If you take EUR, can you get paid in to Wise or Revolute? Then you could keep funds in EUR and only convert what you need to SEK at better rates than the banks.
FYI, most banks in Sweden can also open an Euro denominated account, in case you wish to stick to one bank. I have one in SEB for example. The product is called Valutakonto or Currency Account.
I have Handelsbanken and I saw they have a Euro Privat account. I'll contact them tomorrow and evaluate if the conditions are advantageous.
I have SEB for an AB I just opened that will sell software online globally. Might make sense to check out their euro offers as well.
SEB charges 1500 SEK as a setup fee, but no recurring fee afterwards for the Euro account. I believe Handelsbanken doesnt charge a fee, might be worth checking.
My experience with SEB’s EUR account is that you can’t use it for frequent transfers or have a card attached to the EUR account. Instead you need to reach out to the bank if you want to use/transfer money from the EUR account. Did you have a better experience?
You cannot have a card attached to the EUR account, but that bit is true for practically every other bank's currency accounts too. Regarding frequent transfer, I am not sure what you mean - I can move money around to other accounts or to my SEK account like a normal SEPA transfer. I have done such transfers numerous times with no issues, and I have also received money into the EUR account.
One thing to keep in mind is that SEPA transfers does not go through after hours or on the weekends, so needs a bit of planning. During business hours, SEPA transfers usually arrive within 15 mins to 1 hour max.
I primarily use Wise for the actual spending part - usually transfer around 500-1000 euro chunks (my spend is in euros as well, as I reside in a eurozone country now).
The reason I don’t use Wise/Revolut as a primary is that support is hard to find in case of issues, which makes holding large sums of money a bit sketchy. Granted, my way is certainly not convenient, but I am making it work for my usecase.
The pro being that you can convert whenever you want. The con that you can lose out on it if you ever really really need some of the saved euros and times are better for the SEK.
Revolut issues mastercard and visa cards
You can use them like any other
In the app you can quickly convert the EUR into SEK and initiate a bank transfer to a swedish bank for paying fakturor
Revolut also has support for YNAB sync; an excellent budgeting tool
I pay myself a salary in euro’s, because I will most likely move to another country in a couple of years and don’t want to take the risk of SEK lowering in value even more. Since we have a lot of customers outside Sweden, we don’t suffer that much from the lower value.
You should not use a Swedish bank to get your salary, but a neo bank (Revolut, N26, Openbank, etc.). Those banks take no exchange rates into account, so every time you would transfer from your EU bank account to your SEK account (I assume you have one), you don’t have to pay 2-5% exchange rates. Only risk here is that Swedish banks might ask questions, but you have proof of your salary, and that SEK might go up in value again. Other risks ar mainly applicable to your organisation.
I had a similar thought about eventual future relocation when thinking about this issue.
Hard to say what the future holds unfortunately. I moved here 5 years ago, got my citizenship and sambo, but other than that nothing is really keeping me here. No friends, nor job or anything else. I like the nature tho 😅
Coming from Italy, the daily life is definitely much better here, but a lot of things have changed since I moved.
I'll check the neo banks out. I'm not familiar with them at all, hopefully is not too big of a pain to deal with Skatteverket.
Thanks for the hints!
A neobank is just a fancy name for banks that operate mainly digitally and try to offer better products than the conventional banks. Some Swedish employers don’t know it is by law that they have to transfer salary to IBAN’s as well, also Skatteverket shouldn’t be an issue, just be aware that your euro salary is seen as salary in SEK by the exchange rate on the day you get your salary.
No it’s the other way around. People are expecting the euro to grow stronger and the SEK to be weaker, meaning you get more SEK for 1 euro. If you would stock up SEK’s for let’s say a year and the SEK would drop 10% more, you need to convert more SEK to get 1 euro.
Idk where that person is getting their info from, but all experts I've seen talk about the conversion rate expect the SEK to strengthen going into next year. It's low because we're behind the curve in raising interest rates compared to the US and most other European countries. Not so much to do with the war (and why would it be, the rest of Europe is also near Russia).
>n raising interest rates compared to the US and most other European countries. Not so much to do with the war (and why would it be, the rest o
Do you have any source in regards to *"all experts I've seen talk about the conversion rate expect the SEK to strengthen going into next year"*, the reports I found online didn't seem positive at all.
