With the risk of being completely and utterly dull here – here’s a quick guide to the Swedish pension system and how it works – for anyone who might be interested: The Swedish pension system consists of three main components – national retirement pension, occupational pension and voluntary pension. The national retirement pension is made up of three elements, income pension, premium pension and guarantee pension. The income pension and the premium pension are completely independent from the national budget. The income pension is financed by employer contributions representing 16% of an employee’s gross annual income. Premium pension is financed through an additional contribution from the employer equal to approximately 2.5% of the employee’s gross annual income. Occupational pension is the pension coverage provided to employees via their employer, as a component of salary, which is also known as collective agreement pension. Voluntary pension consists of private pension insurance based on voluntary savings.