Conditions for tax relief

A number of formal conditions must be met in order to get tax relief relief. In addition, the Taxation of Research Workers Board needs to determine if certain conditions concerning the employee's salary or tasks and expertise are satisfied.

Formal conditions

Five formal conditions must be met if you want to be eligible for tax relief:

  1. You are not a Swedish citizen.
  2. You have not had your “residence” or your “habitual place of abode” in Sweden at any time during the five calendar years, preceding the calendar year when your work starts. – As a rule, if you stay in Sweden for at least six months in a row, you are considered to have your habitual place of abode here. In this context, short interruptions for visits abroad do not affect the nature of your stay. – You may equally be regarded as having your habitual place of abode here if you make regular visits to Sweden over a longer period, although each individual visit is shorter than six months.
  3. You intend to stay in Sweden for a maximum of seven years.
  4. Your employer (the company/entity that pays your salary) is Swedish, or foreign with a permanent establishment in Sweden.
  5. You submit your application to the Taxation of Research Workers Board no later than three months after the date you began working in Sweden – mind you, if the application is late we cannot try it.

Two categories of applicants

In substance two ways lead to tax relief.

One way is to apply for tax relief based on your monthly remuneration rate. Then we merely check that your contracted remuneration rate for work done in Sweden reaches a specified monthly level. In this examination no account is taken of your tasks and expertise.

If your remuneration rate does not reach the required level, the other way leading to tax relief is if you are an "expert", "researcher" or "other key person", in the eyes of the law. In these cases, we determine amongst other things the required expertise for the actual position or the significance of the work to the company.

Read more at: Remuneration rate and Tasks and Expertise.

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