Guides

#Two questions that are often confused

When an assignment requires travel, there are two separate questions. The first is commercial: what should the client pay for the trip, and how is that agreed. The second is tax-related: what can be paid out to you without being taxed as salary. The answers are governed by completely different things, the agreement versus the tax rules, and a common source of disappointment is mixing them up.

So keep them apart from the start. Agree with the client on travel costs before the assignment begins, and separately find out what can be reimbursed tax-free. The client paying for a trip doesn't automatically mean the money lands tax-free with you.

#Business trip or commuting

The tax rules are based on the concept of a business trip: a trip you make for work, outside your usual place of business or to a temporary workplace. Trips between home and a workplace you work at regularly are, however, commuting, and commuting is not treated as a business trip even if you're a freelancer and even if the trip feels like part of the job.

This distinction has practical consequences. An assignment where you work for the same client month after month can mean the client's office becomes your regular workplace, with the result that trips there aren't treated as business trips. If the setup is unclear, find out what applies before you start claiming reimbursement, since an incorrect payment is a hassle to correct.

#Mileage allowance and per diem: how it works

For travel using your own car for work, there's a tax-free mileage allowance per kilometer driven, and for business trips with an overnight stay away from your usual place of business, there's a tax-free per diem meant to cover increased living costs, mainly food and small expenses. Both are based on standard rates that are set and change over time, and there are different amounts for trips within Sweden and abroad.

Since the amounts change, we don't state them here: always check the current standard rates at skatteverket.se before calculating. There are also rules on how the per diem is affected when meals are included in the trip or paid by someone else, and on what happens if the payment exceeds the standard rate, since the excess is normally treated as salary.

#Passing on travel costs to the client

It's entirely normal for the client to cover the trip, but this needs to be agreed. Put it in writing in the quote or agreement: whether travel costs are invoiced separately against receipts, whether they're included in the price, whether travel time is billable and if so at what level. Travel time that no one agreed on is a classic loss item.

In practice, costs are normally passed on as a line item on the invoice, and VAT is handled according to the rules for what you're selling. Never invoice an expense you don't have documentation for. If the client books and pays for the trip directly, the picture is different than if you pay and then get reimbursed, so decide on the model in advance.

#The documentation you need

For every trip: purpose, date and times, destination, mode of travel, and who you met. For car trips: a travel log with start and end points, the errand, and the number of kilometers. For expenses: receipts, ideally photographed right away, noting which assignment they relate to. This is also what makes it easy to pass costs on to the client, so you do the work once and use it twice.

Build the habit of logging this right after the trip instead of afterward. Documentation written the same day is both more accurate and faster than reconstructing it from a calendar months later, and in an audit it's the documentation that decides the outcome.

#How it works as a light entrepreneur

As a light entrepreneur, the light entrepreneurship company is your employer, and it's therefore the company that assesses and pays out any tax-free travel reimbursement or per diem based on the applicable rules and its own procedures. Ask in advance what's required of your documentation and what can be paid out, and agree separately with the client on who covers the cost. With Truster, you invoice without your own company and get salary, expense documentation, and invoices in one place. The platform is built by a payment institution authorized by the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority and is used by more than 55,000 people across the Nordics. Truster is launching in Sweden by invitation: join the waitlist.