Conditional pay cut below threshold kills expertskatt, HFD holds

Sweden's Supreme Administrative Court has barred conditional pay under the expertskatt amount rule.Domstol In its judgment of 20 October 2026 in case 1405-26, the court held that the remuneration condition in the beloppsregel is not met where the contract pays above the threshold but contains a term that can push pay below it if a specified event occurs during the employmentSkatteverket. The employer's appeal was rejected, confirming the refusal of relief.

The case concerned HBK Elitfotboll AB, which had hired a footballer on a three-year contract. Monthly pay exceeded the threshold for the termDomstol, but relegation of the club from Allsvenskan to Superettan would cut it below the lineDomstol. Forskarskattenämnden had granted relief, reasoning that no cut was certain when work began. Förvaltningsrätten set that decision aside, Kammarrätten agreed, and the Supreme Administrative Court has now affirmed that outcome.

The reasoning turns on a whole-period test. Agreed remuneration must exceed the threshold every month of the employment period covered by the relief.Domstol The beloppsregel is a schematic aid meant to make the competence assessment predictable: worker, employer and Forskarskattenämnden must be able to tell from the agreement at negotiation and application stage whether the conditions are met, consistent with HFD 2021 ref. 60 on the foreseeability purpose and with HFD 2018 ref. 19, where pay above the line in only the first two years failed. A clause conditioning above-threshold pay on staying up leaves that uncertain, and the court saw basically no room for such termsDomstol. Temporary dips from sickness, parental leave or similar causes are different and leave relief intact.

The surrounding mechanics are unchanged. The amount rule in Chapter 11, section 22, third paragraph of the Income Tax Act deems the competence conditions met where monthly pay for Swedish work exceeds one and a half times the prisbasbelopp for the year work begins, the lower multiple applying since 1 January 2025. The employer must be domiciled in Sweden or be a foreign enterprise with a permanent establishment here, the worker must not be a Swedish citizen nor have lived or stayed here in the five calendar years before the starting year, and the stay must be intended to last no more than seven years. Relief exempts 25 per cent of salary and similar remuneration, plus moving costs, up to two home journeys per person per year, and school fees, for at most seven years from arrival. Forskarskattenämnden decides on application by worker or employer, with appeal to the general administrative courts.

For practice the point is contractual: fixed monthly pay for the whole relief period must sit above the threshold with no reduction term capable of taking it belowDomstol. The court also rejected the club's litigation-costs claim, since the Act on the Researchers Tax Board does not engage the cost rules in Chapter 43 of the Tax Procedure Act.

Legal basis: 11 kap. 22-23 §§ inkomstskattelagen (1999:1229), lagen (1999:1305) om Forskarskattenämnden and HFD 2026-10-20 mål nr 1405-26.