- Decision
- Maintain
- Rate change
- 0 bps
- policy rate
- 2.25%
Sveriges Riksbank left its policy rate unchanged at 2.25 percent, judging that a still-weak but recovering economy and an inflation path seen at 2–3 percent this year before easing toward the 2 percent target warrant keeping policy steady despite heightened global turbulence and sizeable defence-related fiscal shifts in Europe. The decision follows January’s 25 bp cut from 2.50 percent. The accompanying rate forecast is unchanged, signalling the 2.25 percent rate will remain in place beyond March 26 when the decision takes effect. The central bank foresees CPIF inflation stabilising near 2 percent in 2026, GDP growth picking up to 1.9 percent in 2025 after 1.0 percent in 2024, and unemployment edging up to 8.7 percent next year, while a firmer krona, normalising CPI-basket effects and slower food-price rises should aid disinflation. It warns that external trade tensions, Europe’s shifting security landscape and uncertainties around domestic demand and the currency could push inflation off course, and pledges to adjust policy if the outlook for prices or activity deteriorates.
Rate evolution
From June 2025 to September 2026, the Riksbank lowered the policy rate from 2 per cent to 1.75 per cent, cutting in June and September 2025 and then holding it unchanged. The June cut reflected a recovery that had lost momentum, a softer inflation outlook, weak growth and high unemployment, while an August pause treated above-target inflation as temporary despite weak activity, and the September cut followed signs of easing inflation pressures even as the recovery and labour-market improvement remained delayed.
During subsequent holds through June 2026, the Riksbank said inflation had moved close to target and then below forecast while activity improved only tentatively, but uncertainty widened from trade policy and domestic demand to the war in the Middle East, energy and commodity prices, the krona and fiscal policy. On 17 June, it judged that underlying inflation was low and activity somewhat weaker than normal, but raised its policy-rate forecast somewhat and flagged a greater probability of an increase later in 2026 as war-related supply disruptions lifted inflationary pressures.
On 20 August, the Riksbank held the policy rate at 1.75 per cent, noting that growth and inflation had exceeded its June forecast but that subdued company pricing plans, fewer global supply-chain disruptions and weaker-than-expected labour-market developments left the overall outlook largely unchanged. On 24 September, it again held the rate at 1.75 per cent, but said stronger, broad-based activity and continued supply shocks meant the policy rate should rise more than projected in June, with increases expected to begin in 2026 if the outlook remained unchanged, as inflation pressures remained above normal despite measures of underlying inflation being relatively close to 2 per cent.