert der Risikowert für die „ Debitura “-Kollektion
Der Wert ist ein redaktioneller Vergleichsindex, der aus vier öffentlichen, unabhängig voneinander veröffentlichten Quellen zusammengestellt wird. Für jedes Land werden die verfügbaren Daten aus diesen vier Quellen herangezogen, mithilfe einer festen linearen Zuordnung auf eine einheitliche Skala von 1 bis 10 übertragen und der einfache Durchschnitt berechnet. Ein Land benötigt mindestens zwei der vier Datenquellen, um einen Wert zu erhalten. Die Bewertungen reichen von 1 bis 10, wobei 10 das höchste Inkassorisiko darstellt, und werden in vier Stufen dargestellt: „Niedrig“ unter 3,5, „Mäßig“ 3,5–4,9, „Erhöht“ 5,0–6,4, „Hoch“ 6,5 und darüber.
Mappings: Coface Country Risk Assessment A1=1.0, A2=2.3, A3=3.6, A4=4.9, B=6.1, C=7.4, D=8.7, E=10.0 (160 countries). Allianz Collection Complexity Score max(1, score ÷ 10) (52 economies). World Bank B-READY max(1, (100 − the average of the Dispute Resolution and Business Insolvency topic scores) ÷ 10) (101 economies). WJP Rule of Law Index Civil Justice factor max(1, (1 − score) × 10) (143 countries). Sweden is covered by all four: (2.3 + 3.5 + 3.4 + 1.7) ÷ 4 = 2.7.
This is not a credit rating. It is an editorial comparison index for a statistics and journalism product, not a credit rating, not a probability of default, not a measure of any individual company's creditworthiness, and not legal or financial advice. It is not produced by a regulated rating agency and must not be used as a substitute for one.
How the Swedish figures were selected, and what is missing
Every figure on this page is drawn from one of the ten primary sources listed below, extracted with an exact page, chart or dataset locator, and published only where that locator was verified in the source file itself. Figures from different publishers are reported side by side rather than merged: CRIBIS D&B, the EU Payment Observatory, Intrum and Atradius each survey different samples with different definitions, and their numbers are not interchangeable.
The headline on-time-payment figure comes from CRIBIS D&B's Q4 2025 settled-payment release (56.7%). The payment-period, late-payment-issues and instant-payments figures come from the European Commission's EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025, Sweden's dedicated country chapter. The Atradius Statistical Appendix: Western Europe 2026 explicitly covers Sweden despite the country being surveyed separately for Atradius's narrative Nordics report; its own scope note states that ‘Finland and Sweden are part of Western Europe but are analysed separately in the dedicated Nordic report’, and its six appendix tables include a clean Sweden row alongside 13 other Western European markets.
Known gaps for Sweden. EOS European Payment Practices does not cover Sweden: EOS surveys eleven European countries (Bulgaria, Czechia, Germany, France, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland) and Sweden is not among them, so this page carries no dunning-digitalization figure of the kind shown on the Germany page. Eurostat's business-bankruptcy year-on-year series was not used for Sweden; the Allianz Global Insolvency Outlook already supplies a five-year Swedish insolvency history and forecast, judged sufficient to cover the topic without a second series.
Auf dieser Seite verwendete Primärquellen
| Quelle | Verlag | Jahr | Swedish coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRIBIS/D&B-Zahlungsstudie 2026 (22. Auflage) | CRIBIS D&B | 2026 (Daten für das 4. Quartal 2025) | Swedish on-time payment rate within a 37-country release |
| Jahresbericht 2025 der EU-Bezahlungsbeobachtungsstelle | Europäische Kommission (GD GROW) | 2025 | Dedicated Sweden country chapter, pp. 129–136 |
| Intrum-Bericht zum Zahlungsverhalten in Europa 2026 | Intrum | 2026 | 8,385 companies across 20 European countries including Sweden |
| Coface-Länderrisikokarte | Coface | abgerufen am 6. August 2026 | Score component A: Sweden rated A2 |
| Allianz Collection Complexity Score 2026 | Allianz Trade / Allianz Research | 2026 | Score component B: Sweden 35/100, ranked 44th of 52 |
| Weltbank B-READY 2025 | Weltbank | 2025 | Score component C: Dispute Resolution 59.87 and Business Insolvency 72.85 |
| Rechtsstaatlichkeitsindex 2025 des World Justice Project | World Justice Project | 2025 | Score component D: Sweden's Civil Justice factor 0.83, ranked 3rd of 143 |
| Allianz Global Insolvency Outlook 2026 | Allianz Trade / Allianz Research | 2026 | Swedish insolvency counts 2023–2027 |
| Atradius-Handbuch „ Auslandsinkasso “ (16. Auflage) | Atradius Inkasso | 16. Auflage, 2024 | Swedish interest margin, insolvency timeframe and collection prospects |
| Atradius-Barometer zu Zahlungsgewohnheiten in Westeuropa 2026 | Atradius | 2026 | Statistical Appendix: Western Europe 2026, Sweden row (14 markets) |
Änderungsprotokoll
14 August 2026: first publication of the Sweden country report. 15 figures from 10 primary sources, plus all four Collection Risk Score components. This page is updated in place; new editions replace the content at this URL rather than creating a new year-specific page.