This reorientation support ("Särskilt drabbade företag") is an allowance to help companies that were particularly badly affected by restrictions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic during the August 2020 to September 2021 period.
In order to qualify for the allowance, companies must have suffered a significant decline in net turnover. At least 25% of the decline in a company’s net turnover must have been due to the company’s inability to carry out its activities to the same extent as before, as a result of the following restrictions:
Companies that are entitled to the allowance may receive compensation for up to 100% of their fixed costs. The maximum allowance for the various allowance periods is shown in the table.
Allowance periods | Maximum allowance for the period |
---|---|
August to October 2020 | SEK 120 million |
November and December 2020 | SEK 80 million |
January and February 2021 | SEK 80 million |
March 2021 | SEK 40 million |
April 2021 | SEK 40 million |
May 2021 | SEK 40 million |
June 2021 | SEK 40 million |
July 2021 | SEK 40 million |
August 2021 | SEK 40 million |
September 2021 | SEK 40 million |
For seasonal businesses, the maximum allowance is SEK 360 million if a company chooses to apply for the total August 2020 to September 2021 allowance period.
You can apply for reorientation support via our e-service “Ansök om omställningsstöd” under “My pages” (“Mina sidor”). You need to make a separate application for each allowance period. The closing date for applications was 30 December 2021.
Under “My pages” (“Mina sidor”), you can check that your application has been received and review the details you have provided.
You must contact the Swedish Tax Agency if you discover errors in the information you have provided, or if changes take place that could affect either your right to reorientation support or the size of your allowance. You might, for example, have received an insurance payment, financial compensation or some other form of support intended to cover fixed costs included in the calculation of your reorientation support.
You can get in touch with us in any of the following ways:
The following parties can complement or make changes to a submitted application:
To apply for the allowance on behalf of a company, you need to be one of the following:
Your company can appoint and register a representative to manage the application for reorientation support on your behalf. This representative must have a Swedish personal identity number and Swedish e-identification. The easiest way to register a representative is via our e-service “Representatives and authorisation” (“Ombud och behörigheter”) by 31 October 2021.
If any individual among a company’s authorised signatories does not have a Swedish personal identity number, it is not possible to use our e-service. The company’s representative has to be registered by filling in a paper form instead. If you register your representative by filling in a paper form, you need to do so well in advance of the closing date for applications for the allowance (31 October 2021). This is because it will take longer for the Swedish Tax Agency to complete the registration process this way than via our e-service.
If your company has already appointed a representative to manage its applications for reorientation support for previous allowance periods, there is no need to do so again – as long as the representative’s authorisation has not expired. Representatives can check their authorisation by logging into “My pages” (“Mina sidor”).
How to apply for reorientation support if several companies within a group wish to claim the allowance:
If you apply for at least SEK 100,000 in reorientation support, you must include a written statement to support the details provided. The statement must be issued by a registered auditing firm or an authorised accountant. You must include a written statement for each allowance period for which you are applying for at least SEK 100,000 in reorientation support.
If the written statement cannot be issued by the closing date for reorientation support applications (31 October 2021), you can submit it at a later date. If you apply for at least SEK 100,000 in reorientation support and do not include this written statement, the Swedish Tax Agency will contact you with a request and provide instructions for submitting the statement at a later date. You will normally be expected to provide the statement within 14 days of the request.
If your application for reorientation support is approved, the Swedish Tax Agency’s will pay out the money to you as soon as possible. The allowance is first credited to your company’s tax account. If your company has registered a bank account, the money will then be transferred automatically – as long as there are no liabilities on the tax account. If the company has liabilities for recovery by the Swedish Enforcement Authority (“Kronofogden”), the partial or full value of these liabilities may be deducted or seized.
In order to qualify for reorientation support, your company must have reported a net turnover of at least SEK 250,000 during the financial year ending closest to 1 May 2020. If that financial year was longer or shorter than 12 months, the minimum net turnover requirement will be adjusted accordingly.
The minimum amount of reorientation support that can be granted is SEK 5,000. Several factors can affect the size of a company’s allowance. If your company is a loss-making enterprise, it cannot be granted support amounting to more than the nominal decrease in the gross margin for the allowance period compared with the reference period.
To be eligible for reorientation support, a company’s net turnover must have declined significantly compared with the same period in 2019, the reference period. The reference periods for seasonal businesses are January to April 2019 and August to December 2019. The decline in a company’s turnover must almost exclusively have been a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the August to October 2020 allowance period, a company’s turnover must have declined by more than 40% compared with the same period in 2019. To be eligible for reorientation support for the other allowance periods, a company’s turnover must have declined by more than 30% compared with the corresponding periods in 2019.
