What your AB can deduct on lunches, julbord and gifts

You have the calendar open to book some kind of julbord, the Christmas buffet, for December, and four restaurant receipts from client lunches are still sitting in the pile from this summer. In the books they look identical, food at a restaurant. For tax purposes they have almost nothing in common.

A client lunch gives you the VAT back, not the cost

Meals for representation, business entertainment with clients, are not deductible against income tax. What you do get back is the moms, the VAT, on a base of at most 300 kronor excluding VAT per person and occasion. The rest goes into the books as a cost that is not deductible.

Since 1 April 2026 the VAT on food is 6 percent instead of 12, which makes the deduction smaller than you are used to. If the bill covers both food and alcohol and goes above 300 kronor per person, you can use the flat rate instead and deduct 33 kronor per person and occasion when the food carries 6 percent VAT.

Say you and a client have lunch for 700 kronor including VAT, food only. Excluding VAT the bill is 660.38 kronor, which is 330.19 kronor per person, above the ceiling. You deduct VAT on 300 kronor per person, 6 percent of 600 kronor, so 36 kronor. The remaining 664 kronor is a non deductible cost in the company.

Coffee and a sandwich work differently. Enklare förtäring, light refreshments, is deductible up to 60 kronor per person, and if it costs more than that the whole deduction falls away, not just the excess.

The julbord is a staff party with its own numbers

When you host your own staff it counts as intern representation, internal entertainment. You may deduct for at most two parties a year, and on the income side only for light refreshments, which a Christmas buffet rarely is.

VAT is more generous. You deduct VAT on a base of 300 kronor per person for food and drink, plus 180 kronor per person for surrounding costs such as venue rental, tables and chairs or music. A spouse, a cohabiting partner and children living at home can come along without it becoming a taxable benefit, as long as the event qualifies as internal entertainment.

If you are the only employee, the julbord is a grey area

A personalfest, a staff party, for one person is exactly as odd as it sounds. The rules describe a party for the staff, and Skatteverket’s guidance gives no clear answer for the single owner company. This one is genuinely unsettled, and it is not something to gloss over in the books.

My position: if you are the only employee, book the julbord without a VAT deduction, or ask Skatteverket before you claim it. If you and your partner both draw a salary from the company, you stand on much firmer ground and the normal staff party rules apply.

The Christmas gift stops at 600 kronor, then all of it is taxable

The julgåva, the Christmas gift to an employee, is tax free up to 600 kronor including VAT for income year 2026, against 550 kronor for 2025. Land on 640 kronor and the whole gift is taxable from the first krona, not just the 40 kronor above the limit.

Cash is never a tax free gift, and a gift card that can be converted into cash counts as cash. The company gets a deduction for the gift either way, but you only recover the VAT when the gift is tax free for the employee. The same rules allow 1,800 kronor for an anniversary gift at the company’s 25th, 50th, 75th or 100th year and 15,000 kronor for a long service gift.

A gift to a client runs on a separate track

Entertainment gifts give a VAT deduction on a base of at most 300 kronor excluding VAT per person, the standard example being flowers when a client celebrates an anniversary or opens a new office. A Christmas present to a client is harder, since gifts tied to holidays are normally not treated as deductible entertainment. Check that with Skatteverket before you book it as deductible.

While you are sitting with the October planning anyway, go through this year’s restaurant receipts and write on each one who you ate with, which company they come from and what the meeting was about. You need to be able to show the participants and the connection to your business, and it is far easier now than in March when you cannot recall who that lunch on 14 May was with.