Sjuklön and karensavdrag explained for employers hiring in Sweden
Swedish sick pay splits into an employer phase and a state phase. This guide walks through each one, with the dates and deductions a payroll team has to get right.
The four numbers behind a Swedish sick period
In Sweden the employer pays sjuklön (employer sick pay) of 80% of normal pay for days 1 to 14 of a sick period, less a single karensavdrag (waiting-period deduction). From day 15 Försäkringskassan, the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, pays sjukpenning instead. The rest of this guide covers how each step lands in payroll.
Who pays a sick employee in Sweden, and for how long?
The employer pays for the first two weeks and the state pays after that. Under the Swedish rules summarised by Försäkringskassan, sjuklön covers days 1–14 of each sick period at 80% of the pay the employee would otherwise have earned. From day 15 the employee moves on to sjukpenning (state sickness benefit), which Försäkringskassan pays directly.
This split is the reason sick pay shows up as an employer cost line in Sweden. For short absences, which are the most common kind, the whole bill sits with the employer. Longer absences shift to the state after the fourteenth day, so the employer’s exposure per sick period is capped by time rather than by amount.
Each sick period is counted separately. A person who is ill for three days in March and again for four days in May triggers two employer periods, each with its own deduction and its own 80% payment. Payroll teams used to a single annual sick-day allowance often find this the biggest adjustment.
There is no annual cap on the number of employer periods. A person with many short absences in a year can therefore cost more in sjuklön than someone with one long illness, because each new period restarts the employer’s fourteen days. The karensavdrag partly offsets that, since it applies again at the start of every period.
Hiring through Employer of Record Sweden puts sjuklön in our hands as employer of record: we are the legal employer, and our payroll works out and pays the sick pay. Your role is to know the rules well enough to read the payslip, answer an employee’s questions with confidence, and plan for absence cost in the annual budget.
How is the karensavdrag calculated?
The karensavdrag is 20% of the employee’s average weekly sick pay, deducted once at the start of each sick period. For someone on a standard five-day week, that works out at roughly one day’s sick pay. Because it is linked to weekly sick pay rather than to a calendar day, it scales with the hours a person actually works.
A simple illustration shows the mechanics. Assume, purely for the arithmetic, that an employee’s sick pay for an average week would come to SEK 9,000 at the 80% rate. The karensavdrag is then 20% of SEK 9,000, which is SEK 1,800. If that employee is off for three working days, the employer pays three days of 80% sick pay and subtracts SEK 1,800 from the total. The SEK 9,000 figure is an assumption for illustration only; the real weekly figure depends on the person’s pay and schedule, and the employer’s payroll system applies its own method for converting monthly salary into weekly and daily amounts.
Two consequences follow from how the deduction works:
- Very short absences can produce little or no sick pay, because the deduction can absorb most of the first day or two.
- Because the deduction is based on weekly sick pay, an employee with irregular hours has a deduction that tracks their actual schedule rather than a fixed calendar day.
Collective agreements (kollektivavtal) may add their own sick-pay terms on top of the statutory minimum. Where the employer has signed an agreement covering the relevant sector, check whether it changes the amount paid during the employer period.
What does a two-week sick period cost on a SEK 50,000 salary?
Take a Stockholm hire earning SEK 50,000 monthly who is off sick for two full working weeks, the employer’s sick-pay cost comes to roughly SEK 21,835 including employer contributions. The figure is an illustration, and every assumption behind it is listed here so you can rerun it for your own hire.
Assumptions: monthly salary SEK 50,000, so SEK 600,000 a year; a five-day working week; weekly pay taken as the annual salary divided by 52, which gives SEK 11,538; no collective-agreement top-up; the standard 2026 arbetsgivaravgifter (employer social contributions) of 31.42%; the sick period lasts exactly ten working days and does not reach day 15.
- Weekly sick pay at 80%: SEK 11,538 × 80% = SEK 9,231.
- Karensavdrag at 20% of weekly sick pay: SEK 1,846.
- Sick pay for two weeks: SEK 18,462, less the deduction, leaves SEK 16,615 paid to the employee.
- Employer contributions at 31.42% on SEK 16,615: about SEK 5,220.
- Total employer cost for the period: about SEK 21,835.
A shorter absence changes the picture sharply. On the same assumptions, three sick days earn sick pay of about SEK 5,538, and after the SEK 1,846 deduction the employee receives about SEK 3,692 for those days. The deduction bites hardest on short absences, which is exactly its purpose.
Against the normal salary for the same days, the employer spends less during a sick period than during a working one. The real cost is the lost output and any cover you arrange, which is worth including when you plan headcount for a small Swedish team.
