The purpose of this work has been to analyse the economic consequences of harvesting forest fuel (fuel chips, tree sections for fuel and fuel bundles) in a number of stand types. The analyses were performed as simulated treatments in selected stand types using time consumption functions, yield calculations etc. Both existing and non-existing forest fuel systems were tested, as was conventional cleaning for waste and conventional thinning for pulpwood. The two latter were used as reference systems. The average diameter at breast height in the removal varied between 3,0 and 10,5 cm. Yield calculations show that harvested trees in these type of stands may contain great quantities of biomass (over 35 ton dry matter per ha). When just pulpwood is removed in small dimension stands only a small portion of the potential biomass is utilised. The value (gross) of fuel chips or fuel bundles exceeds 15,000 SEK per ha in several of the stands. The pulpwood harvest alternative produced the lowest net value in all of the analysed stand types. The conclusions below are based on short transport distance (100 m) and large tracts where moving costs are negligible. Conventional cleaning for waste shows the lowest cost when the average diameter in the removal is less than 4 cm. Forest fuel systems including motor-manual felling and manual bunching give the best results in the smallest diameter stands. These systems give net revenues in birch stands from about 4,5 cm average diameter and 5,5 cm in pine. Simulated systems including one single machine felling/chipping/extracting as well as a machine felling/bundling plus forwarding, show net revenue at about the same tree size. Both are suitable for larger tree sizes than the manual method. The conventional method for pulpwood harvest (including motor-manual pre-cleaning) shows the poorest result, but may be competitive to the poorest forest-fuel systems from an average diameter of 10 cm in the removal.