The Sweden Fund – citizen's income: our shared wealth must serve everyone

The warning we can no longer ignore

Imagine an accountant who has spent five years training and twenty years working. A computational engineer who designs bridges. A lawyer who reviews contracts, a programmer who writes code, or a case officer who assesses applications. They have been told that education is security. But now the foundation of that promise is shifting.

Artificial intelligence may soon be able to carry out much of the work currently done by engineers, accountants, lawyers, programmers, analysts, consultants and administrators. That does not mean all human knowledge will become worthless, or that every occupation will disappear. But work that once required a hundred people may soon be done by ten, five or a single person using powerful AI systems.

This is not a minor change in the labour market. It is a transformation of the entire economy. We must say so before unemployment is at the door and before politics once again claims that no one could have foreseen what was happening.

Technology can free people from monotonous work, improve healthcare, speed up research and create greater wealth. But the question is who owns the technology. Who gets the productivity gains? Who loses their wages? Who pays the tax? And who gets the freedom?

When wages disappear, so does the tax base

Swedish society is financed to a large extent through work. Wages generate income tax, employers’ social security contributions and pension payments. When wages are spent on consumption, VAT revenues also return to the common purse. But when well-paid jobs disappear, tax revenues fall while the costs of unemployment, transition and social security may rise. The state and municipalities therefore risk losing income precisely when people’s needs are growing.

Our tax system is built on most adults selling their working time in return for a wage. But if value is instead created through algorithms, data centres, automated machines, patents, data and capital, the tax base must change too. We cannot continue taxing human labour heavily while allowing automated profits to slip away.

Otherwise we will end up with a society where production grows but tax revenues fall, where company valuations rise while municipalities are forced to cut back, and where a small number of people own the systems while the many lose wages and influence. That would not be progress. It would be historic concentration of power.

That is why we need the Sweden Fund

The Sweden Fund is not merely a reform for natural resources. It is an answer to a new economic reality. When technology makes it possible to produce more with fewer and fewer human working hours, part of the productivity gain must accrue to society as a whole. Not as charity. Not as temporary crisis support. But as ownership.

Companies should be allowed to make money from good ideas, skilled organisation and genuine risk-taking. But companies do not operate in a vacuum. They use publicly educated people, shared electricity grids, digital infrastructure, research, data and a legal system that protects their operations. Society therefore has a right to a share of the return.

A country that allows technology to replace work without changing ownership can create mass unemployment and enormous private fortunes at the same time. A country that makes its citizens co-owners can instead use technology to create greater freedom. That is the path Sweden must choose.

This belongs to us

The ore beneath the ground. The forests. The rivers. Hydropower. The electricity grids. The land. The infrastructure. The knowledge in our universities, jointly funded research and digital value created through people’s lives and work. None of this was created by a single person. It has grown out of nature, history and the shared work of generations.

That is why these values must not be taken over by whoever happens to arrive first, has the most capital or writes the first contract. What is shared must become shared again.

A fund for everyone

responsible intelligence in politics wants to create a Sweden Fund: a long-term citizens’ fund that collects part of the returns from Sweden’s natural resources, infrastructure and future technological assets. The fund will be owned on behalf of citizens and managed across generations. The capital must grow. It is primarily the returns that will be distributed.

This is not about envy. It is about ownership, fairness and freedom. A people who no longer own any part of the fundamental wealth of their country will eventually become strangers in their own land. And a people who own no part of the technology replacing their work risk becoming surplus to the economy they themselves helped build.

A citizens’ share – not a handout

Part of the Sweden Fund’s returns will be paid out as a recurring citizens’ share. It must not be regarded as a benefit that the state graciously hands out. It must be a visible share in what we already own together.

No one should be reduced to a benefits claimant when they are in fact a co-owner. The citizens’ share can give people the opportunity to study, start a business, care for a relative, leave destructive work or change direction when their old job is automated. Freedom becomes more real when there is solid ground beneath your feet.

From citizens’ share to citizen's income

We must be honest. Sweden’s natural resources cannot, on their own, fund a full citizen's income. It would be dishonest to promise such a thing today. But it would be equally dishonest to pretend that today’s wage-based society is certain to endure.

The Sweden Fund can begin with a citizens’ share. If automation continues to reduce the need for human wage labour, the share should be able to grow and eventually become part of a genuine citizen's income. Such an economic foundation must start being built before the crisis arrives. Politics that always waits for complete certainty will always be too late.

