Sweden Paperless

The requirements for the storage of accounting information are set out in Chapter 7 of the Swedish Tax Act. According to this Act, documents with accounting information (such as receipts) should be durable and easily accessible. They must be kept up to and including the seventh year after the end of the calendar year in which the financial year ended.

Before 1 July 2024, accounting information received in paper form could be transferred to electronic form by photographing or scanning. However, the received document (paper document) could only be destroyed from the fourth year after the end of the calendar year in which the financial year ended.

The Receipt Act (kvittolagen), effective from July 1, 2024, introduce significant changes to the requirements for storing accounting information.

Businesses are now permitted to discard paper receipts and invoices immediately after they have been digitised. The previous requirement to retain the original paper documents has been abolished, making digital versions alone sufficient for compliance, as long as the digital copies are secure and unalterable.

Retroactive application

In September, the Accounting Board will issue guidance on whether the law should be retroactive or only apply from July 1 onwards. Therefore, continue to follow the law in force at the time and save your previous paper receipts until a decision has been made.

Storage outside Sweden

These documents in principle must be stored in Sweden. A company may however store machine-readable media and keep machine equipment and systems available in another country within the European Union if:

• the place of storage and any change to this place is notified to the Tax Agency or, in the case of companies that are under the supervision of the Financial Supervisory Authority, to the Financial Supervisory Authority;
• the company, at the request of the Swedish Tax Agency or the Customs Agency, allows immediate electronic access to the accounting information for control purposes during the archiving period;
• the company can, by immediate printing, produce the accounting information in Sweden in paper.