At the turn of the year, the total amount of debt had increased by 7.4 percent compared to the year before.

Swedes' total debts to the Crown Enforcement Agency are now up to 101 billion kroner - an increase of just over seven billion since last year, or nearly 20 million a day.

- A large part of the increase is due to the debts growing due to the interest rates.

But it's also about us getting more debts for higher amounts, says Davor Vuleta.

Consumer debt

The majority of the debts are made up of what the authority calls individual cases.

This includes consumer debts, loan and credit debts to banks and various types of subscription debts.

It is also the individual goals that have increased the most in 2022.

The number of people with debts to the Kronofogden also increased slightly during the previous year.

However, that increase corresponds to the population increase in general.

The statistics thus show that it is mainly those who are already in debt who now have it even worse.

- Those who lived on the margin have had higher expenses due to inflation - this can be the decisive difference that makes it impossible to pay the bills, says Davor Vuleta.

Increased since 2011

The last time the total amount of debt in Sweden fell was between 2015 and 2016. Since then it has increased year by year.

The bailiff has previously advocated a change in the law which means that those in debt should be able to pay off the principal debt, the so-called principal, to a greater extent, instead of the interest.

- We have several cases where the interest has exceeded the capital amount many times over.

In some cases, the corresponding basic debt has been paid off in wage garnishments, but it has only been deducted from the interest, says Davor Vuleta.

The industry organization Swedish debt collection has opposed such a change in the law as it believes that it risks threatening payment ethics.

- If we're going to change this system, we can't just do it at the Kronofogden.

It will affect lending throughout the country, said the organization's chairman Fredrik Engström in January last year.