Payroll in Sweden 2026: employer contributions, tax tables, AGI

In Sweden the employer deducts preliminary income tax from each salary using Skatteverket's tax tables for the employee's municipality, and pays employer contributions (arbetsgivaravgifter) of 31.42% on top in 2026. Both are reported every month in the employer declaration with data for each employee (arbetsgivardeklaration, AGI) and paid by the same deadline, usually the 12th.

Payroll in Sweden at a glance

Social security contributions

In Sweden the social security contributions on pay are paid by the employer. The 31.42% is the sum of seven fees, some of which changed on 1 January 2026 while the total stayed the same:

Employer contributions are charged on gross salary and on the value of taxable benefits.

Young employees. For pay made from 1 April 2026 to 30 September 2027, employees aged 19 to 23 (born 2003 to 2007 for 2026) carry reduced contributions of 20.81%: the old-age pension fee plus half of the other fees. The reduction covers pay up to SEK 25,000 a month; anything above is charged at 31.42%.

Older employees. From 1 January 2026 employees who are 67 or older at the start of the year, which for 2026 means born 1938 to 1958, carry only the 10.21% old-age pension fee. For people born 1937 or earlier no employer contributions are due.

The employee's 7%. The general pension contribution of 7% of earned income is capped at SEK 47,100 in 2026. It is not a separate payroll deduction: it is part of the employee's tax and is offset in full by a tax reduction of the same amount.

Income tax on salaries

Sweden has a flat municipal income tax (municipal plus regional rate, 32.38% on average in 2026) and a state income tax of 20% on taxable earned income above SEK 643,000. Because of the basic allowance, state tax starts at a gross income of SEK 660,400 for people under 66 at the start of the year.

The employer does not calculate the tax itself: it deducts preliminary tax with Skatteverket's tax tables.

1. 1Add up the municipal and regional rates and the burial fee, plus the church fee if the employee is a member of the Church of Sweden, and round to a whole number to find the table (for example 32.50 gives table 32 and 32.51 table 33). The employee's A-tax certificate also shows the table.
2. 2For monthly pay in 2026, use tables 29 to 42.
3. 3Read the amount in column 1 for wages paid to someone under 66 at the start of the year who is entitled to the earned income tax credit (jobbskatteavdrag).

Column 1 already takes the earned income tax credit into account, and it gives the same amount whether or not the general pension contribution is due, because that contribution is offset by a tax reduction. For pay that is not the employee's main income, the employer deducts a flat 30%, and nothing if the total paid in the year is expected to be under SEK 1,000. The final tax is settled in the employee's annual income tax return.

Minimum wage, working time and mandatory pay

No statutory minimum wage. Sweden does not have a minimum wage set by law. Pay is set by collective agreements between employers' organisations and trade unions, which covered 88% of all employees and 83% of private-sector employees in 2025. An employer bound by a collective agreement must apply its pay terms.

Holiday. Under the Annual Leave Act (semesterlagen) employees are entitled to 25 days of holiday a year. Monthly-paid employees keep their salary during holiday and receive a holiday supplement of 0.43% of their monthly salary for each paid holiday day (the salary rule); otherwise holiday pay is 12% of the pay earned during the holiday-earning year (the percentage rule).

Monthly payroll calendar and filings

1. 1Register as an employer with Skatteverket if you pay remuneration for work to someone who is not approved for F-tax, through the e-service on verksamt.se or form SKV 4620.
2. 2Deduct preliminary tax with the employee's tax table every pay run.
3. 3File the employer declaration (AGI) every month: the main information about the employer and individual information for each employee or other payee. You can use Skatteverket's e-service or upload an XML file from payroll software. Since the January 2025 reporting period, absence information is also reported, separately from the AGI.
4. 4File and pay by the deadline. For employers with turnover up to SEK 40 million, the AGI is filed and the contributions and deducted tax are paid by the 12th of the month after payment, or the 17th in January and August. When the date falls on a weekend the next business day applies: in 2026 the deadlines include 12 February, 13 April, 17 August and 14 September, and 18 January 2027 for December pay. Employers with turnover above SEK 40 million file by the 26th but still pay by the 12th (17th in January).

Worked example: SEK 40,000 a month

An employee aged 35 earns SEK 40,000 gross a month (SEK 480,000 a year), has this as main income and lives in a municipality where the total rate rounds to 32, close to the 2026 average of 32.38%. The tax comes from Skatteverket's 2026 monthly table 32, column 1, for pay of SEK 39,801 to 40,000.

The tax is 20.38% of gross pay. At SEK 480,000 a year the employee is below the SEK 660,400 threshold, so no state tax is due. If the employee were 22 years old, the employer contributions on the same salary from April 2026 would be SEK 9,915.50 (20.81% on SEK 25,000 plus 31.42% on SEK 15,000); for an employee born in 1958 they would be SEK 4,084 (10.21%).

Common mistakes

1. 1Charging 31.42% on young employees' pay from April 2026, or applying the 20.81% rate above SEK 25,000 a month.
2. 2Using the wrong tax table after an employee moves municipality or joins or leaves the church.
3. 3Deducting tax from column 1 for secondary income, where a flat 30% applies.
4. 4Treating the 7% pension contribution as an extra deduction on top of the table amount.
5. 5Missing the 17th in January and August, or assuming the 12th moves forward instead of to the next business day.
6. 6Assuming there is no pay floor when a collective agreement binds the employer.

How Clientlly helps

Clientlly does not ship a built-in payroll profile for Sweden. An administrator enters the Swedish payroll rates once in the payroll tax settings: the income-tax bands, the personal allowance, the employee and employer contribution rates and the minimum wage. Clientlly then calculates gross to net and the employer contributions and produces payslips. Because Swedish withholding follows Skatteverket's tax tables, check the tax amounts against the table and column for each employee.

Alongside payroll, the human resources module handles leave requests and approvals with a leave calendar, useful for holiday days, and keeps HR documents, and attendance and time tracking records working hours and overtime.