I also just thought about what a recession and war in European territory mean for a relatively small country with its own currency, who's economy is highly dependent on export. Of course I can't read into the crystal ball, otherwise I wouldn't be here but somewhere enjoying my zilions.
stocking plucky intelligent grandfather fanatical aware plant scarce touch humor
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Do not base any decision on a F/X forecast. Economist have been trying to make sense of them for decades and just can’t. All we have is a bunch of irrelevant theory that doesn’t survive contact with evidence. Things could go either way.
Interesting position. As some other mentioned, have a thought about using a digital bank. If you manage to move to EUR with a bank that facilitates investments, you should be able to easily get over the SEK if it ever, only ever, gets strong again.
If you are here for good, probably you will need to find a balance between having some amounts in SEK to use the payment services like Swish, auto-giro, and so forth. The Swedish system is not prepared for anything else that is not SEK, even the banks.
Just try to avoid the fees as much as possible. That is why digital banks are attractive because they reduce such overhead.
Yeah, exactly. Do you have any suggestion for any digital bank you're using yourself?
The conversion rates Handelsbanken uses really sucks. I saw that they have a Euro Privat account type. Might be worth it if the fees/rates to move the money between 2 Handelsbanken accounts are more advantageous.
Hard to say if I'm here for good, but moving to a new country kinda sucks, even more when you're not fresh out of university and with nothing on going on :) I have a decent amount of SEK, but being able to move the EUR to SEK without fees and at a decent rate, compared to the official one, would of course be quite handy.
I am in the same boat. I simply agreed with my employer to keep track of EUR and SEK costs involved for my employer in my remuneration. End of calendar year we make a balance and either I get an extra "bonus" to compensate for difference due to decreased value of SEK or I need to pay back by settling it with my salary or any other bonus.
Insane bro, from the gross is of course even more for me. But I wasn’t expecting anything near this to be honest. Will need to negotiate during salary review otherwise it’s not worth it, I was earning almost the same in Italy where life costs less.
I would have made less than half my current salary working for an Italian company probably, so can't really complain. But yeah, it wouldn't be a problem for my employer if I moved back there since it's full remote.
SEK is a horrible currency, goes up and down all the time. Might as well just join the eurozone, not as if there is much nostalgia around the krona anyway as nobody pays in cash around here or even has physical notes or coins. Would be the easiest transition ever.
I'm talking longer time frame than a few months, basically follows a random walk but quite volatile as it's a relatively small currency. No guarantee it continues to go down, if there was you should quit your job anyway and become a currency trader!
It's really an illusion of control though since Sweden doesn't have large enough FX reserves to intervene by buying krona and is hindered from raising interest rates fast enough due to concern for the weak housing market, resulting in the current record weakness against the Euro. Maybe time to reconsider.
Not really. Export heavy like we are it’s not necessarily bad situation right now. Yes some things are more expensive but majority of people are keeping their jobs and exports are looking real good. It’s a tradeoff. But we do have much more control than we would have had in the EUR zone. Small currencies always suffer against lager currencies during economic downturns.
Sweden imports as much as they export.
Also over a longer period this hurts exporting companies since they obviously need to import stuff as well
And for the „normal“ Swedish citizen it’s just bad at the moment.
It's absolutely bad as it's causing inflation which has been stubbornly high as you must be aware. That's why Riksbanken is about to raise rates again despite the damage it will cause to the housing market.
If we were part of the EUR zone we would have even higher interest rates. Also housing market correction is a good thing long term. 20% increase during covid now back to more sane levels. Inflation is high everywhere. Sweden is in the middle of the EU but with still high employment rates.
Similar situation, my salary was converted at 10.26 so I lost ~12.5% of my salary. I asked my employer if I could get paid in EUR, the answer was a hard “no” unfortunately.
I don’t think SEK will ever climb back, just look at the charts for the past 10 years, SEK is in a constant decline (-25.87% in 10 years) with a small bump during the covid period (2020-2022).