When does an employee need a doctor’s certificate?
A doctor’s certificate is needed from the eighth day of a sick period. For the first seven days the employee’s own notification is enough for the employer to pay sjuklön, subject to the karensavdrag.
In practice this means the certificate question only arises in the second week of the employer period. A sensible routine tells the employee in advance when the certificate is due and where to send it, so nobody is surprised at month end.
The certificate matters again once Försäkringskassan becomes the payer from day 15. The agency assesses the claim for sjukpenning on its own terms, so a clear medical record from the eighth day makes the handover smoother for everyone involved.
If you manage a person’s day-to-day work but are not their legal employer, agree with the employer of record how absence is reported. A short written routine, stating who the employee tells, by when, and where the certificate is sent, prevents most of the disputes that arise around sick pay.
What happens on day 15 of a sick period?
Day 15 is when the employer notifies Försäkringskassan, and the state benefit begins from that point. From then on the employee receives sjukpenning of about 80% of their sjukpenninggrundande inkomst (SGI, the income on which sickness benefit is based).
The benefit is capped. According to Försäkringskassan’s current amounts page, SGI counts only up to SEK 592,000 a year in 2026, which is ten times the price base amount, and the maximum daily sjukpenning is SEK 1,259. Higher earners therefore receive less than 80% of their actual pay once the state takes over.
A quick calculation shows the effect. SEK 592,000 divided by twelve is roughly SEK 49,300 a month, so anyone earning above that level will see sjukpenning calculated on a lower income than their salary. For the SEK 50,000 Stockholm example used elsewhere in this guide the difference is small; for a hire on twice that salary it is substantial.
That gap can be a talking point with senior hires. If a candidate asks, find out what the applicable agreement provides before you answer, and do not promise a top-up that the contract does not contain.
From an employer-cost view, day 15 is where the direct outlay on sjuklön stops. The employment itself continues, so the person stays on the employer of record’s payroll and the monthly AGI return still lists them.
Can an employer recover high sick-pay costs?
Only in narrow cases since mid-2024. The general reimbursement for high sick-pay costs (ersättning för höga sjuklönekostnader) was abolished at the end of June 2024, so employers can no longer claim back a share of an unusually large sick-pay bill across the whole workforce.
What remains is särskilt högriskskydd, an individual protection linked to a named employee who has frequent or long illness. Where Försäkringskassan grants it, the employer can be compensated for that person’s sjuklön. The application is made for the individual, not for the business as a whole.
Särskilt högriskskydd is decided case by case. It suits a situation where an employer already knows about a medical condition that is likely to cause repeated absence, and it can make it easier to keep that person in work without the employer carrying the full sick-pay risk alone. The protection is tied to one named person, so the employee is part of the process from the start.
For budgeting, the practical point is simple. Assume the employer bears the full sjuklön cost for every sick period of up to 14 days, and treat any särskilt högriskskydd compensation as an exception you might qualify for rather than a line to plan around. If compensation is later granted, record it as a one-off reduction in that year’s absence cost.
How does sick pay run through an EOR payroll?
Sick pay goes through the employer of record’s normal monthly payroll. The employer of record records the absence, calculates the 80% payment and the karensavdrag, pays the employee, and reports the result on the monthly arbetsgivardeklaration på individnivå (AGI) to Skatteverket, a cycle described step by step in our AGI and payroll walk-through.
On your side, three things are worth setting up at the start:
- A short absence-reporting routine that the employee, their manager and the employer of record all know.
- A monthly absence summary from the employer of record, so sick pay lines on the invoice make sense.
- An agreed contact at the employer of record for longer cases that reach day 15 or recur often.
Pricing does not move with absence: it remains from USD 560 per head monthly, close to SEK 5,550 when the 24 September 2026 ECB rate is applied, however long a sick period lasts. Sjuklön is part of employment cost in the same way as salary, and it is reported through payroll alongside ordinary pay. For how sick pay fits into total spending on a Stockholm hire, see our annual cost breakdown, and our EOR services overview lists what we handle each month.
If you are still deciding how to hire, our primer on how a Swedish EOR works shows who is responsible for what.
Frequently asked
Q01What percentage of pay is sjuklön?
Q02Is the karensavdrag the same as an unpaid first day?
Q03When does Försäkringskassan start paying?
Q04Is there a cap on sjukpenning in 2026?
Q05Does an EOR charge extra when an employee is sick?
Hand sjuklön calculations to an employer of record
We run sick pay, karensavdrag and AGI reporting inside monthly payroll as employer of record, so you see one clear invoice line. Ask us how it works for your hire.