Net turnover includes revenue from the sale of goods and services that are part of a company’s normal business. You must make deductions for discounts provided, VAT and any other forms of tax that are directly connected to turnover. All revenue must relate to a business run in Sweden, and no income may have been generated from financial instruments or the trade of foreign currency.
When you calculate net turnover, income must belong to the calendar month it would have belonged to if every calendar month had been a separate financial year for the company in question. Please apply the same accounting principles as for the financial year ending closest to 1 May 2020.
For a company to be entitled to reorientation support, part of its loss of net turnover (equal to at least 25% of its net turnover for the reference period) must have been the result of its inability to run its business activities to the same extent as before the given period due to the following restrictions:
In addition, the company must:
Tax-exempt foundations, associations and registered religious organisations do not require F-tax certification. To qualify for support, non-profit organisations must have a corporate identity number that was issued on 31 December 2019 at the latest. Private-sector housing associations do not need to be F-tax certified.
If your company does not have F-tax certification, you must apply for it and be granted approval before you can apply for reorientation support.
Credit institutions and securities companies cannot apply for reorientation support.
Companies that are partially liable for tax in Sweden can only be granted reorientation support if they have a permanent establishment in Sweden. Companies based in countries that are considered non-cooperative with regard to taxation cannot receive support. In some cases, a company may not qualify for reorientation support if it belongs to the same group of associated enterprises as a company based in a country that is non-cooperative with regard to taxation.
There are specific rules for companies that have restructured from sole trader businesses to limited companies between 1 June 2019 and 31 May 2020.
If your company has previously received reorientation support for fixed costs for the period for which it is currently applying for an allowance, the amount received will be deducted from any further allowance granted.
When assessing whether a company is having financial difficulties, we consider its situation at the following two points in time:
To qualify for reorientation support, a company must not have been in financial difficulty at either of these two points in time.
This means that a company is not entitled to support if, for example: on 31 December 2019, it was obliged to draw up a balance sheet for liquidation purposes, and the balance sheet shows that more than half of the share capital at the time had been used up due to accumulated losses. In addition, a company does not have a right to support if, at 31 December 2019, a court had declared the company bankrupt or ordered a reconstruction. There are various other situations in which a company could be considered to have been in financial difficulty at that point in time.
A company is not entitled to support if, at the time its application for reorientation support is reviewed, it:
If a company is a legal entity, neither the company nor the natural persons who have significant influence within the business can be disqualified from engaging in business activities.
To qualify for reorientation support, a legal entity must not have conducted certain value transfers.
During the April 2020 to December 2021 period, a legal entity must not have implemented any decision with regard to:
No decision regarding such distributions can be made during a company’s annual general meeting, or by its board or equivalent body during:
Companies that are part of a group are not entitled to reorientation support if the parent company has conducted such value transfers during the same period.
In order to qualify for support, you must first have done what can reasonably be expected to secure an insurance payment, damages or some similar form of financial compensation. This also includes other forms of government support to compensate for a loss of turnover or to cover the costs on which the allowance is based.
However, this requirement does not apply to support according to regulations on the following:
A company running a seasonal business can choose to apply for support for the whole August 2020 to April 2021 period. If so, these months are one allowance period. The reference periods for the total allowance period are January to April 2019 and August to December 2019.
Alternatively, a company running a seasonal business can choose to apply for the allowance periods outlined under “How to apply”. However, it is not possible to apply for the entire allowance period as well as the individual allowance periods.
Your company is a seasonal business if at least 75% of its net turnover for the financial year ending closest to 1 May 20201 is attributable to a period of six consecutive calendar months.
The maximum allowance that a company can be granted for the various allowance periods is outlined in the table.
Allowance periods | Maximum allowance for the period |
---|---|
August to October 2020 | SEK 120 million |
November and December 2020 | SEK 80 million |
January and February 2021 | SEK 80 million |
March 2021 | SEK 40 million |
April 2021 | SEK 40 million |
May 2021 | SEK 40 million |
June 2021 | SEK 40 million |
July 2021 | SEK 40 million |
August 2021 | SEK 40 million |
September 2021 | SEK 40 million |
The maximum allowance that a company running a seasonal business can be granted is SEK 360 million.
The amount of reorientation support payable is calculated as a proportion of a company’s fixed costs for the allowance period. The allowance is based only on the part of the decline in net turnover resulting from the restrictions (which are outlined under “What is net turnover?” above). To calculate the support payable, this part of the decline is divided by the net turnover for the reference period. This gives a percentage for the decrease in net sales, which is then multiplied by 0.75. Entitlement to support is based only on the proportion of the fixed costs for the allowance period that has been calculated in this way. When calculating reorientation support for companies particularly badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, no contribution margin should be taken into account.
