Employing someone in Sweden requires three early decisions: establish the applicable collective agreement, assign responsibility for each payroll duty, and check the legal process before changing or ending employment. These decisions affect ordinary pay and benefits as well as exceptional situations.
Rules checked 16 October 2026.
Which employment rules apply to your hire?
Start with Swedish national employment legislation, then establish the collective agreement and employee category. Collective agreements can replace specified statutory provisions and set wages, working time, pensions and insurance. The Working Hours Act covers work in Sweden by Swedish and foreign businesses, with exclusions including certain managerial or independently scheduled work.
Use the Employment Protection Act for contract and dismissal coverage. National protection and collective-agreement rules need checking separately from tax registration or permission to work.
Employer obligations at a glance
Contracts and the start of employment
An oral agreement can be valid. Use a clear written agreement to establish the actual bargain, including language understood by the parties. Written statutory information remains a separate employer duty.
Indefinite, full-time employment is the statutory default unless another arrangement is agreed lawfully. Permitted fixed terms include special fixed-term employment, substitution and seasonal work. Probation is normally limited to six months. An employer ending probation must give the employee at least two weeks' advance notification and simultaneously notify the local union if the employee is a member; give the continuation decision by probation's expiry. Check permitted agreement variations under LAS.
Deliver core identity, workplace, duties, contract-type, pay, hours, overtime and scheduling information as soon as possible, within seven calendar days after work begins. Training, holiday, ending procedure, social protection and collective-agreement information have the one-month clock. Special fixed-term category and end conditions are due at formation; an agency supplies client identity as soon as known. Do not use one disclosure date for the entire pack.
Apply for employer tax registration before first pay. Obtain employee identity and tax instructions; Skatteverket provides alternative reporting identifiers where a personal or coordination number is missing. Determine required pension and insurance schemes early enough to meet their actual inception terms, rather than assuming tax registration activates contractual cover.
For knowledge work, define the IP chain. Employee software created within duties or instructions defaults to the employer under copyright law. For other works and pre-existing material, record an express written assignment or licence covering the intended uses; PRV explains the limits of employer use. For patentable inventions, an employer exercising statutory takeover or business-use rights must notify the employee within four months after receiving the invention disclosure; reasonable-compensation rights remain under the Inventions Act.
Pay, working time and employment records
Establish the pay and time rules
Sweden has no statutory minimum wage. Establish applicable collective-agreement wages, overtime compensation and the agreed payment frequency and date. Disclose these terms rather than assuming a national payday or overtime multiplier.
For employees covered by the statutory baseline, ordinary work is 40 hours weekly. Total work averages at most 48 hours weekly over up to four months. General overtime is limited to 200 hours yearly and 48 hours over four weeks or 50 in a calendar month; additional overtime requires special conditions. Provide 11 consecutive hours' daily rest, 36 hours' weekly rest and breaks before work exceeds five consecutive hours. Keep on-call, overtime and additional-hours records. Schedule changes ordinarily require two weeks' notice. Apply the statutory scope and exceptions alongside any valid agreement substitution.
Run the complete payroll cycle
Establish the employer category before withholding. Swedish employers and foreign employers with Swedish permanent establishment use the applicable main-income table or Skatteverket decision; supplementary income ordinarily uses 30%. In that ordinary table-based context, pending an A-tax or SINK decision, deduct 110% of the relevant table amount under the withholding instructions. A foreign employer without PE normally withholds 30% for Swedish work unless Skatteverket has issued a different decision.
Give the employee pay and tax information at payment, normally on a payslip. Report remuneration, taxable benefits, deductions and employer contribution totals in the monthly PAYE return, and notify employees of their reported information by the filing deadline. Use the payment month, including applicable parental or childcare absence data. Registered employers generally submit zero returns during inactive months.
Employer contributions are an additional employer liability. The ordinary 2026 rate is 31.42% of gross pay and taxable benefits; for a foreign employer without Swedish permanent establishment the ordinary rate is 18.80%. Age, temporary reductions and social-insurance coverage can change those contribution rates.
For turnover up to SEK 40 million, filing and payment are normally due on the following month's 12th, with January and August using the 17th and calendar adjustments. Above that turnover, filing is normally the 26th, or 27th in December, while payment remains the 12th, or 17th in January, subject to calendar adjustments. Follow the assigned tax dates.
Separately ensure withheld tax and employer contributions reach the national tax account. Reconcile the return receipt against actual credited payment. Municipal and regional employee income tax is included in the national tax tables; it requires the correct employee table, rather than separate municipal payroll registration, returns or remittances.