Finding is not the same as owning

Anyone who discovers a deposit beneath Swedish soil has contributed knowledge, capital and risk. They should be well rewarded. But the deposit did not come into being through the prospector’s work. Finding is not the same as owning. The Sweden Fund should therefore be able to receive an ownership stake, royalty or resource rent when minerals, hydropower and other fundamental assets are exploited.

The entrepreneur should receive a return on their creative effort. But no one should be allowed to take the entire profit from wealth that belongs to everyone.

Automating is not the same as creating the value alone

The same principle applies to new technology. A company that develops an effective AI system has a right to a return on its idea and risk-taking. But the system uses shared infrastructure, publicly educated people, socially funded knowledge and data created by millions of people.

That is why part of the returns from the AI economy must also accrue to the common good. This could happen through public ownership stakes in strategic AI infrastructure, payment for the commercial use of shared data resources and returns from publicly funded technology. This is not a punishment for innovation. It is a way of preserving society when innovation transforms working life.

Enterprise and fairness belong together

The Sweden Fund does not mean that the state should do everything. Sweden needs entrepreneurs, researchers, engineers, investors and companies willing to build something new. But freedom must be combined with responsibility. The company should receive the profit from its idea, organisation and work. Citizens should receive their share of the foundational wealth, social structures and shared knowledge the company uses.

How the Sweden Fund can be built

The fund can receive income from several long-term sources:

• mineral fees and resource rents
• dividends from state-owned companies
• ownership stakes in strategic projects
• increases in land value
• natural monopolies
• digital infrastructure
• publicly funded technology
• future AI-related social rents

Sweden must also build its own AI models and strategic computing capacity. When the state funds research, computing power and technological development, the common good should receive ownership stakes and a share of the returns. When public data, the Swedish language and knowledge built up over generations are used to create commercial profits, part of those profits should return to the Sweden Fund.

The entrepreneur should be rewarded for their idea, work and risk. But the state must not pay the cost, carry the risk and then leave the entire profit to someone else. What is built using the knowledge and resources of the whole people should also generate returns for the whole people.

The fund must not become a cash box that every government can empty to pay for short-term election promises. It must be protected by strong withdrawal rules, transparent accounts and democratic oversight. No generation has the right to sell off the wealth of the future to cover today’s comforts.

Those who bear the cost should receive their share

Communities that host mines, hydropower, forestry, power lines and data centres must not merely watch value leave the area. Part of the returns should go to the whole people. Part should be returned to the municipalities and regions where people and nature have borne the cost.

Fairness is not just a figure in the capital. It is also a school, a road, a health centre and a future for the children who live there.

Nature must not become a means of payment

A fund built through the destruction of nature is no fund for the future. It is an advance payment on loss. The Sweden Fund must therefore combine economic prudence with ecological responsibility. Sámi rights, nature’s resilience and the claims of future generations must carry significant weight. The common good is not only what we can sell. It is also what we must preserve.

AI should calculate – people should judge

AI can help us calculate resource rents, detect fraud and monitor environmental conditions. But AI must never conceal political decisions behind technical calculations. The machine can calculate. People must judge. Democracy must carry the responsibility.

We must never hand an algorithm the power to decide which people are considered economically useful. Human worth cannot be measured by how profitable a person is to an automated company.

The Sweden Fund and the citizens’ share

Implementation plan

2026–2027: establish the fund and set the rules

The Sweden Fund will be established by law. The fund will have independent management, public accounts and an explicit requirement that its capital be protected over the long term.

During the first year, a complete account will be made of:

• the state’s company ownership and company dividends
• mineral fees and other resource revenues
• state-owned land, forests, energy and infrastructure
• publicly funded technology, energy and AI projects
• which revenues are already being used in the national budget.

The starting point must be that the same revenue is never counted twice.

2027–2028: decide the fund’s income

The Riksdag will decide which revenues are to be gradually transferred to the fund. These could include:

• a specified share of future company dividends
• new mineral and resource rents
• state ownership stakes in projects where the state provides funding or bears the risk
• returns from public digital infrastructure and publicly funded AI
• parts of increases in land value created by public investment
• future storage, concession and infrastructure payments.

Today’s company dividends are already included in the national budget. If they are transferred to the Sweden Fund, the national budget must be adjusted at the same time. A cautious option would therefore initially be to let the fund receive new revenues and the share of future income exceeding an established baseline.

2028–2030: build the capital

The first actual revenues will be transferred to the fund. Every krona will be reported as:

• capital contribution
• realised income
• return
• administration cost
• distributable surplus.

No citizens’ share will be financed through borrowing. No distribution will be taken from the principal capital itself.

