Swedish payroll and AGI reporting, month by month

A Swedish payroll month has a fixed sequence: gross salary is paid, preliminary income tax is deducted on the same day, employer social contributions are calculated on top, and the following month the employer files one return with Skatteverket and pays the tax and contributions together.

The employer chooses its own pay date. Whatever that date is, the payment is reported and settled in the month after it, which gives payroll teams a short window between paying staff and closing the return. Any change to pay, a bonus or a new taxable benefit has to be in the system before the pay run, because the deduction and the contribution base follow from what was actually paid.

The Swedish payslip is shorter than many foreign finance teams expect. There is no separate workers’ compensation premium, no regional payroll tax and no health levy; work-injury cover is financed through one small component inside the employer contributions. The employee’s own pension contribution exists on paper but is cancelled by a matching tax credit, so it never reduces take-home pay.

What payroll does not settle is the employee’s final tax. That is fixed after the year ends, when the individual files an annual inkomstdeklaration and gets a refund or a balance to pay. The employer’s duty is to withhold the correct preliminary amount each month and to report it accurately.

In 2026 the employer adds arbetsgivaravgifter, its social contributions, at 31.42% of everything paid as cash or taxable benefits, on a base that has no upper limit, according to Skatteverket’s contributions page. On a monthly salary of SEK 50,000 that comes to SEK 15,710 a month, paid by the employer and never deducted from the employee.

The headline rate is the sum of seven statutory charges. The two largest are the allmän löneavgift (general payroll levy) at 12.62% and the ålderspensionsavgift (old-age pension contribution) at 10.21%. The others are sickness insurance at 3.55%, the labour market charge at 2.64%, parental insurance at 2.00%, survivors’ pension at 0.30% and work injury at 0.10%. Payroll software applies the total, and the split mainly matters because it explains the reduced rates by age.

Two age rules lower the bill. Staff born in the years 2003–2007 pay a temporary 20.81% on monthly earnings up to SEK 25,000, a relief running from 1 April 2026 until 30 September 2027, and anything they earn above that carries the full 31.42%. Anyone already 67 when the year began is charged the 10.21% pension element alone, and nothing is charged for people born 1937 or earlier.

A short example shows the size of the youth reduction. Assume an employee born in 2004 earns SEK 30,000 a month in 2026 after 1 April. Contributions are 20.81% of the first SEK 25,000, which is SEK 5,202.50, plus 31.42% of the remaining SEK 5,000, which is SEK 1,571, giving SEK 6,773.50. At the full rate the same salary would carry SEK 9,426.

Benefits are part of the base. Anything the employee is taxed on as a benefit is added to cash pay when contributions are worked out, and it goes on the same monthly return. The longer breakdown, including how occupational pension costs are taxed, is in our guide to arbetsgivaravgifter and pensions.

The monthly tax deduction is read from Skatteverket’s skattetabeller (tax tables), which turn a gross monthly salary into a fixed preliminary tax amount. The table number is the employee’s combined municipal and regional tax rate, rounded to a whole number, so the employee’s home municipality decides which table applies.

Take someone registered in Stockholm municipality in 2026. Kommunalskatt of 18.22% plus regionskatt of 12.33% makes 30.55%, and the begravningsavgift (burial fee) of 0.07% paid by people outside the Church of Sweden brings the total to 30.62%, which rounds to table 31. For a salary between SEK 49,801 and SEK 50,000, table 31, column 1, sets a deduction of SEK 11,000, leaving SEK 39,000 on the payslip. Column 1 is the one used for employment income of people under 66.

The tables are built to approximate the final annual tax, so the standard allowance and the earned-income credit are already reflected in the figure. The 20% state income tax bites only once taxable income passes SEK 643,000 in 2026, which corresponds to gross pay of SEK 660,400 a year for someone under 66, and the tables pick that up at the higher salary bands.

Because the tables only approximate, a small difference usually appears at the final assessment. For the Stockholm employee on SEK 50,000 a month, table 31 withholds SEK 132,000 over 2026, while the calculated final tax and fees come to SEK 128,646, so the employee can expect a refund of about SEK 3,354 after filing.

