Only "class" object is reference counted (to some extents, class-like objects too). Int / struct (value-semantics) objects are not reference counted. These are copied eagerly.

Swift introduced bunch of ownership keywords to help you to use value objects for most of the needs to sidestep reference-counting and minimize copying.

Of course, to my understanding, "actor" in Swift is a "class"-like object, so it will be reference-counted. But I fail to see how that is different from other systems (as actor itself has to be mutable, hence, a reference object anyway).