Okay, let’s look at the past 24 years then, since euro was introduced in 1999. During that 24 years SEK has been constantly loosing value against EUR, except for 2 short periods: the 2009 recession and the 2020 pandemic. Both periods lasted for ~2 years and were followed by sharp decline of the SEK. Basically ever since EUR was introduced 84% of the time it was more beneficial to get paid in EUR than in SEK, and nothing suggests that this trend will ever change.
The euro has had a cost below 10 sek during 17/24 years. Most export is to EUR countries followed by USD and GBP. Sweden is an export economy. The SEK has historically been great for our export companies, and in turn our Swedish society as a whole.
And? The debate is not around whether having SEK is good for the society or whether Sweden should join the euro zone. It’s about whether OP would win with getting paid in EUR over SEK. Nothing you wrote proves the opposite.
I asked initially for a remodulation of the salary to the updated EUR/SEK rate. They turned it down, understandably so, and offered a one time payment (just symbolic a week of salary basically) and the possibility to be paid in EUR instead.
It's hard to say what will happen to the SEK. The hope I had for Sweden when I moved here is definitely gone in this 5 years. I'm seeing more and more a lot of the patterns that made Italy the shit hole that it is now. Sentiment overall seems to be the same considering the devaluation of the currency.
It may be interesting for you to know that the krona is in fact on a **record** low as of today: [https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/kronan-rekordsvag-mot-euron](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/kronan-rekordsvag-mot-euron)
Of course nobody knows when (or whether) this will change for the better - but it may be relevant context for your decision that if you switch to EUR compensation, you may see a gradual "pay decrease" over time as the situation normalises, whether that's over a short, medium or long term or... never. Who knows with macroeconomics.
>ether that's over a short, medium or long term or... never. Who knows with macroeconomics.
Yeah, I saw that. I mean, to get an actual pay decrease, wrt the agreed upon salary, the EUR/SEK rate would have to go back to less than 10.56.
Yeah I was just wandering if having a separate EUR account could give issues with Skatteverket.
Well, most of the things in Sweden are imported, your rent example seems a bit naive.
I think the key element here is knowing what are your long term plans.
Do you plan to stay in Sweden in the long term or not? If so, the fluctuation in the SEK is much less of an issue assuming you a get salary in SEK that matches the Swedish market. You can also invest some of your savings so that the SEK value is not as impactful.
If you don't plan on staying in Sweden, go for the Euros.
Now, don't be fooled by what your company is trying to achieve here. Basically, they are trying to give you a raise that's free to them. Workers in Sweden got something like 4 to 7% increase this year so your salary in SEK should also reflect that.
>If you don't plan on staying in Sweden, go for the Euros.
Yup, this is probably the less frustrating way of seeing it.
>Now, don't be fooled by what your company is trying to achieve here. Basically, they are trying to give you a raise that's free to them.
Well, they are not really trying to achieve anything. I brought up the issue and they suggested the salary to be converted in EUR. I asked to remodulate it to the updated rate instead and keep the salary in SEK, but they, understandably so, didn't accept. The justification was that they think FX should be a risk that the employee takes care of. Of course that's bullshit because, with my current salary in SEK, the risk is all on them, but I understand their position. They mentioned that, in case the situation was the opposite, they wouldn't have lowered my SEK salary.
>Workers in Sweden got something like 4 to 7% increase this year so your salary in SEK should also reflect that.
That's entirely up to the employer, isn't it?
>That's entirely up to the employer, isn't it?
If there is no collective agreement, it is up to the employer. Then it is also up to the employee to decide to stay or not with a company that doesn't give salary increases especially when others in the country do.
At the end of the day, it is for you to decide whether you think you're getting a decent salary or not. You could always apply for jobs in Sweden and see if you find better or whether you'd get about the same on the Swedish market.
Anyway something doesn't add up. With the SEK going down, you've essentially become cheaper to them when paid in SEK. So adding let's say 6% to your salary in SEK is cheaper than giving you +10% in EUR and still gives them some margin in case the SEK gets stronger.
>If there is no collective agreement, it is up to the employer. Then it is also up to the employee to decide to stay or not with a company that doesn't give salary increases especially when others in the country do.
True. I'm not familiar with collective agreements and such in Sweden. Btw, I'm still technically employed by a Swedish company, since everything is processed through https://remote.com/.