Some pay falls outside the tables. Non-residents can instead be taxed under SINK, a flat 22.5% final tax on Swedish-source employment income. A foreign employer without a permanent establishment that pays salary for work done in Sweden must withhold 30% unless Skatteverket has decided otherwise, and it still files returns and normally pays contributions.

The arbetsgivardeklaration på individnivå, shortened to AGI, is the monthly employer return, and it reports pay, taxable benefits and deducted tax separately for each person paid in that month. Swedish payroll reporting therefore happens person by person, twelve times a year, which is the part foreign teams used to year-end reconciliations most often underestimate.

Each individual record has to match what the employee actually received. If a bonus was paid in March, it belongs on the March return; if a benefit started in June, it is reported from June. Reporting in the wrong month moves the contribution charge into the wrong period as well.

An employer registered with Skatteverket also files when nobody was paid. A zero return is required for any month without salary, including a month between employer registration and a first hire’s start date.

Not every payroll cost goes on the AGI. Särskild löneskatt, levied at 24.26% on what the employer spends on occupational pensions, is declared on the company’s Inkomstdeklaration 2 instead.

For employers with annual turnover up to SEK 40 million, the AGI must be filed, and the withheld tax and contributions paid, by day 12 of the month after payday. In January and August the date moves to the 17th, as set out on Skatteverket’s deadline page.

Two worked dates make the rule concrete. If April salary is paid on 25 April, the return and payment are due by 12 May. If July salary is paid on 25 July, the due date is 17 August because of the summer exception.

Employers with turnover above SEK 40 million pay by the 12th (the 17th in January) but work to a separate filing date. Check that filing date with Skatteverket before fixing a payroll calendar around it.

A missed return triggers a förseningsavgift (late-filing fee) of SEK 625. Because the individual records drive what Skatteverket holds for each employee, an error in one person’s figures is corrected in the return for the month it belongs to.

Sick pay, holiday pay and occupational pension all run through the same monthly payroll, and each has its own Swedish rule set. None of them is optional for the employer.

When an employee is ill, the first fortnight of each sick period is the employer’s to pay: sjuklön at 80% of pay, reduced by a karensavdrag (waiting-period deduction) worth one fifth of a normal week’s sick pay. From day 8 the employee must produce a doctor’s certificate, and if the absence continues the employer reports it to Försäkringskassan on day 15, after which Försäkringskassan pays state sickness benefit. The detail is in our post on sjuklön and karensavdrag.

Holiday pay follows semesterlagen. The statutory entitlement is 25 days. With the same-salary rule, pay simply continues through the holiday and each paid day earns an extra 0.43% of the monthly salary as semestertillägg (holiday supplement); the alternative percentage rule pays 12% of what was earned during the accrual year instead. Collective agreements may set higher supplements. Untaken days are paid out as semesterersättning when employment ends.

Pension depends on the collective agreement. Where ITP1 applies, the premium is 4.5% on monthly salary up to the 2026 ceiling of SEK 52,125, and the employer then owes the special payroll tax on that premium. A worked cost for one salary level is set out in what a Stockholm employee costs per year.

With Employer of Record Sweden, the monthly cycle is handled by our Swedish payroll team. As the legal employer of your hire, we file the AGI under the employer registration with Skatteverket. Your company does not need to register as a Swedish employer to put someone on payroll this way.

Your part is the information only you hold. Salary changes, bonuses, expense claims you have approved and planned absences need to reach us before the monthly cut-off. We apply the tax table, calculate contributions, pay the employee in SEK and settle the return with Skatteverket.

Before the first pay run we need a signed contract, the agreed salary, the start date and the employee’s bank details. It then applies the tax table that matches the employee’s municipality and checks whether a youth or age-based contribution rate applies, so the first invoice already reflects the right rate.

Each month you receive an invoice that lists salary, contributions, any agreed pension and benefit costs, and the service fee from USD 560 per employee. The payroll reports and filing records behind the figures come with it. The services page sets out what we handle, and the onboarding sequence shows when the first pay run happens after a contract is signed.