Sweden Capacity Utilization Rises to 88%

Industries in Sweden operated at 88.8% of capacity in the third quarter of 2025, down 0.2 percentage points from an upwardly revised 89% in the previous quarter. The utilization level remained considerably below the full-capacity threshold of 100%, indicating that a significant portion of industrial resources continued to be underutilized. Among the factors contributing to lower capacity utilization, the most notable was insufficient demand, which accounted for the largest share of reasons cited by firms. This factor declined from 60.9% in the previous quarter to 57.8% in Q3. On an annual basis, and after adjusting for calendar effects, capacity utilization in Swedish industries increased by 1.7 percentage points compared with the same quarter in 2024, reaching 88.5%.

Industries in Sweden operated at 88.5% capacity in the second quarter of 2025, up by 0.4 percentage points from 88.1% in the previous period, but still below the 100% threshold, indicating underutilization. The largest decline was recorded in the “other” category, which dropped from 11% to 6.1%. Meanwhile, the biggest increase came from “insufficient demand,” rising from 54.9% to 61.4%. On a yearly basis, calendar-adjusted capacity utilization was unchanged at 88.9% in Q2 .

Industries in Sweden operated at 88% capacity in the first quarter of 2025, up by 0.5 percentage points from 87.5% in the previous period. Still, the reading remained below the 100% threshold, indicating underutilization. The biggest drop in shares of reason for lower capacity utilization was in the “other” category, which fell from 13.5% to 10.6%. Meanwhile, the largest gain came from “production disruptions,” up from 23.2% to 26.1%. On a yearly basis, capacity utilization fell by 0.6 percentage points to a calendar-adjusted 88.2% in Q1 .