This reorientation support is an allowance to help companies that were particularly badly affected by restrictions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic during the June to July 2020 period. Companies was able to apply for the allowance between 15 March and 17 May 2021.
The allowance is similar to reorientation support provided previously. However, it is calculated differently, and companies must have been negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to an even greater extent. Companies that qualify for support are entitled to compensation for up to 100% of their fixed costs. The maximum amount that can be granted for this allowance period is SEK 150 million.
On “My pages” (“Mina sidor”), you can check whether your application has been received and review the information you have provided.
Applications can only be made by an authorised representative.
You can appoint and register a representative to deal with your reorientation support application on your behalf. Your representative must have a Swedish personal identity number and Swedish e-identification. Your representative must be registered with the Swedish Tax Agency by 30 April 2021 at the latest, so please complete the registration process well in advance of this date. The easiest way to register a representative is via our e-service “Representatives and authorisation” (“Ombud och behörigheter”).
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. It’s important to do this in good time since the registration process will take longer for the Swedish Tax Agency to complete.
Companies that have already appointed a representative for a previous reorientation support application do not need to do so again, provided that authorisation was not limited to a specific period that has already ended. Representatives can view the authorisation that they have been granted by logging in to “My pages” (Mina sidor).
If several companies within a corporate group are going to apply for reorientation support, all applications should be submitted at the same time. Each company’s application is completed and signed according to the normal procedure, but a company cannot submit its own application. The group must nominate one person as the group applicant (“koncerningivare”), and this person will submit all applications for companies within the group using a special e-service accessible via “My pages” (“Mina sidor”).
If you apply for at least SEK 100,000 in reorientation support, you must include a written statement to support the details provided, which 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 orientation support.
If the written statement cannot be issued by the closing date for reorientation support applications (30 April 2021), you can send 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 a request.
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 any fixed cost used to calculate your reorientation support.
You can get in touch with us in one of the following ways:
The following parties can complement or make changes to a submitted application:
The Swedish Tax Agency aims to pay out the allowance as soon as possible after receiving an application. The allowance is first credited to the company’s tax account. If the 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 total net turnover for the allowance period must have declined by more than 50% per compared with the period June to July 2019, and this decline must almost exclusively have been a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another requirement is that part of the decline in net turnover – corresponding to at least 25% of net turnover for the reference period – 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:
If your company has previously received reorientation support for the period June to July 2020, the amount received will be deducted from any allowance granted in terms of reorientation support for June to July 2020 for certain companies particularly badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, the company must:
Tax-exempt foundations, associations, private housing associations and registered religious organisations do not need to be F-tax certified. 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 traders to limited companies between 1 June 2019 and 31 May 2020.
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 revenue may be generated from financial instruments or the trade of foreign currency.
When net turnover is calculated, revenue must be considered to be associated with the calendar month it would have referred to if every calendar month had constituted a separate financial year for the company in question. The company must apply the accounting principles that it applied for the financial year ending closest to 1 May 2020.
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 does not have a right 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 it:
If a company is a legal entity, neither the company nor the natural persons who have significant influence within the business can be barred from engaging in business operations.
To qualify for the right to support, a legal entity must not have conducted certain value transfers.
During the April 2020 to October 2021 period, legal entities must not have executed any decision with regard to:
No decision regarding such distributions can be made during a company’s general meeting, or by its board or equivalent body during the April 2020 to October 2021 period.
Companies that are part of a corporate 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.
They are also required to provide details of the following:
The maximum allowance that can be granted is SEK 150 million for the whole June to July 2020 period.
The amount of reorientation support payable is calculated as a proportion of the 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 three restrictions named below. 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.
The restrictions that may entitle a company to support are as follows:
Net turnover for the reference period: SEK 1,000,000
Net turnover for the allowance period: SEK 400,000
The decline in the company's net turnover is SEK 600,000 (SEK 1,000 000 - SEK 400,000).
The company states that 60% of this decline has been caused by the three 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 turnover by the net turnover for the reference period. In this case, the calculation is as follows:
SEK 600,000 ÷ SEK 1,000,000 = 0.6, which means a 60% decline in net turnover. The company has therefore met the requirement of a minimum 50% 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 three restrictions. This proportion of the decline must correspond to at least 25% of the net turnover for the reference period, which was SEK 250,000 (0.25 × SEK 1,000,000).
The company's net turnover has declined by SEK 600,000, and 60% of this decline has been due to the three restrictions. This means that the company has suffered a loss of SEK 360,000 (SEK 600,000 × 0.6) 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 three restrictions.
If your company meets these two requirements, you can calculate the fixed costs for which the company can receive support.
The decline in net turnover caused by the three restrictions should be compared with net turnover for the reference period (SEK 360,000 ÷ SEK 1,000,000 = 0.36, i.e. 36%).
Next, you calculate this percentage as a proportion of total fixed costs for the allowance period, as follows:
SEK 500,000 × 0.36 = SEK 180,000
Finally, you multiply the eligible fixed costs by 0.75 (SEK 180,000 × 0.75 = SEK 135,000). This corresponds to a level of support amounting to 75% of the eligible fixed costs. In this example, the allowance payable is SEK 135,000.
If the ban on public assemblies has entirely prevented the company from operating during the allowance period, 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 your 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 corporate group, the size of its allowance may be adjusted. Support for an entire corporate group may not exceed SEK 150 million 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.
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 rules relating to fixed costs apply to all three allowance periods (August to October 2020, November to December 2020, and January to February 2021) unless otherwise stated. The costs must be separated.
Separation of fixed costs (Legal guidance, in Swedish)
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:
Staff hire 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 a 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 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 scheduled depreciation of material 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 that a company is eligible for, 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 can get compensation for any electricity costs incurred as a result, as long as this has 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 cannot get compensation for costs such as security guards. You can only get 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 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 activities on which they are not liable for tax.
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 has no right to 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.