Skatteverket: free-power tax relief needs zero consumer payment

Electricity transferred as frikraft remains exempt from energy tax only if the consumer pays nothing for the electricity or its transferSkatteverket. That is the core of Skatteverket's new position statement 8-286928-2026, dated 2 October 2026Skatteverket, on the meaning of "utan ersättning överförts av en producent eller en nätinnehavare till en förbrukare" in 11 kap. 2 § first paragraph point 2 of lagen (1994:1776) om skatt på energi (LSE)Skatteverket. The exemption also requires the transfer to be below 50 kilowatts in powerSkatteverket and the consumer to stand in no community of interest with the producer or network ownerSkatteverket.

Any consumer payment for the electricity itself or for its transfer blocks the exemptionSkatteverket, whether it is metered on the volume actually transferred or set in some other way, such as a fixed charge for the electricity or the transferSkatteverket. By contrast, payment for metering equipment, grid connection, or anything else not directly connected with the electricity or its transfer does not block the exemptionSkatteverket. Payments between the producer and the network owner also do not taint the exemptionSkatteverket: an agreement obliging the producer to pay the network owner for transferring the electricity to the consumer, or the network owner to pay the producer for the electricity transferred, does not make the consumer count as payingSkatteverket.

The clarification matters because the guidance previously took a stricter line on network charges. The earlier text stated that if a consumer received electricity without paying for it but paid a network charge (nätavgift) to the network company for the transfer, the electricity became taxableSkatteverket. That reading is replaced by the new position: charges not directly connected with the electricity or its transfer, such as metering or connection, no longer block exemption, and the decisive question is whether the consumer pays for the electricity or the transfer itselfSkatteverket.

Skatteverket grounds the reading in the provision's legislative history. The exemption for free power dates to the 1951 tax on electric power, where the stated aim was to cover gratuitous supplies and spare suppliers from sending invoices for token deliveries. Successor provisions in the 1957 general energy tax and in LSE carried the same scope, and the 2018 change — replacing "levererats" with "överförts" when network owners took over the tax-liable role from suppliers — was expressly not intended to alter the exempted area. Against that background the agency holds that the consumer must pay no consideration directly connected with the supply, whether for the electricity or for its transferSkatteverket.

Energy-tax advisers, electricity producers, network owners and consumers in free-power arrangements should review existing structures against the new line: consumer-side payments tied to the electricity or its transfer, fixed or metered, remain fatal to the exemption, while ancillary metering and connection charges, and producer-to-network settlements behind the consumer's back, do not. Legal basis is 11 kap. 2 § första stycket 2 LSE as interpreted by Skatteverkets ställningstagande 8-286928-2026 of 2 October 2026.