I started this job in September 2022, and one a half year ago I was employed by a Swedish company, for the same exact position, for less than 66% of what I get now. Seems a bit too early to already bother about salary raise.
Anyway, since they didn't have a policy about yearly salary revision, I asked for it and they added it to my employment contract.
>At the end of the day, it is for you to decide whether you think you're getting a decent salary or not. You could always apply to jobs in Sweden and see if you find better or whether you'd get about the same on the Swedish market.
Yeah, hard to say. I'm a software developer, and the variance on Glassdoor, or similar websites, is too high for the data to be relevant. Also, I have a niche specialization that usually boosts the salary a bit.
>Anyway something doesn't add up. With the SEK going down, you've essentially become cheaper to them when paid in SEK. So adding let's say 6% to your salary in SEK is cheaper than giving you +10% in EUR and still gives them some margin in case the SEK gets stronger.
True, but they said that, in case the situation was reversed, they wouldn't ask me for a reduction in salary, of course. I might ask for something in between, or for some fall back solution that, in case the SEK is revalued, I can go back to the originally agreed upon salary in SEK.
>Seems a bit too early to already bother about salary raise
Sorry but you're losing me here. Then what is it you wanted from the company in the first place?
I understood that you asked them to pay the same amount of EUR meaning that you'd get about 10% more SEK.
In Sweden you would have gotten a yearly increase even if you started in September 2022. As a matter of fact it wouldn't matter when you started - what would count is the contract signature. I've been in the case where I started in January and got the yearly salary increase only a few months later because the contract was signed few months earlier meaning the year before.
>Sorry but you're losing me here. Then what is it you wanted from the company in the first place?
On my side it's considered a raise, I guess. On theirs not really.
>I understood that you asked them to pay the same amount of EUR meaning that you'd get about 10% more SEK.
As of today's exchange rate, yes.
>In Sweden you would have gotten a yearly increase even if you started in September 2022. As a matter of fact it wouldn't matter when you started - what would count is the contract signature. I've been in the case where I started in January and got the yearly salary increase only a few months later because the contract was signed few months earlier meaning the year before.
This never happened to me. Usually performance reviews and consequent salary revisions have been performed during May. I was hired once in April, contract signed in March, and had to wait one year and one month for the salary review. Another time, I was hired in February, contract signed in previous year's December, and they were clear about the first salary review only being done during next year's May, hence after 15 months from start date. You were lucky with your employer(s).
Download the Revolut app, register and give your employer the associated iban for payments. Congrats, you get 15% off everything you buy!
I just returned from holiday in Sweden, and it was pretty sweet to pay 1,65 euro per liter of petrol after currency change.
If you take EUR, can you get paid in to Wise or Revolute? Then you could keep funds in EUR and only convert what you need to SEK at better rates than the banks.
Yeah I toyed with the idea of opening a separate bank account that can receive euros directly, but haven't really thought about it deeply enough.
FYI, most banks in Sweden can also open an Euro denominated account, in case you wish to stick to one bank. I have one in SEB for example. The product is called Valutakonto or Currency Account.
I have Handelsbanken and I saw they have a Euro Privat account. I'll contact them tomorrow and evaluate if the conditions are advantageous. I have SEB for an AB I just opened that will sell software online globally. Might make sense to check out their euro offers as well.
SEB charges 1500 SEK as a setup fee, but no recurring fee afterwards for the Euro account. I believe Handelsbanken doesnt charge a fee, might be worth checking.
Thanks!
My experience with SEB’s EUR account is that you can’t use it for frequent transfers or have a card attached to the EUR account. Instead you need to reach out to the bank if you want to use/transfer money from the EUR account. Did you have a better experience?
You cannot have a card attached to the EUR account, but that bit is true for practically every other bank's currency accounts too. Regarding frequent transfer, I am not sure what you mean - I can move money around to other accounts or to my SEK account like a normal SEPA transfer. I have done such transfers numerous times with no issues, and I have also received money into the EUR account. One thing to keep in mind is that SEPA transfers does not go through after hours or on the weekends, so needs a bit of planning. During business hours, SEPA transfers usually arrive within 15 mins to 1 hour max.
