Cold calling rules in Sweden, 2026

This is an overview, not legal advice. What makes telemarketing hard to get right is not that the rules are complicated. It is that three separate laws land on the same call, and that almost every answer begins with the same question: who are you calling? A private individual, a sole trader and the switchboard of a limited company are three different cases. We take them one at a time, with the statute text to hand.

When you call a consumer

Three things need to be in place. First, the NIX check. Section 21 of the Marketing Act permits telephone calls to a natural person 'unless the natural person has clearly objected to the method being used', and that objection is precisely what the NIX-Telefon blocking register records. The register's rules require the check to be done before the call is placed, and a check stays valid for two months. For companies, a web check costs 17 öre per number and an annual licence for high-volume users costs 110,500 kronor excluding VAT. The two-month rule has been around since February 2015, not since 2026, whatever some articles would have you believe.

Second, the introduction. Chapter 2 Section 3a of the Distance Contracts Act requires that the consumer be told 'at the beginning of the call' who the company is, what the call is for, and the name of the caller and their relationship to the company. It sounds too obvious to need saying. It is also precisely the point on which the Consumer Ombudsman issued a prohibition against the mobile operator Fibio in December 2025, backed by a one million kronor penalty: the sellers were not giving the company's name, and many consumers assumed their existing operator was on the line.

Third, the written-confirmation rule, in force since 1 September 2018. The statute does not mince words. The company must confirm its offer 'in a document or in some other readable and durable form', the contract comes into being 'by the consumer accepting the trader's offer in writing after the call', and 'a contract that has not been concluded in this way is invalid and the consumer is then not obliged to pay for any goods or services'. A verbal yes over the phone, in other words, is no contract at all. Once a contract exists, the consumer normally has a fourteen-day right of withdrawal. If you sell financial services, a rule in force since 19 June 2026 also obliges you to tell the consumer at the start of the call whether it may be recorded (Chapter 3 Section 9).

When you call a business

Business calls are simpler, though not rule-free. NIX-Telefon describes itself as 'a service for private individuals. Company numbers and subscriptions registered to companies are not covered by the service'. The written-confirmation rule covers consumers only, meaning natural persons acting for purposes outside a business, so a contract with a company can be formed verbally under ordinary contract law, although nobody sensible relies on that without written confirmation. Section 19 of the Marketing Act does still apply whenever the recipient is a natural person: automatic calling machines and other automatic systems 'not operated by a person' need prior consent, and that becomes a live question the moment a team lets an AI agent make the calls. GDPR applies in every case, because a person's name, direct line and work email at a company are personal data. For B2B prospecting the legal basis is normally legitimate interest, which brings a duty to inform the person no later than the first contact and to stop immediately if they object. That subject has an article of its own.

Sole traders are the grey area. A sole proprietorship is a natural person, so the NIX question comes up, but the register says an active sole trader may be called for sales purposes, and the written-confirmation rule only bites when the person is acting as a consumer. Ring a carpenter about his business and it is a business call. Ring him about his private electricity contract and it is a consumer call. Where the line falls in any given case is a question for a lawyer, not for a script.

Three decisions that show where the line runs

1. Fibio, December 2025. The Consumer Ombudsman barred the operator from calling without saying 'clearly and directly' that the call comes from Fibio and what it is for, backed by a one million kronor penalty. Lesson: identity and purpose go first, not after three minutes of small talk.
2. ImpactWin, March 2026. The Swedish Gambling Authority handed the company a warning and a 400,000 kronor sanction for breaching the written-confirmation requirement in the Gambling Act. The confirmation of the offer and the customer's acceptance fell short of the formal requirements, and a customer paying an invoice did not amount to written acceptance. The decision was appealed on 20 March 2026. Lesson: acceptance has to be an active, written act by the customer, and a payment is not one.
3. Nordic Best Energi, July 2026. The Patent and Market Court imposed a 400,000 kronor penalty, rising to 800,000 for a repeat, on sellers who falsely claimed to represent or work with the customer's existing electricity supplier. Lesson: a caller cannot borrow someone else's credibility.

The ban inquiry: what happens now

The story starts with the Swedish Consumer Agency's report of 27 August 2025, which proposed, as its first choice, a ban on all telemarketing, and as a fallback an opt-in system to replace today's NIX register. The agency's own survey drove the proposal: eight in ten consumers avoid telemarketing calls in one way or another, six in ten by not picking up unknown numbers, and according to the Consumer Ombudsman only one percent think telemarketing is acceptable. On 9 July 2026 the government appointed an inquiry to analyse consumer protection, weigh a prior-consent requirement, weigh a total ban and whether sector-specific bans would be enough, and strengthen self-regulation. Erik Slottner, the minister for public administration, explained the assignment by saying that telemarketing 'is experienced by many as both misleading and intrusive'. The inquiry reports by 15 January 2027.

Two details in the mandate deserve a close read. It concerns calls to consumers, not companies calling companies: B2B prospecting is not mentioned anywhere. And it is a ministry assignment to a single expert (Ministry of Finance, ref. HR2026/01525) who will deliver a memorandum, not a committee directive and not a bill, so even a ban would be some way from taking effect. For a B2B team, nothing changes in 2026, but the industry's reputation does. The more badly consumer calls are handled, the less patience awaits even a caller with a genuinely good reason to ring a head of procurement.

Checklist before every call

The steps below cover the consumer call, the heavily regulated case. For business calls the list shrinks to three items: document your legal basis, inform the person at first contact, and stop the moment they object.

Practise the compliant opening

What links the three decisions above is not a point of law. In each case the sellers failed to say who they were and why they were calling. That opening can be drilled until it holds up whoever answers, and that is precisely what Salesprep is built for: cold calls against an AI customer that responds like a real person on the phone, with no actual person involved, seven scores with a written comment after every call, and three calls free when you create an account. The opening hook is one of those scores. The rule tells you what it has to contain. Practice is what makes it sound like you.