What is reasonable rent? How to calculate second-hand rent

What is a reasonable rent (skälig hyra)? It is one of the most common questions on the subletting market. And one people get wrong most often. The answer depends entirely on what kind of home you let or live in. Two different rulebooks apply. The utility-value principle (bruksvärde) governs rental apartments. The Private Letting Act (privatuthyrningslagen) governs homes you own yourself. Know which one covers you and you avoid a rent the rent tribunal later strikes down. The figure for how much you may charge subletting gets its own page.

Subletting a rental: utility value sets the ceiling

Subletting a rental apartment (hyresrätt), the utility-value principle applies. It says the rent should match what similar flats cost locally: homes with roughly the same location, size, standard and condition. Municipal housing rents are often the yardstick. And you may not charge the subtenant more than you pay in first-hand rent yourself, apart from a couple of additions.

If the flat is furnished, you may add up to roughly 15 percent for furniture and wear. If electricity, broadband or similar is included, you may charge what it actually costs you. But you may not raise the rent to profit from the letting. That is the whole point of utility value.

Paying more than that as a tenant, you have paid excess rent (överhyra). Then you can go to the rent tribunal (hyresnämnden) and claim the difference back. You can get money back retroactively, usually up to around 24 months. That can quickly become a serious sum.

Tenant-owner apartments and houses: rent builds on your costs

Letting a home you own yourself, a tenant-owner apartment or a house, the Act on Letting Your Own Home applies instead. Most call it the Private Letting Act. Here reasonable rent does not start from utility value, but from what the home costs you as owner. That usually means you may charge more than for a similar rental.

The rent has two parts. The first is a reasonable return on the money you have tied up in the home. It is calculated as a standard interest rate on the home’s market value. The rate is no fixed figure; it sits at a level following the Riksbank’s rate situation (the reference rate) and moves when the general rate situation moves. The second part is running costs: the association fee, electricity, broadband, insurance and other ongoing items.

Furnished, you may add a reasonable supplement for furniture and wear, just like for rentals. One more thing worth knowing: the Private Letting Act as a rule covers only the first home you let. Letting several, utility-value rules may apply instead.

How to calculate the rent: an example

Say you let a tenant-owner apartment worth 3 million kronor. The fee is 3,500 kronor a month, and other running costs are roughly 500 a month. The capital part works like this: put a reasonable return rate on the home’s value and divide by twelve. With a standard rate of a few percent, that part lands around 10,000 kronor a month.

Add running costs of 4,000, and reasonable rent lands around 14,000 kronor a month. That is before any furniture supplement. And since the capital part follows the rate situation, the ceiling moves over time. If the reference rate rises, you may charge more. If it falls, the ceiling drops. So always recalculate with the rate applying when you start letting.

If the rent is too high: your rights

Believing the rent too high as a tenant, you can have it tested by the rent tribunal. That covers both rentals and homes someone owns. For rentals the tribunal can lower the rent and decide you get excess rent back retroactively. For private lettings the rent can be lowered going forward, but there you usually do not get money back the same way. That is an important difference.

As a landlord it is therefore just as much in your interest to set the rent right from the start. Set too high, it risks being rejected, and you may owe repayment long afterwards. Both sides win on a rent that survives testing.

Set the rent right from the start

The hard part is often knowing what similar homes actually cost in your area. Listing a home for rent on SökHem, we gladly show rent levels for similar nearby homes, so you have something to go by. Then you can land on a rent that both attracts the right tenant and stays reasonable, with no excess rent to be challenged later.

Legal basis

For second-hand rentals, the utility-value rule in chapter 12, section 55 of the Land Code (jordabalken) applies: rent may not be markedly higher than for equivalent flats. If the first-hand tenant charges more, the subtenant can claim repayment at the rent tribunal under the excess-rent repayment rules in chapter 12 of the Land Code. For tenant-owner apartments, houses and freehold flats, the Private Letting Act applies: rent may cover a reasonable return rate on the home’s market value plus running costs. The act changed on 1 July 2026; check the current wording at riksdagen.se. The rent tribunal hears disputes free of charge.