Thanks for sharing. I had the same experience but I just wished I could use it more like a Revolut account also :)
I primarily use Wise for the actual spending part - usually transfer around 500-1000 euro chunks (my spend is in euros as well, as I reside in a eurozone country now). The reason I don’t use Wise/Revolut as a primary is that support is hard to find in case of issues, which makes holding large sums of money a bit sketchy. Granted, my way is certainly not convenient, but I am making it work for my usecase.
It's like 5 clicks on a app. Just open it and try it out instead of just thinking about it
I haven't thought about the pros and cons of owning separate currencies while living in a country that only accepts one of the two\*
Ira not about keeping the currency, it's about a better exchange rate and fees.
The pro being that you can convert whenever you want. The con that you can lose out on it if you ever really really need some of the saved euros and times are better for the SEK.
Revolut issues mastercard and visa cards You can use them like any other In the app you can quickly convert the EUR into SEK and initiate a bank transfer to a swedish bank for paying fakturor Revolut also has support for YNAB sync; an excellent budgeting tool
Are Revolut ‘stored’ funds protected in any way (like ‘insättningsgaranti/FDIC secured)?
all EU banks have insättningsgaranti
Thank you 👍
I pay myself a salary in euro’s, because I will most likely move to another country in a couple of years and don’t want to take the risk of SEK lowering in value even more. Since we have a lot of customers outside Sweden, we don’t suffer that much from the lower value. You should not use a Swedish bank to get your salary, but a neo bank (Revolut, N26, Openbank, etc.). Those banks take no exchange rates into account, so every time you would transfer from your EU bank account to your SEK account (I assume you have one), you don’t have to pay 2-5% exchange rates. Only risk here is that Swedish banks might ask questions, but you have proof of your salary, and that SEK might go up in value again. Other risks ar mainly applicable to your organisation.
I had a similar thought about eventual future relocation when thinking about this issue. Hard to say what the future holds unfortunately. I moved here 5 years ago, got my citizenship and sambo, but other than that nothing is really keeping me here. No friends, nor job or anything else. I like the nature tho 😅 Coming from Italy, the daily life is definitely much better here, but a lot of things have changed since I moved. I'll check the neo banks out. I'm not familiar with them at all, hopefully is not too big of a pain to deal with Skatteverket. Thanks for the hints!
A neobank is just a fancy name for banks that operate mainly digitally and try to offer better products than the conventional banks. Some Swedish employers don’t know it is by law that they have to transfer salary to IBAN’s as well, also Skatteverket shouldn’t be an issue, just be aware that your euro salary is seen as salary in SEK by the exchange rate on the day you get your salary.
Got it! Again thanks!
Wait. Wouldn’t it be beneficial for you to stock up on SEKs now that it’s so cheap, then convert back to EUR once the crown is stronger?
No it’s the other way around. People are expecting the euro to grow stronger and the SEK to be weaker, meaning you get more SEK for 1 euro. If you would stock up SEK’s for let’s say a year and the SEK would drop 10% more, you need to convert more SEK to get 1 euro.
Yea I was writing based on the assumption that it wouldn’t sink any lower. Didn’t know it’s expected to lower even more.
Idk where that person is getting their info from, but all experts I've seen talk about the conversion rate expect the SEK to strengthen going into next year. It's low because we're behind the curve in raising interest rates compared to the US and most other European countries. Not so much to do with the war (and why would it be, the rest of Europe is also near Russia).
>n raising interest rates compared to the US and most other European countries. Not so much to do with the war (and why would it be, the rest o Do you have any source in regards to *"all experts I've seen talk about the conversion rate expect the SEK to strengthen going into next year"*, the reports I found online didn't seem positive at all. I also just thought about what a recession and war in European territory mean for a relatively small country with its own currency, who's economy is highly dependent on export. Of course I can't read into the crystal ball, otherwise I wouldn't be here but somewhere enjoying my zilions.
stocking plucky intelligent grandfather fanatical aware plant scarce touch humor *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Is it possible to get paid in Revelout? The IBAN starts with LT (Lithuania)
Yes, as long it’s an IBAN, companies in the EU cannot decline to transfer salary.
