Questions to ask a Swedish EOR before you sign

Start by asking whether the provider, as employer, is bound by a kollektivavtal (collective agreement), and which one would apply to the role you are filling. The answer decides the pay floor, much of the working-time framework and the pension, because Sweden has no statutory minimum wage and leaves those matters to agreements.

The question matters more in Sweden than in most markets. Coverage figures from Medlingsinstitutet for 2025 show 88% overall and 83% among private employers, yet the share drops to 44% inside businesses employing between one and nine people. A candidate moving from a large Swedish employer will almost certainly be used to agreement terms and will compare your offer with them.

Useful follow-up questions include:

• Is the employer a member of an employers’ organisation, or does it use a hängavtal (application agreement) signed directly with a union?
• Does the agreement cover white-collar and blue-collar roles, or only one of them?
• What minimum pay or pay-revision rules apply to this job?
• If no agreement applies, how does the provider set pension, insurance and holiday terms?

A clear, specific answer here tells you a lot about how the provider runs its Swedish payroll.

Agreements can also affect pay over time. Where an agreement contains pay-revision rules, a salary you set today may need to follow an agreed increase later. Ask how the provider applies revisions and whether you are told before they take effect, since the change flows straight into your invoice.

Ask to see the pension line in the quote, and ask what percentage and salary cap it uses. For white-collar staff in the private sector, the usual plan is ITP1. Pensionsmyndigheten sets out the structure: salary below 7.5 income base amounts, SEK 52,125 per month for 2026, earns a 4.5% premium, and every krona over that line earns 30%. The plan covers people born in or after 1979 once they turn 25.

The pension premium is not the whole cost. Occupational pension costs attract särskild löneskatt (the special payroll tax on pension costs) of 24.26%, which the employer declares to Skatteverket on Inkomstdeklaration 2. On a SEK 50,000 monthly salary, the ITP1 premium is SEK 27,000 a year and the tax on it about SEK 6,550.

The salary cap is easy to overlook. For an engineer on SEK 70,000 a month, the portion above SEK 52,125 attracts a 30% premium, so the pension cost rises much faster than salary. Check that the quote applies both rates correctly.

Collective agreements also bring insurances, for example TGL, AGS and TFA, that statute does not require. Their premiums are separate from the statutory 31.42% arbetsgivaravgifter. Ask whether they are included in the quote or billed on top, and who the employee should contact if they need to claim.

Ask who will negotiate with unions when the law requires it, and how you will be involved. Medbestämmandelagen (MBL) §§ 11 to 13 put talks ahead of any redundancy decision, and a union can claim a seat at that table simply by having members in the workforce, agreement or not.

In an EOR arrangement, the employer of record is the employer, so formal negotiations run through it. You still hold the business reasons for a change, and a negotiation can only go well if those reasons are shared early and in writing. A provider should be able to describe its usual timeline for a redundancy, including the negotiation step, the order of selection under LAS and the 3 employees every employer may exempt from it since October 2022.

Two further questions sit on the client side. Suppose your group already owns a Swedish subsidiary with an agreement. That subsidiary must consult its union under MBL §§ 38 to 40 before taking in outside labour, and the union may block an arrangement it considers contrary to law or to the agreement. The staffing act, lag (2012:854), adds a time limit: keep one person in one unit for over two years out of three, and the client owes either a permanent offer or a payment of two months’ wages. Ask how the provider tracks those periods and when it will alert you.

Non-EU hires raise a separate question: can the employer of record act as the employer in a Migrationsverket work permit case? The monthly salary floor has been SEK 34,470 since the June 2026 changes, pegged at nine-tenths of the median, and staffing firms are among the employers asked to prove a three-month wage guarantee. A provider should be able to explain how it meets that requirement and what it needs from you.

Ask for a quote that separates the service fee from the employment costs that pass through at cost. Employer of Record Sweden charges from USD 560 for each employee each month (near SEK 5,550 when converted with the ECB’s 24 September 2026 reference rates), and puts salary, contributions and agreement costs on their own lines. We also charge for set-up once, at the start, and our quote names that figure, so ask every provider the same question about start-up charges.

