Mileage and per diem 2026: rates and how to book them

You drive your own car to a client in Gothenburg, stay the night and come home the next evening. Your company can pay you for the mileage and the extra living costs without any tax or employer contributions at all, as long as you stay within the standard rates and can show the trip actually happened. As the owner of your aktiebolag (limited company) you are an employee of the company, so the same rules apply to you as to anyone else on the payroll.

The rates for 2026

For 2026 the tax-free milersättning (mileage allowance) for your own car is 25 kronor per mil, which is 10 kilometres. A company car you pay for fuel in yourself gives 12 kronor per mil, and a fully electric company car gives 9.50 kronor per mil, according to Skatteverket’s amounts for 2026.

The standard traktamente (per diem) for trips within Sweden is 300 kronor per full day and 150 kronor per half day. If you sleep somewhere the company doesn’t pay for, say with a friend, you can also get a night allowance of 150 kronor. After three months in the same place the full day drops to 210 kronor, and after two years to 150 kronor, per Skatteverket’s employer page on per diem. Trips abroad use a separate set of standard amounts per country, which you’ll find in Skatteverket’s brochure SKV 354.

Per diem requires an overnight stay

This is where most small business owners go wrong. Tax-free per diem only applies when the business trip includes an overnight stay more than 50 kilometres from both your normal place of work and your home. A day trip to Uppsala gives you mileage, but no tax-free per diem, however long the day was. If the company pays you per diem for a day trip anyway, that money is salary.

The departure day counts as a full day if you leave before 12:00, and the return day counts as a full day if you get back after 19:00. Otherwise it is a half day. Keep the actual times, because they are what decides the amount.

Free meals reduce the amount

If the company pays for your meals, or if breakfast is included in the hotel price, the per diem is reduced. For a domestic full day of 300 kronor the reduction is 60 kronor for breakfast, 105 kronor for lunch or dinner, 210 kronor for lunch and dinner, and 270 kronor if all three meals were free, according to Skatteverket. Hotel breakfast is the one that gets forgotten most often.

A worked example

You leave Stockholm at 07:00 on Tuesday, drive to Gothenburg, stay at a hotel the company pays with its card, and get home at 20:00 on Wednesday. You drive 94 mil in total. Breakfast is included in the hotel price.

Per diem: two full days, since you left before 12:00 and came home after 19:00. That gives 2 × 300 = 600 kronor, minus 60 kronor for breakfast on Wednesday, so 540 kronor. Mileage: 94 × 25 = 2,350 kronor. In total the company pays you 2,890 kronor tax-free.

In the books, using the standard Swedish chart of accounts (BAS), you debit 7321 Tax-free per diem, Sweden, with 540 kronor and 7331 Tax-free car allowances with 2,350 kronor, and credit the bank account 1930 with 2,890 kronor when you pay. There is no VAT on mileage or per diem. The hotel bill is booked separately as accommodation, with deductible VAT, because the company paid it directly.

Paying more than the standard rate

You can pay more than 25 kronor per mil or 300 kronor per day, but the excess is then salary. It is subject to preliminary tax and employer contributions, and it goes in accounts 7332 and 7322, which are the taxable equivalents. Paying less than the standard rate is always fine and remains tax-free.

Paperwork and reporting

The company needs documentation for every trip. Skatteverket asks for this:

• who travelled, with personal identity number and home address
• the address of the normal workplace
• the date and time the trip started and ended
• the purpose of the trip and where you went
• the number of kilometres driven, if you claim mileage
• whether any meals were free

A simple reseräkning (travel expense report) per trip, signed and stored with the voucher, is enough. A round monthly lump sum labelled as per diem doesn’t hold up in an audit.

In the arbetsgivardeklaration (employer declaration) for the month you pay, you don’t report the tax-free amounts themselves. You only tick box 050 for car allowance and box 051 for per diem on your own individual line, according to Skatteverket.

One thing to check before you start: if your normal place of work is your home office, the 50 kilometre limit is measured from there. If you are unsure where your normal place of work is, for instance because you work at a client’s premises most of the week, sort that out first, because it determines whether you are entitled to per diem at all.