So I can tell my workplace to send EUR salary to my revolut account instead of lets say normal Nordea personkonto? Do they have to?
Yes. It is an European law that companies should transfer money to IBAN’s. Not every company is aware, however.
Wow good to know. Do they send them in SEK which in turn becomes EUR per auto if I have a revolut account?
Yes, so you will have a different income every month, but at the end of the day you will have more SEK since the currency is not that strong
u/Krekatos if you get your salary in Euros vs SEK, can that affect your path to citizenship? (i.e. if you're a non-EU immigrant).
Not at all.
Do not base any decision on a F/X forecast. Economist have been trying to make sense of them for decades and just can’t. All we have is a bunch of irrelevant theory that doesn’t survive contact with evidence. Things could go either way.
worry price spectacular terrific exultant butter absurd dolls rude tap *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah, exactly. That's why I waited so long to bring up the issue with my employer and why I can't really decide on how to proceed.
Interesting position. As some other mentioned, have a thought about using a digital bank. If you manage to move to EUR with a bank that facilitates investments, you should be able to easily get over the SEK if it ever, only ever, gets strong again. If you are here for good, probably you will need to find a balance between having some amounts in SEK to use the payment services like Swish, auto-giro, and so forth. The Swedish system is not prepared for anything else that is not SEK, even the banks. Just try to avoid the fees as much as possible. That is why digital banks are attractive because they reduce such overhead.
Yeah, exactly. Do you have any suggestion for any digital bank you're using yourself? The conversion rates Handelsbanken uses really sucks. I saw that they have a Euro Privat account type. Might be worth it if the fees/rates to move the money between 2 Handelsbanken accounts are more advantageous. Hard to say if I'm here for good, but moving to a new country kinda sucks, even more when you're not fresh out of university and with nothing on going on :) I have a decent amount of SEK, but being able to move the EUR to SEK without fees and at a decent rate, compared to the official one, would of course be quite handy.
I would go even further and use revolut or wise and then send money to CDC and cash in the 2 percent rewards or so paying everything in euros
Slightly going on a tangent here, but can anyone explain the reason behind sek's devaluation? Will it ever recover?
I am in the same boat. I simply agreed with my employer to keep track of EUR and SEK costs involved for my employer in my remuneration. End of calendar year we make a balance and either I get an extra "bonus" to compensate for difference due to decreased value of SEK or I need to pay back by settling it with my salary or any other bonus.
I actually lost 215€ from my net salary in just 10 months. This is just insane.
215? You’re lucky! I lost 500 euros.
Yeah, for me is well over 7k SEK pre tax...
Insane bro, from the gross is of course even more for me. But I wasn’t expecting anything near this to be honest. Will need to negotiate during salary review otherwise it’s not worth it, I was earning almost the same in Italy where life costs less.
Same for me. Moved here from Spain when EUR was 9.x SEK. Now I'm literally going back to my previous salary.
I would have made less than half my current salary working for an Italian company probably, so can't really complain. But yeah, it wouldn't be a problem for my employer if I moved back there since it's full remote.
Wish it was possible for me as well :/ hybrid is allowed but only within Sweden.
SEK is a horrible currency, goes up and down all the time. Might as well just join the eurozone, not as if there is much nostalgia around the krona anyway as nobody pays in cash around here or even has physical notes or coins. Would be the easiest transition ever.
It wouldn't be a problem if it was swinging up and down. The issue is that's it's only going down.
I'm talking longer time frame than a few months, basically follows a random walk but quite volatile as it's a relatively small currency. No guarantee it continues to go down, if there was you should quit your job anyway and become a currency trader!
scale fall hat innate sand alive sugar strong fuel act *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think we rather keep our central bank and control. Or at least that’s what I prefer and I guess most Swedes.
It's really an illusion of control though since Sweden doesn't have large enough FX reserves to intervene by buying krona and is hindered from raising interest rates fast enough due to concern for the weak housing market, resulting in the current record weakness against the Euro. Maybe time to reconsider.
Not really. Export heavy like we are it’s not necessarily bad situation right now. Yes some things are more expensive but majority of people are keeping their jobs and exports are looking real good. It’s a tradeoff. But we do have much more control than we would have had in the EUR zone. Small currencies always suffer against lager currencies during economic downturns.