Net turnover for the reference period: SEK 1,000,000
Net turnover for the allowance period: SEK 300,000
The decline in the company’s net turnover is SEK 700,000 (SEK 1,000,000 - SEK 300,000).
The company states that 70% of this decline has been caused by the restrictions.
Fixed costs for the allowance period: SEK 500,000
The first step is to check that the percentage decline in net turnover is significant enough. This is done by dividing the decline in the company’s net turnover by the net turnover for the reference period. In this case, the calculation is as follows:
SEK 700,000 ÷ SEK 1,000,000 = 0.7, which means a 70% decline in net turnover. The company has therefore met the requirement of a minimum 40% decline in net turnover.
The second step is to check whether a sufficient proportion of the decline in net turnover has been caused by the five restrictions outlined under “What is net turnover?” above. This proportion of the decline must correspond to at least 25% of the net turnover for the reference period: i.e. SEK 250,000 (0.25 × SEK 1,000,000).
The company’s net turnover has declined by SEK 700,000, and 70% of this decline has been due to the five restrictions outlined under “What is net turnover?” above. This means that the company has suffered a loss of SEK 490,000 (SEK 700,000 × 0.7) in net turnover as a result of the restrictions. The company has therefore fulfilled the requirement that a sufficient proportion of the decline in its net turnover must have been caused by the restrictions.
If your company meets these two requirements, you can calculate the fixed costs for which you are entitled to support.
The decline in net turnover caused by the five restrictions (outlined under “What is net turnover?” above) should be compared with net turnover for the reference period (SEK 490,000 ÷ SEK 1,000,000 = 0.49, i.e. 49%).
Next, you calculate this percentage (49%) as a proportion of total fixed costs for the allowance period, as follows:
SEK 500,000 × 0.49 = SEK 245,000
Finally, you multiply the eligible fixed costs by 0.75 (SEK 245,000 × 0.75 = SEK 183,750). This corresponds to a level of support amounting to 75% of the eligible fixed costs. In this example, the allowance payable is SEK 183,750.
If the ban on public assemblies and events prevented the company from operating during the allowance period altogether, a level of reorientation support will be granted equivalent to 100% of the company’s fixed costs for the allowance period.
The minimum amount of reorientation support that can be granted is SEK 5,000. Several factors can affect the size of a company’s allowance. If a company is a loss-making enterprise, it cannot be granted support amounting to more than the nominal decline in gross margin for the allowance period compared with the reference period.
The Swedish Tax Agency has developed a calculation tool to help you determine whether your company is eligible for reorientation support and to estimate how much you may be entitled to. If your company is part of a group, the size of its allowance may be adjusted. Support for an entire group may not exceed the maximum allowance for an individual company for the allowance period, and will be allocated to eligible companies in proportion to the support that each company would have been entitled to if a group limit had not been set.
If the allowance granted for an allowance period is at least SEK 100,000, reorientation support is also granted for administrative costs incurred in connection with the application process. A maximum of SEK 10,000 is granted per eligible company.
If your company has received, or is due to receive, insurance payments, damages or some similar form of financial compensation for a loss of turnover or fixed costs on which reorientation support is calculated, the company’s allowance will be reduced by a corresponding amount. This also includes other forms of government support that the company has received, or is due to receive, for a loss of turnover or to cover fixed costs on which reorientation support is calculated. Other forms of government support that reduce the amount to which a company is eligible include support granted according to regulations on reorientation support for the August 2020 to September 2021 period.
If your company has previously received ordinary reorientation support to cover fixed costs for the same allowance period, your current entitlement will be reduced by a corresponding amount.
If several companies in a corporate group apply for reorientation support, and the total allowance claimed exceeds the maximum limit for a group, the allowance is divided proportionally between the various companies, according to the amounts claimed in their respective applications.
When you apply for reorientation support for a company, you must provide details of its fixed costs for the allowance period for which you are claiming support. When calculating your fixed costs, you must apply the same accounting principles you used during the financial year ending closest to 1 May 2020. The costs must be separated.
Certain fixed costs cannot be included in your calculation. These include:
This includes any hire or leasing contract that a company has entered into for at least six months. Such a contract must give the company the right to use an asset that is owned by someone else. Examples of such assets include:
Staffing costs and similar services are not included in these costs. A cost only counts if you have a contract for a minimum six-month period. If your company has to pay reduced rent for the months in question, you will only be granted support for the proportion of the rent that you have to pay once the figure has been reduced.
