KALP — how the bank decides whether you can afford the mortgage

KALP, an affordability assessment (kvar att leva pa — “left to live on”), is the amount remaining from your income after the bank has deducted housing costs, loans and standardised estimates for living expenses. If the result is positive the loan is approved. If it is negative, or too small, the answer is no. Simple in theory. Somewhat brutal in practice.

The bank does not trust what you think you can live on. They run their model.

The Consumer Agency’s amounts and the amortisation rules were checked on 2026-10-03 against the sources listed at the end.

The formula is simple. The assumptions are not.

Net income minus housing costs minus living expenses minus other loans. What remains is your KALP. But the bank does not calculate with the interest rate you actually pay. They calculate with a stress interest rate (kalkylranta) of 5–7%, sometimes more than double the actual mortgage rate. It is a stress test built into the application: can you handle this if rates shoot up?

The interest is at the same time counted after the tax reduction for interest (ranteavdrag). According to the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket), the tax reduction is 30% on the part of a capital deficit that is up to SEK 100,000 per person per year, and 21% on the part above. It softens the interest cost, but the stress interest rate still means the calculated cost often far exceeds your actual monthly cost.

That is also the reason people who “can afford it” sometimes still get a no.

Worked example: 2 adults, 1 child, SEK 4 million loan

In the example the two adults share the loan and the interest equally, have no capital income and pay enough tax to use the whole tax reduction.

Item	Per month
Net income (2 adults, 1 child)	SEK 55,000
Interest cost at 7% stress rate, after the tax reduction	-SEK 16,933
Amortisation (2%)	-SEK 6,667
Housing association fee + operating costs	-SEK 4,500
Living expenses (KoV 2026, 2 adults + 1 child aged 4–6: SEK 18,950 minus SEK 229 for a child under 8)	-SEK 18,721
Student loan (CSN)	-SEK 1,500
KALP	+SEK 6,679

The interest is SEK 280,000 per year, that is SEK 140,000 per person and SEK 23,333 a month before the tax reduction. The tax reduction is 30% on the first SEK 100,000 and 21% on the remaining SEK 40,000, which is SEK 38,400 per person per year. For both it is SEK 6,400 a month.

Positive. The loan can be approved. But the margin shrinks fast. Add one child in the 7–10 age group who has turned 8 and the standardised estimate increases by SEK 5,250 (SEK 4,220 in individual costs and SEK 1,030 in higher shared costs). Raise the stress interest rate from 7 to 8% and the interest cost after the tax reduction increases by SEK 2,633/month, because the whole increase falls in the part where the tax reduction is 21%. The combination gives a KALP of -SEK 1,204, without anything in reality having changed.

New from 1 April 2026

From 1 April 2026 the tightened amortisation requirement — the extra percentage point that applied when the debt-to-income ratio (skuldkvot) exceeded 4.5 times gross income — is abolished. At the same time, the mortgage ceiling (bolanetak) is raised from 85 to 90%, lowering the down payment (kontantinsats) requirement from 15 to 10%. Both changes can improve your KALP: a lower amortisation requirement directly gives more room in the calculation, and a lower down payment makes it possible to enter the market with less saved capital.

The stress interest rate varies between banks, and it matters

Banks set their stress interest rate slightly differently. The difference between a 6% and a 7% stress rate is (before the tax deduction) SEK 2,500 per month on a SEK 3 million loan. Same person, same finances, but one bank approves and another declines. This is also the reason pre-approvals (laneloften) can differ by hundreds of thousands of kronor.

Standardised living-cost estimates

Banks generally base their estimates on the Swedish Consumer Agency’s (Konsumentverket) calculated household costs, but may add their own buffers. The Consumer Agency’s figures for 2026 (Hushållskostnader 2026, all food cooked at home, SEK per month) look like this:

Individual costs per person	Food	Other	Total
Adult aged 25–50	SEK 2,730	SEK 2,140	SEK 4,870
Child aged 0	SEK 1,030	SEK 2,920	SEK 3,950
Child aged 1–3	SEK 1,100	SEK 2,730	SEK 3,830
Child aged 4–6	SEK 1,710	SEK 2,000	SEK 3,710
Child aged 7	SEK 2,130	SEK 2,010	SEK 4,140
Child aged 8–10	SEK 2,130	SEK 2,090	SEK 4,220
Child aged 11–14	SEK 2,650	SEK 2,070	SEK 4,720
Child aged 15–17	SEK 3,050	SEK 2,390	SEK 5,440

Shared household costs	1 person	2 people	3 people	4 people
Total	SEK 3,530	SEK 4,390	SEK 5,500	SEK 6,530

Adding individual and shared costs gives SEK 8,400/month for one adult (4,870 + 3,530) and SEK 14,130/month for two adults (2 × 4,870 + 4,390). The totals are our own additions of the Consumer Agency’s table values. The Consumer Agency’s 7–10 age group is split into two rows because the mobile phone item (SEK 80) applies to children from the age of 8. For households with children under 8, the Consumer Agency also reduces the internet and mobile subscription item by SEK 229 per month; that reduction is applied in the worked example above. Housing, travel, healthcare and childcare are not included in the amounts.

The Consumer Agency changed the calculation for 2026: a new meal plan, a lower assumed physical activity level for adults, price surveys in more shops and an assumption of lower food VAT. According to the Consumer Agency, the change is largest for food, where the costs have decreased. The bank may have higher amounts in their calculation, but you cannot argue them down. You cannot tell them you live cheaply.

What can you do about a weak KALP?

There are a few common ways to improve the calculation:

• Paying off existing loans is often the most effective. Every loan that disappears improves the KALP krona for krona. A car loan of SEK 2,000/month gives SEK 2,000 more room in the bank’s calculation.
• A larger down payment reduces the loan amount and lowers both the interest cost and amortisation in one go. From 1 April 2026, however, only 10% is required (down from 15%).
• A cheaper property always improves the calculation.
• Comparing banks can make more of a difference than you might think, since the stress interest rate varies.
• Timing can matter. A pay rise, a loan running out, or the tightened amortisation requirement having just been abolished, can change the picture.

On the other hand, it is hard to argue away the standardised estimates. Banks do not have much room to manoeuvre there.

See the full picture

The affordability assessment shows whether the bank says yes. It does not show what the home actually costs. To see the full cost picture including the tax deduction and operating costs (driftskostnader) you need to go one step further.

With an affordability calculator based on the Swedish Consumer Agency’s estimates you can adjust price, income and down payment and see where you land, without triggering a credit check. BoKalk does exactly that calculation.

Register your interest and get access at launch

Sources

Checked on 2026-10-03 (all sources are in Swedish):

• Hushållskostnader 2026 (pdf) and Vilka kostnader har ett hushåll?, Konsumentverket: the amounts in the tables and the changes to the calculation for 2026.
• Lag (2026:226) om begränsning av bostadskrediter, riksdagen.se: loan-to-value ratio of at most 90 % when a mortgage is granted and amortisation of 1 % at a loan-to-value ratio above 50 % and 2 % above 70 %, in force 1 April 2026.
• FI upphäver föreskrifter och allmänna råd om bolån – lag tar över, Finansinspektionen 2026-03-19: the tightened amortisation requirement removed and the mortgage ceiling raised from 85 to 90 %.
• Avdrag för ränteutgifter, Skatteverket, checked on 2026-10-09: the tax reduction of 30% and 21%.

The stress interest rate and the banks’ own add-ons are set by each bank and have no common primary source; the worked examples are our own calculations using the stated assumptions.

Christoffer, founder BoKalk