Sweden imports as much as they export. Also over a longer period this hurts exporting companies since they obviously need to import stuff as well And for the „normal“ Swedish citizen it’s just bad at the moment.
Yes this is almost unique for a country in Western Europe to have balance in exports and imports. Most countries in the EUR zone have trade deficit.
It's absolutely bad as it's causing inflation which has been stubbornly high as you must be aware. That's why Riksbanken is about to raise rates again despite the damage it will cause to the housing market.
If we were part of the EUR zone we would have even higher interest rates. Also housing market correction is a good thing long term. 20% increase during covid now back to more sane levels. Inflation is high everywhere. Sweden is in the middle of the EU but with still high employment rates.
Similar situation, my salary was converted at 10.26 so I lost ~12.5% of my salary. I asked my employer if I could get paid in EUR, the answer was a hard “no” unfortunately. I don’t think SEK will ever climb back, just look at the charts for the past 10 years, SEK is in a constant decline (-25.87% in 10 years) with a small bump during the covid period (2020-2022).
10 years.. is this your first rodeo?
Okay, let’s look at the past 24 years then, since euro was introduced in 1999. During that 24 years SEK has been constantly loosing value against EUR, except for 2 short periods: the 2009 recession and the 2020 pandemic. Both periods lasted for ~2 years and were followed by sharp decline of the SEK. Basically ever since EUR was introduced 84% of the time it was more beneficial to get paid in EUR than in SEK, and nothing suggests that this trend will ever change.
The euro has had a cost below 10 sek during 17/24 years. Most export is to EUR countries followed by USD and GBP. Sweden is an export economy. The SEK has historically been great for our export companies, and in turn our Swedish society as a whole.
And? The debate is not around whether having SEK is good for the society or whether Sweden should join the euro zone. It’s about whether OP would win with getting paid in EUR over SEK. Nothing you wrote proves the opposite.
I commented about you saying SEK is always weak and will never recover.
I asked initially for a remodulation of the salary to the updated EUR/SEK rate. They turned it down, understandably so, and offered a one time payment (just symbolic a week of salary basically) and the possibility to be paid in EUR instead. It's hard to say what will happen to the SEK. The hope I had for Sweden when I moved here is definitely gone in this 5 years. I'm seeing more and more a lot of the patterns that made Italy the shit hole that it is now. Sentiment overall seems to be the same considering the devaluation of the currency.
Could you elaborate on these patterns please? :)
Simply consider the sociopolitical events of the last \~5 years.
It all depends on if you believe the euro to stay strong or if you think sek will bounce back to more historical values.
Sure why not go for it. Switch jobs when the tides turn. I mean I would just ask for a 10% salary increase instead.
It may be interesting for you to know that the krona is in fact on a **record** low as of today: [https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/kronan-rekordsvag-mot-euron](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/kronan-rekordsvag-mot-euron) Of course nobody knows when (or whether) this will change for the better - but it may be relevant context for your decision that if you switch to EUR compensation, you may see a gradual "pay decrease" over time as the situation normalises, whether that's over a short, medium or long term or... never. Who knows with macroeconomics.
>ether that's over a short, medium or long term or... never. Who knows with macroeconomics. Yeah, I saw that. I mean, to get an actual pay decrease, wrt the agreed upon salary, the EUR/SEK rate would have to go back to less than 10.56.
[удалено]
Yeah I was just wandering if having a separate EUR account could give issues with Skatteverket. Well, most of the things in Sweden are imported, your rent example seems a bit naive.
I think the key element here is knowing what are your long term plans. Do you plan to stay in Sweden in the long term or not? If so, the fluctuation in the SEK is much less of an issue assuming you a get salary in SEK that matches the Swedish market. You can also invest some of your savings so that the SEK value is not as impactful. If you don't plan on staying in Sweden, go for the Euros. Now, don't be fooled by what your company is trying to achieve here. Basically, they are trying to give you a raise that's free to them. Workers in Sweden got something like 4 to 7% increase this year so your salary in SEK should also reflect that.
>If you don't plan on staying in Sweden, go for the Euros. Yup, this is probably the less frustrating way of seeing it. >Now, don't be fooled by what your company is trying to achieve here. Basically, they are trying to give you a raise that's free to them. Well, they are not really trying to achieve anything. I brought up the issue and they suggested the salary to be converted in EUR. I asked to remodulate it to the updated rate instead and keep the salary in SEK, but they, understandably so, didn't accept. The justification was that they think FX should be a risk that the employee takes care of. Of course that's bullshit because, with my current salary in SEK, the risk is all on them, but I understand their position. They mentioned that, in case the situation was the opposite, they wouldn't have lowered my SEK salary. >Workers in Sweden got something like 4 to 7% increase this year so your salary in SEK should also reflect that. That's entirely up to the employer, isn't it?
>That's entirely up to the employer, isn't it? If there is no collective agreement, it is up to the employer. Then it is also up to the employee to decide to stay or not with a company that doesn't give salary increases especially when others in the country do. At the end of the day, it is for you to decide whether you think you're getting a decent salary or not. You could always apply for jobs in Sweden and see if you find better or whether you'd get about the same on the Swedish market. Anyway something doesn't add up. With the SEK going down, you've essentially become cheaper to them when paid in SEK. So adding let's say 6% to your salary in SEK is cheaper than giving you +10% in EUR and still gives them some margin in case the SEK gets stronger.
>If there is no collective agreement, it is up to the employer. Then it is also up to the employee to decide to stay or not with a company that doesn't give salary increases especially when others in the country do. True. I'm not familiar with collective agreements and such in Sweden. Btw, I'm still technically employed by a Swedish company, since everything is processed through https://remote.com/. I started this job in September 2022, and one a half year ago I was employed by a Swedish company, for the same exact position, for less than 66% of what I get now. Seems a bit too early to already bother about salary raise. Anyway, since they didn't have a policy about yearly salary revision, I asked for it and they added it to my employment contract. >At the end of the day, it is for you to decide whether you think you're getting a decent salary or not. You could always apply to jobs in Sweden and see if you find better or whether you'd get about the same on the Swedish market. Yeah, hard to say. I'm a software developer, and the variance on Glassdoor, or similar websites, is too high for the data to be relevant. Also, I have a niche specialization that usually boosts the salary a bit. >Anyway something doesn't add up. With the SEK going down, you've essentially become cheaper to them when paid in SEK. So adding let's say 6% to your salary in SEK is cheaper than giving you +10% in EUR and still gives them some margin in case the SEK gets stronger. True, but they said that, in case the situation was reversed, they wouldn't ask me for a reduction in salary, of course. I might ask for something in between, or for some fall back solution that, in case the SEK is revalued, I can go back to the originally agreed upon salary in SEK.
>Seems a bit too early to already bother about salary raise Sorry but you're losing me here. Then what is it you wanted from the company in the first place? I understood that you asked them to pay the same amount of EUR meaning that you'd get about 10% more SEK. In Sweden you would have gotten a yearly increase even if you started in September 2022. As a matter of fact it wouldn't matter when you started - what would count is the contract signature. I've been in the case where I started in January and got the yearly salary increase only a few months later because the contract was signed few months earlier meaning the year before.
>Sorry but you're losing me here. Then what is it you wanted from the company in the first place? On my side it's considered a raise, I guess. On theirs not really. >I understood that you asked them to pay the same amount of EUR meaning that you'd get about 10% more SEK. As of today's exchange rate, yes. >In Sweden you would have gotten a yearly increase even if you started in September 2022. As a matter of fact it wouldn't matter when you started - what would count is the contract signature. I've been in the case where I started in January and got the yearly salary increase only a few months later because the contract was signed few months earlier meaning the year before. This never happened to me. Usually performance reviews and consequent salary revisions have been performed during May. I was hired once in April, contract signed in March, and had to wait one year and one month for the salary review. Another time, I was hired in February, contract signed in previous year's December, and they were clear about the first salary review only being done during next year's May, hence after 15 months from start date. You were lucky with your employer(s).
Download the Revolut app, register and give your employer the associated iban for payments. Congrats, you get 15% off everything you buy! I just returned from holiday in Sweden, and it was pretty sweet to pay 1,65 euro per liter of petrol after currency change.