In order for interest to be considered a fixed cost, it must be charged on a debt that the company has incurred. The company must also be tied into paying the interest over an extended period. The interest costs must exceed any revenue the company earns from charging interest.
Profit-sharing payments and hybrid security dividends do not count as fixed costs. The fixed costs included are outlined in chapter 24b section 5 of the Swedish Income Tax Act.
The scheduled depreciation of tangible and intangible current assets during the allowance period counts as a series of fixed costs. This includes any costs incurred by a company for essential repairs and maintenance of its current assets.
This includes any costs relating to property tax and/or municipal property tax for which a company is eligible, regardless of whether or not a property is rented out.
This includes any costs for a company’s use of water and drainage systems. Telephone services and internet-related expenses such as broadband connectivity also count as fixed costs.
This includes the following electricity-consumption costs:
Electricity consumed during manufacturing processes in industrial activities may not be included as a fixed cost. A company that applies for reorientation support must have used the electricity for its own consumption in order for it to count as a fixed cost. This means, for example, that an electricity trading company cannot include any electricity involved in the business of trading electricity when calculating its allowance.
This covers the cost of heating a company’s business premises, and includes both the cost of purchased district heating and fuel in the case of private heat generation.
Companies that have consumed electricity to heat premises used for industrial activities may be entitled to compensation for any electricity costs incurred as a result, if these costs have not already been raised in the “Electricity consumption” (“Förbrukning av el”) section of the tax return. Costs for district cooling cannot be included.
This includes local-government-related costs for services such as:
Nightclubs and sports and cultural events do not qualify for compensation for costs such as security guards. You are only entitled to compensation for services that you purchase from another business operator.
This includes costs for cleaning different kinds of textiles – as long as you have a minimum three-month contract with the service provider – and relates mainly to fixed subscription costs. If a contract includes a fixed cost as well as a variable cost, a company can only get compensation for the fixed cost.
This includes the cost of insurance cover for economic losses resulting from damage to property, liability for the payment of compensation or damage of a purely material nature. Reorientation support applies mainly to cases in which a company cannot avoid these costs in the event of a sudden loss of turnover.
Pension and health insurance costs should not be included in your calculation.
This covers the cost of animal feed used by companies running businesses operations involving live animals.
This primarily relates to contracts that give the franchisee the right to use the franchisor’s business concept. The fee may not be linked to sales volumes or similar, since it would then count as a variable cost. Fees calculated as a percentage of sales figures are therefore not included as fixed costs.
Here, costs related to official notices of approval are included when they are necessary for running your business. Examples include the legal right to serve alcohol or to carry out business activities that are harmful to the environment. Fees for surveillance and monitoring carried out by public bodies are also included.
A company can only get compensation for these fees if they represent recurring costs paid to cover a certain period. The allowance cannot be used to cover follow-up control fees in the event of inadequate business practices.
These costs are most often associated with long-term contracts. Only the portion of a cost that is not based on factors such as sales volumes or similar can be included.
Here, only the portion of a cost that is not based on the number of passengers or the cargo stored on board a ship can be included.
Reorientation support is a form of financial allowance or subsidy. Tax on the whole allowance must be paid the same year as a decision is made regarding a company’s allowance. Associations or religious organisations should not report the portion of their allowance that corresponds to costs associated with tax-exempt activities.
If your allowance is to cover costs that you incurred during the previous tax year, you can report it for that year instead.
When filling in your VAT return, you can enter details of the reorientation support you have been granted in box 42.
Reorientation support does not need to be repaid since it is an allowance rather than a loan or form of suspended payment. However, the allowance might have to be paid back partially or in full if an assessment carried out by the Swedish Tax Agency reveals that a company’s application includes incorrect details and it is not entitled to reorientation support.
If you have to pay back your allowance, and you have already paid tax on it, you should deduct that amount from the original figure. You should make this deduction for the tax year during which you pay back the allowance.
In certain cases, if a company has received a repayment claim for its reorientation support allowance, and needs additional time to pay back the money, the company might be granted temporary payment respite. An agreed repayment plan is another possible option.
If a company has received a repayment demand and wishes to be granted temporary payment respite, a written application is required. No form has to be filled in.
Please email your application to skatteverket@skatteverket.se or post it to the following address:
Skatteverket
205 30 Malmö
Temporary payment respite can be granted in the following circumstances:
If a company has received a repayment demand and wishes to be granted temporary payment respite, a written application is required. No form has to be filled in.
Please email your application to skatteverket@skatteverket.se or post it to the following address:
Skatteverket
205 30 Malmö
The Swedish Tax Agency can enter into a repayment agreement in certain circumstances – for example: