EOR versus Swedish aktiebolag: set-up, running costs and when to switch

An EOR needs less set-up for a first hire, because the employee joins a payroll that already exists. Hiring via Employer of Record Sweden puts the person on our payroll as employer of record, with a Skatteverket registration that already exists, which leaves you with nothing to incorporate, capitalise or register.

An aktiebolag (AB, a private limited company) gives you a Swedish legal presence of your own, with your company as the employer. It takes more preparation and carries fixed running costs, but it becomes the more natural home once a team is established and the Swedish business is expected to last.

Many companies use both routes in sequence: an EOR while the market is being tested, then their own AB when headcount and revenue justify it. The rest of this comparison looks at what each route involves in money, time and obligations.

Work permits show the difference clearly. Migrationsverket’s employer e-service works from a Swedish organisationsnummer, so a company without one cannot sponsor a non-EU hire directly. Through an EOR, the permit case runs on the employer of record’s number. With your own AB, the company must be registered and set up as an employer before it can make the offer that the permit application relies on, and the salary must meet the SEK 34,470 monthly requirement that has applied since 16 June 2026.

Forming an AB means paying in at least SEK 25,000 of share capital and registering the company with Bolagsverket, usually through the joint government portal verksamt.se. Governance can be light: one board member plus one deputy is enough, and a small AB can usually do without an auditor.

The steps run in a set order:

• pay the share capital into a bank account and obtain the bank’s certificate
• adopt the stiftelseurkund (memorandum) and bolagsordning (articles of association)
• register the company and its beneficial owner with Bolagsverket
• register with Skatteverket for F-skatt, VAT and as an employer on form SKV 4620
• check whether the business needs any sector permits

Registration fees are modest. According to the verksamt.se fee list, registering an AB costs SEK 2,400 through the e-service or SEK 2,700 on paper, plus SEK 250 for the beneficial-owner register. Registrations with Skatteverket are free of charge. A foreign company can instead register a filial (branch) for SEK 3,000, which has its own rules and is outside the scope of this comparison.

Timing is harder to pin down. Bolagsverket publishes its current processing times, and these change through the year, so check them when you plan rather than relying on a figure from someone else’s experience. Bank account opening and the Skatteverket registrations add further steps before the first salary can be paid.

The EOR route swaps fixed set-up and running costs for a per-employee fee. The comparison below sets out the headline figures for each route in 2026.

The SEK figures for the AB are official Bolagsverket and verksamt.se fees and the statutory minimum capital. The share capital stays in the company as equity and can be used in the business, so it is tied-up money rather than a fee. In kronor the EOR fee is close to SEK 5,550 per head per month, converted at the 24 September 2026 ECB reference rate, and our pricing page lists what it covers.

Some differences do not show up in a fee comparison. An AB can sign customer contracts, hold a Swedish bank account, register for VAT and invoice in its own name, which matters if the Swedish team will sell locally. An EOR arrangement covers employment only, so any commercial activity in Sweden still runs through your existing company abroad. If the hire is a salesperson who will close deals in Sweden, take tax advice on how that activity is treated before choosing a route.

No. The statutory cost of employing someone is the same whichever company is the employer, because arbetsgivaravgifter (employer social contributions), holiday pay and sick pay rules apply to every Swedish employer. What changes is the overhead around it.

Take a SEK 50,000 monthly salary in Stockholm for a 30-year-old on a full year in 2026. Twelve months of that salary is SEK 600,000; add contributions at 31.42% and the statutory total reaches SEK 788,520. If the employer applies ITP1 at 4.5%, with 24.26% särskild löneskatt on the premium, the total becomes about SEK 822,070, and the statutory holiday supplement lifts it to about SEK 829,134. Those figures hold for your own AB and for an EOR provider alike.

The difference sits in the fee and the fixed costs. Through an EOR, five employees cost 5 × from USD 560 in monthly fees, or USD 2,800 a month, about SEK 27,750 at the September 2026 rate, after a set-up fee that is usually charged once. With your own AB, you instead carry payroll software or a payroll bureau, bookkeeping, annual accounts, board administration and your own handling of AGI returns, which continue whether you employ one person or twenty. Comparing a quote from a local payroll and accounting firm against the EOR fee at your planned headcount gives a realistic break-even point. Repeat the exercise each year, because the answer shifts as the team grows.

With your own AB, every statutory employer duty becomes yours. Your AB sends the monthly arbetsgivardeklaration på individnivå (AGI) itself; below SEK 40 million of turnover the deadline for filing and paying is the 12th after each payroll month (17th for January and August), and a late return costs SEK 625. Pension costs are declared for särskild löneskatt on Inkomstdeklaration 2.

Employment law duties follow. Contracts go out in the AB’s name under LAS with written terms inside a week, sick pay for the first two weeks of any illness comes from the AB’s own account, and Försäkringskassan hears from the AB when an absence reaches its third week. Cutting jobs means holding MBL talks yourself, union members on staff included, and then applying the LAS selection order with its allowance of 3 exempt people.

The collective agreement question also becomes yours. Your AB may join an employers’ organisation, sign a hängavtal (application agreement) with a union, or have no agreement. With 88% of Swedish employees covered by agreements in 2025, according to Medlingsinstitutet, candidates will often expect agreement-level terms either way. Once bound, the AB owes its union an MBL §§ 38 to 40 negotiation before taking on hired staff or contractors, which can affect later use of an EOR alongside it.

For a wider view of what running Swedish employment directly involves, see our overview of employing in Sweden.

Check how the employer of record will apply collective agreements, pension and the staffing law to your hires. No Swedish statute addresses employer of record arrangements by name; the nearest one is lag (2012:854) on the hiring out of workers, and whether it applies to a given setup depends on the facts.

Several points from that Act are worth planning around. Hired-out workers must receive at least the basic conditions they would have had if hired directly by the client. A reform of 1 October 2022 means that one person placed in the same client unit beyond 24 months in a rolling 36 triggers a choice for the client: make a permanent offer inside a month, or pay two months’ wages. For a long-term role, that rule is a practical reason to plan a move to your own AB before the two-year mark.

Some duties reach you as client under either route. Arbetsmiljöverket treats home working as part of the employer’s work-environment duty, and in practice you shape the employee’s workstation, hours and workload, so agree with the employer of record how risks are assessed and followed up. Intellectual property needs similar attention: copyright in software written in the course of employment passes to the employer under upphovsrättslagen § 40 a, which in an EOR arrangement is the employer of record, so the service agreement should transfer those rights to your company.

A list of points to raise with any provider, from pension handling to exit costs, is in our guide to questions to ask a Swedish EOR.

The move usually makes sense when headcount has grown to a level where fixed costs are cheaper than per-employee fees, when the Swedish team needs a local contracting party for customers, or when roles are clearly long-term. On the agency side, lag (2012:854) removes any power to hold a worker back from a client job, and any right to charge the worker for leaving.

A transfer should be planned rather than rushed. The new AB needs its Skatteverket registrations in place before its first payroll, and the employee needs a new contract with the same or better terms. Agree in writing how saved holiday days, pension arrangements and length of service will be treated, since service time drives LAS notice periods and the order of selection. The Swedish employer of record basics explain the roles during the EOR phase.

Permit holders need extra care. Their work permit application named the employer of record’s organisationsnummer as employer, so check the position with Migrationsverket before moving them to a new employer, and allow time for any new application. Plan the date of the move around the payroll calendar too: a transfer at the start of a month keeps the final AGI return from the employer of record and the first return from your AB cleanly separated.