Sweden: How a Small Welfare European Country Became an Attractive Destination for the Super-Rich
Sweden is a country whose global reputation is tied to high tax rates and the concept of social equality, but now it is home to some of the wealthiest people in Europe. Lidingo Island features large red and yellow wooden luxury houses and a few white mansion-like houses with floor-to-ceiling windows.
It is a residential area of Sweden’s wealthiest people, half an hour’s drive from the centre of Stockholm. His house also has a swimming pool, gym and a nightclub.
A nightclub can be used for other purposes as well. He explained, ‘Many of my friends are from the music industry, and we often work on music.’ Konrad has made money by helping companies manufacture headphones and speakers, and he also owns three houses in Sweden and Spain.
Such a lifestyle for a successful entrepreneur is not surprising, but to a few, it may be surprising how many people, including Konrad, are so rich in Sweden. Although Sweden is currently governed by a right-wing coalition government, for much of the past century, the country has been ruled by the Socialist Democrats, whose manifesto was to make the country a strong welfare state with tax-supported egalitarian principles.
It was intended to develop the economy. According to the business magazine Wickens Affair, in 1996, there were only 28 individuals worth more than one billion kroner, or $91 million at the current exchange rate, most of whom belonged to families that passed down generations of wealth.
According to a similar analysis by Afton Blades newspaper, by 2021, this number had increased to 542, and these people had wealth equal to 70 per cent of the country’s GDP. Thus, a country with a population of only one million has the highest number of billionaires in the world in proportion to its population.
Forbes magazine named 43 Swedish citizens with a fortune of more than one billion dollars in the list of rich people in 2024. This means that four out of every one million people are billionaires. The ratio is two in 1 million people in the US, which has 813 billionaires, the highest number of any country in the world. However, the population of the United States is much larger than Sweden’s.
Andreas Cerwinka works for the Afton Bladet newspaper and has written a book entitled ‘The Greedy Swede’. In this book, Andreas examines the rise of the ultra-rich in Sweden. One of the reasons for the increase in the number of super-rich people in Sweden is the growth in the local technology sector. Sweden has established a reputation as Europe’s ‘Silicon Valley’, home to 40 billion-dollar companies over two decades. Sweden’s size also makes it a famous experimental market.
If you want to see if something will work at scale, you can test your business idea here with limited capital and low risks,’ says Ola. Andreas Cerwinka argues that another side to the picture demands attention. He said, ‘The financial policies have turned Sweden into a paradise for the super-rich.
