Excise duty on imports
Excise duty is a consumption tax which is applied to certain goods. If you import these goods into Sweden, you must pay excise duty to Swedish Customs at the time of import, unless you have the necessary registrations with the Swedish Tax Agency to import the goods under a tax deferral scheme. There are two different types of tax deferral, depending on the nature of the goods.
The following excise duties apply when importing:
Energy tax, including carbon dioxide and sulphur – Swedish Tax Agency
Nicotine tax – Swedish Tax Agency
Should I pay Swedish Customs or the Swedish Tax Agency?
Depending on which excise duty applies to your goods, if you are an authorised warehouse keeper or a registered consignor with the Swedish Tax Agency, you may import the goods under a tax deferral. Tax deferral means that the tax liability is deferred and that the Swedish Tax Agency becomes the taxing authority for the excise duty.
If you cannot import the goods under tax deferral, you must pay the excise duty to Swedish Customs together with any other duties associated with the import.
Find out more about goods under tax deferral – Swedish Tax Agency
Two types of tax deferral
There are two types of tax deferral on imports, depending on the goods and the excise duty:
- Goods subject to EU-harmonised excise duty
- Goods subject to national excise duty.
Goods subject to EU-harmonised excise duty
For goods subject to EU-harmonised excise duty, the deferral procedure using the e-AD (movement document) in EMCS is used.
This applies to alcohol, cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, smoking tobacco and certain energy products. If you wish to read more about which energy products are covered, see Chapter 1, Section 3a of the Energy Tax Act (1994:1776).
A tax deferral for EU-harmonised excise goods is declared by entering the specific codes found on the page:
Importing goods subject to excise duty using EMCS
Goods subject to national excise duty
The following rules apply to goods subject to national excise duty. The goods may be exempt from tax if they are owned by an authorised warehouse keeper at the time of release for free circulation.
This applies to tax on chemicals, nicotine tax, oral snuff (tobacco), chewing tobacco, other tobacco and certain energy products. If you wish to read more about which energy products are covered, see Chapter 6, Section 1 of the Energy Tax Act (1994:1776).
Tax deferrals for goods subject to national excise duty are declared by entering the commodity code specified in Taric.