Ordinary individually reported monthly wages need no duplicate annual wage statement. Under a qualifying foreign-employer socialavgiftsavtal, the employee registers within two weeks of signing, then declares and pays contributions monthly through the special 66-number tax account by the applicable PAYE deadline. The employer retains its own withholding duties and ultimate contribution liability. It files annual KU10 and gives the employee the annual reported information by the statutory 31 January following the income year, applying relevant calendar adjustments.
Pension commitments can also trigger 24.26% SLP on the taxable pension-cost base. Foreign-employer liability depends on domestic-law Swedish permanent establishment and attributable Swedish-business costs; treaty exemption of business income alone does not remove it, under the tax authority's position.
A liable limited company reports its pension-tax base in Income Declaration 2. Its deadline depends on financial-year end: a year ending September to December 2026 has a 2 August 2027 deadline. Include pension tax in assessed preliminary tax and update the estimate if needed. Pay monthly assessed instalments normally by the 12th, with the 17th in January and August; the over-SEK-40-million category uses 12 August, with calendar adjustments. Follow the assessment payment dates. The final balance must reach the tax account by the date on the final assessment, ordinarily at least 90 days after the decision. This annual route is separate from monthly wage contributions.
Specified insurance or profit-sharing payments can instead attract SLF, reported and paid through monthly PAYE.
For routine HR and payroll data, document a lawful basis and purpose, collect only necessary information, restrict access, keep records accurate and set lawful retention periods. Inform employees when collecting data under IMY's principles.
Leave, benefits and ongoing employer duties
Distinguish absence from who pays
Under the Holiday Act, employees ordinarily receive 25 annual-leave days, with paid days determined by accrual. The statutory leave year runs April to March; employees starting after 31 August receive five leave days that year. Normally arrange four consecutive weeks during June to August. If the employer determines timing, ordinarily give two months' notice. Pay statutory holiday remuneration, including the applicable holiday supplement, and check agreement variations.
Employer sick pay normally covers the first 14 calendar days at 80% of lost remuneration, with a qualifying deduction equal to 20% of an average week's sick pay. Employment agreed for less than one month has a 14-day qualifying-service rule, with specified prior-service aggregation. Normally obtain a certificate from day eight. Report continuing illness to Försäkringskassan from day 15 and no later than day 21; the employee then applies for state benefit. If absence is expected to last at least 60 days, prepare a return-to-work plan by day 30 and support work adaptation.
The Parental Leave Act gives full leave until the child is 18 months, independent of drawing benefit, followed by benefit-linked rights. Maternity leave covers at least seven weeks before expected birth and seven after birth; two weeks are compulsory unless the employee is already otherwise on leave. Adoption provides an 18-month entitlement from custody within the statutory age and school limits. Parents can ordinarily reduce hours by up to one quarter until age eight or completion of the first school year. Employees generally notify leave two months ahead, or as soon as possible.
Försäkringskassan administers 480 parental-benefit days per child, with individual eligibility conditions. It also funds the ten birth/adoption days, ordinarily used within 60 days of the child coming home or custody. Administer protected absence and agency information requests; check any contractual salary top-up separately. Arrange return to the same or equivalent work with the previous scope, content and rights, without prohibited leave-related disadvantage.
Establish the collective benefits before promising cover
Employer contributions fund basic social protection and public pension. Binding collective agreements can require supplementary occupational pension, sickness, life, injury and transition arrangements. Insurance guidance distinguishes wage-earner arrangements through Fora from salaried ITP through Collectum and related cover. Outside binding agreements, supplementary insurance is generally voluntary, with sector exceptions and contractual promises to check. Establish the actual scheme's commencement and reporting terms before relying on cover.
Maintain safety, equality and representation
Assess workplace risks in writing, implement measures and assign a person and completion date to delayed actions. Investigate incidents and review the safety system annually. Cooperate with safety representatives: a workplace regularly employing five people normally needs one, sometimes fewer where conditions require. A safety committee is required at 50 regular workers, or below that if workers request it.
Every employer must prevent discrimination and harassment, cooperate with employees and conduct annual pay surveys. At 10 to 24 employees, document pay-survey work; at 25 or more, document all active measures. Provide reasonable disability adjustments. Before monitoring staff, assess necessity, proportionality and lawful basis and give advance information; employee consent does not supply the basis for workplace monitoring.
Keep the relevant union informed about business developments and personnel policy under MBL; specified information duties also apply to employers without a collective agreement that employ union members. Covered private companies averaging at least 25 Swedish employees in the previous financial year can also face board-representation rights activated through the statutory union process.
Changing terms and ending employment
Establish authority to change agreed terms; a written update alone does not create that authority. Notify changed statutory information by its effective date. Under MBL, significant changes can require union negotiation before decision. Employers without a collective agreement still have specified member-related and redundancy negotiation duties.
For a qualifying reorganisation reducing hours among employees doing the same work at one operating unit, statutory offer-order rules apply. An employee accepting reduced-hours redeployment retains previous hours and benefits for a transition equal to employer notice, capped at three months from acceptance under LAS sections 7a and 7b.
For ordinary LAS-covered employees under 69, employer notice runs from one month to six months: two months at two years' service, three at four, four at six, five at eight and six at ten. Preserve pay and benefits during notice, subject to applicable rules and valid agreement variations.
Before recruiting after redundancy, check re-employment priority. For ordinary under-69 employees, it generally requires more than 12 months' service in three years and sufficient qualifications, with unit and agreement qualifications. The priority runs from notice through nine months after employment ends under LAS section 25.
For employees under 69, special fixed-term employment converts after more than 12 months under the statutory five-year or linked-engagement tests; substitution converts after more than two years in five. Check qualifying intervening days and prior service. A qualifying nonrenewal requires written information at least one month before expiry and simultaneous union notification: relevant thresholds include more than 12 months' employment, or more than nine months in special fixed-term employment, in three years. If the qualifying engagement is too short for a month's advance information, give it at commencement.
Dismissal without objective grounds can be challenged as invalid and expose the employer to damages under LAS sections 34 and 38. A selection-order-only challenge does not itself support invalidity.
Settle earned pay under applicable terms. Accrued unused holiday compensation is due without undue delay and normally within one month after employment ends; genuine calculation impediments create a separate one-week clock after the impediment ends under the Holiday Act. Supply necessary employment information when an unemployment fund requests it under the current insurance law, in force since October 2025 with transitional cases.
Three situations that change the employer's action
October payroll is paid before the return is filed
Illustratively, a covered employer pays salary in October 2026. With turnover up to SEK 40 million, the published filing and payment date is 12 November. Above that turnover, the return is due 26 November, while tax and contributions must be paid by 12 November. Assign the payment check separately from filing, using the 2026 calendar.
Redundancy affects a long-serving parent
Assume genuine redundancy affecting an ordinary employee with ten years' service who is on qualifying full parental leave, without an agreement variation. Six months' notice does not automatically begin when notice is delivered: LAS section 11 ties commencement to actual return or the return date in the operative leave notification. Check lawful selection and negotiations, then calculate from that event. Parental leave itself cannot justify adverse treatment under the leave protections.
A client-controlled EOR assignment becomes long term
Assume an ordinary, non-exempt agency assignment under client direction. Aggregate service exceeding 24 months in 36 at the same operating unit triggers the client's offer-or-payment duty within one month. Track assignment history rather than relying on the provider's payroll anniversary. For a software developer, also verify employer-to-client IP rights: the employee-software default gives rights to the legal employer. The agency rule and software default require separate client actions.
Managing these obligations through an EOR
Borderless describes its EOR service as employing the worker legally and administering contracts, payroll, taxes and benefits while the client manages daily work. Its Sweden service page lists EOR availability. Confirm the proposed role, agreements and responsibilities for the actual arrangement.
Where workers are hired for assignments under client control, the Agency Work Act requires applicable equivalent basic conditions, subject to its exceptions. Its duration rule ordinarily requires the client to offer permanent employment or pay two current monthly salaries within one month after the threshold is exceeded. Only placement from 1 October 2022 counts; qualifying collective-agreement deviations and statutory supported-employment exceptions matter. This is a client action duty, rather than automatic conversion on the 24-month anniversary.
A CBA-bound client may also need pre-decision union negotiation before engaging supplied workers. Check sector permissions and work authorization separately. Allocate workplace information, leave coordination, assignment tracking and client IP rights expressly.
Questions employers ask about employment law in Sweden
Is every employee entitled to 25 paid days immediately?
The ordinary entitlement is 25 leave days; payment depends on accrual and applicable rules. Check the start-date exception and agreement before promising a fully paid first-year balance.
Can we end a fixed term because funding stops?
Check the agreed early-termination route and accumulated service first. A budget change alone does not release the employer from the agreed term or establish a lawful dismissal process.
Does no collective agreement mean no union duties?
No. Member-related matters and redundancies can still require negotiation. Identify the affected unions before deciding.
What should we confirm with an EOR?
Confirm the applicable agreement, employee category, payroll and benefit responsibilities, client-control analysis and assignment duration. For an employment arrangement assessment, speak with Borderless. Bring the role, work location and proposed duration so the discussion addresses the obligations that apply.