Use a Stockholm salary of SEK 50,000 a month as the test case: 2026 statutory costs alone total SEK 788,520 over the year. Put the pension and its 24.26% tax on top and the figure reaches about SEK 822,070, and the statutory semestertillägg (holiday supplement) brings it to about SEK 829,134. Asking two providers to price the same example is a quick way to see who has left something out. Give them identical assumptions: the salary, the employee’s age, the municipality, and whether ITP1 should be included, so any gap reflects how each provider prices the role.

Other points worth pinning down:

• which currency you are invoiced in, and which exchange rate is used
• whether a deposit is required, and when it is returned
• what is charged if the employment ends, beyond salary for the notice period
• how pay rises, bonuses and benefits in kind are billed

Our pricing page sets out the fee and what it covers.

Ask the provider to walk you through one payroll month, from the salary cut-off to the AGI filing. The arbetsgivardeklaration på individnivå (AGI) is filed every month, per employee. Where turnover is within SEK 40 million, Skatteverket wants the return and the money by day twelve of the month after payroll, stretched to day seventeen in January and August. A missed return costs a SEK 625 late-filing fee, and a month without pay still needs a zero return.

Specific questions to ask:

• When is the monthly cut-off for pay changes, and how do you submit them?
• How is the correct skattetabell (tax table) chosen when an employee moves municipality?
• Who tracks sick periods and reports to Försäkringskassan on day 15?
• How are holiday balances tracked across the 1 April to 31 March holiday year?

A provider that runs Swedish payroll routinely should answer each question with a date or a named step. Also ask what access you will have to payslips, AGI confirmations and pension reports, because auditors and due-diligence teams tend to ask for them years later.

Rate selection is another test. Most payslips carry 31.42% in contributions. Two exceptions need a system that recognises them: a 20.81% youth rate, running until 30 September 2027 on the first SEK 25,000 a month for anyone born from 2003 to 2007, and a 10.21% rate once the employee had reached 67 by 1 January. Ask whether the payroll system applies these reduced rates automatically. For senior international hires, also ask whether the provider can support an application to Forskarskattenämnden for expertskattelättnad, which exempts 25% of salary from tax for 7 years; for work starting in 2026 the salary route needs more than SEK 88,801 a month.

Ask how an exit works in practice, and what happens if you later move the employee to your own Swedish company. LAS frames every exit: a valid reason, a notice period between one and six months that lengthens with tenure, and semesterersättning (pay in lieu) for leave not taken. The reformed Act also stops a court challenge from keeping someone on the payroll after their notice ends.

A move to your own aktiebolag needs planning. Lag (2012:854) forbids an agency to prevent its worker from joining the client, or to bill the worker for doing so; ask how the provider handles a transfer and whether any charge falls on you. Holiday balances, pension continuity and service time are the practical points to agree in advance. For the comparison between the two routes, see EOR versus a Swedish aktiebolag.

The employee’s deadlines affect you too. Someone given notice has a fortnight to contest it and four months to pursue damages, and where an employer refuses reinstatement a court can award 16 to 32 months’ pay depending on service. Ask how the provider documents the grounds for an exit and who pays if a dispute follows.

Be cautious if a provider cannot say who the legal employer is, or describes the arrangement in terms that Swedish sources do not support. No Swedish statute, regulation or authority guidance addresses employer of record arrangements by name, so a claim that the model has been approved or certified by a Swedish authority is not something you can check.

Other answers that deserve a second look include a promise that you will have no obligations at all (MBL, the 24-in-36-month rule and work-environment duties can reach a client), a suggestion that collective agreements are optional in practice, or a quote with no pension line for a white-collar role. Broad promises of compliance are also a warning sign, since the useful answer is a description of who does what and when.

A longer set of selection criteria appears on the best EOR provider in Sweden page, and the Swedish employer of record basics explain how the employer of record and client roles divide.