The average area per holding owned by Swedish forest owners has increased from 30 hectares in 1999 to 34 hectares in 2023. The median has decreased from 13 to 11 hectares during the same period, as the Swedish Forest Agency reported.
The category termed individual owners (single owners, estates and small privately owned companies) own roughly half (49%) of the area of declared productive forest land. The second largest group of owners are private-sector companies/corporations (25%) followed by public owners (20%) while Other private owners own six percent of the declared productive forest land.
The size of the holding per owner has been calculated and includes all land regardless of where it is located. The holding can therefore also be distributed among different size classes and owner classes. The area productive forest land per holding varies between different ownership classes. In 2023, public owners, private-sector companies/corporations and other private owners all had 90% or more of their possession larger than 1,000 hectares. The equivalent share for other public owners was 79% and for individual owners was almost 8%.
The size of holdings within the category individual owners is more evenly distributed. During the last 10 years, for individual owners, the area within holdings from five to 100 hectares decreased, while it increased in holdings over 100 hectares. The largest area is found in the size classes larger than 50 hectares up to 100 hectares and in the class larger than 100 hectares up to 200 hectares with approximately 2.2 million productive forest land in each class.
Number of forest owners
The number of new single owners of forest land in Sweden in 2023 was 9,533 which slightly less than the previous year (10,554). The total number of single owners of forest land in Sweden in 2023 was 309,587 and of these, 97% were registered as living in Sweden while close to 3% lived abroad. In year 2023, 60 percent of forest owners in Sweden were male and 38% female. Regionally, there are some differences between counties regarding the proportion of male and female forest owners. For 2% of the owners there is no information on gender available. In 2023, the average age of forest owners (single owners) was 61 years, regardless of gender. Regionally, there are some differences between counties regarding average age and average age varies from 59 to 62 years.