After 2030: introduce the citizens’ share when returns can support it

An initial citizens’ share can be introduced when the fund has sufficient, recurring and audited returns. The distribution should be calculated using an average over several years so that it does not follow individual years’ commodity prices or company results.

A full citizen's income will only become possible if long-term funding is genuinely sufficient.

Costs

The calculations below apply if the amount is paid to all 10.6 million residents. The capital requirement is a straightforward calculation based on four per cent annual distributable returns – not a forecast or guarantee.

The cost of establishing and administering the fund has not yet been calculated. This must be determined before the bill is proposed and reported separately from the fund capital.

Transferring state shares to the fund does not create new money. It moves an asset from the state to the fund. The same applies to company dividends: if the fund receives them, the national budget loses the corresponding income.

Income and assets we already know about

The state’s company portfolio

At the end of 2025, the state’s company portfolio was valued at around 890 billion kronor. The state wholly or partly owned 38 companies. Dividends for the 2025 financial year amounted to 23.6 billion kronor from 13 companies. This is real annual income, but it varies from year to year and is already used in the national budget. The government’s report on state-owned companies

If the entire dividend of 23.6 billion kronor were instead paid directly to the population, it would amount to approximately 185 kronor per resident per month, before administration. This shows both that there is a foundation to build on and that it does not yet fund a larger citizens’ share.

Mineral compensation

Mineral compensation is currently 0.2 per cent of the calculated value of extracted concession minerals. Three quarters go to landowners and one quarter to the state.

In 2025, total mineral compensation amounted to approximately 23.0 million kronor. The state’s share was only around 5.7 million kronor. This is real income, but currently too small to fund a citizens’ share. Geological Survey of Sweden

At the same time, this means that an administrative system already exists and can be reformed. A higher resource rent, royalty or state ownership stake can be decided for future extraction. The exact income cannot be stated until levels, exemptions, local compensation and investment effects have been investigated.

Possible future income

The Sweden Fund can additionally be built through:

• higher resource rents from future mineral extraction
• state ownership stakes when the state pays for power grids, permits, research or other project risks
• returns from new energy, storage and industrial projects
• higher added value from Swedish forests and Swedish minerals instead of simply increased extraction
• payment for future carbon storage
• returns from state digital infrastructure, computing capacity and publicly funded AI
• returning part of the increases in land value created through public investment
• future returns from natural monopolies.

When the state funds risk, it must not merely hand out grants. The Sweden Fund should be able to receive shares, royalties or another right to future returns.

Indicators of scale – but not available income

The World Bank estimated Sweden’s total natural resource rents at approximately 1.21 per cent of GDP in 2021. If the same share is applied to Sweden’s 2025 GDP purely as a calculation exercise, it corresponds to around 80 billion kronor per year. This is a measure of economic resource rent – not 80 billion that the state can already collect or distribute. World Bank statistics, Statistics Sweden GDP statistics

Swedish hydropower produced 64.8 TWh in 2024. Multiplied by the year’s average system price, this corresponds to a gross value of approximately 25 billion kronor. That is not the same as profit or state income: costs, hedging, ownership structures and electricity-zone prices remain to be taken into account. Swedish Energy Markets Inspectorate market report

Svenska kraftnät’s tariffs and congestion revenues cannot be counted as free income for the fund. Under the current rules, they are used for the power system, grid investment and charges. Svenska kraftnät

What we know

• Sweden already has a state-owned company portfolio worth around 890 billion kronor.
• The companies paid 23.6 billion kronor in dividends for the 2025 financial year.
• The dividends are real money, but already form part of the national budget.
• Today’s mineral compensation provides the state with around 5.7 million kronor per year.
• A citizens’ share of 500 kronor per month would cost approximately 63.6 billion kronor per year.
• Today’s company dividends mathematically amount to around 185 kronor per resident per month – but only if the entire sum is taken from the national budget.
• A larger citizens’ share requires substantially more capital and several new, recurring sources of income.

What we do not know

• How large future mineral and resource revenues will actually be.
• What returns new energy, industrial and AI investments will generate.
• How large a share of company dividends can be transferred to the fund without tax rises or cuts.
• What the fund’s administration will cost.
• When the fund can support its first citizens’ share.
• How large the citizens’ share can then be.

That is why no future resource values should be recorded as income before the money has actually been paid in.

Decide now

We do not know today how large the citizens’ share can be. But we know enough to start building the fund.

During the parliamentary term, the Sweden Fund will therefore be established, the funding rules decided and the first real revenues transferred into it. Every year, the Swedish people must be able to see the fund’s capital, income, costs and possible distribution.

First we build the capital. Then we share the returns. We do not promise money that does not yet exist – but we are not waiting to begin.