Requirements for benefits
To receive unemployment benefits, you must be registered at Arbetsförmedlingen, looking for and able to take a job. You must also fullfill income requirement.
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Old rules apply if you received a decision before October 1
If you received a decision before October 1, 2025 and still have benefit days left, you will continue to follow the old rules. Read about the old rules.
How to qualify for unemployment benefits
To be eligible for benefits, you must:
- Be at least 20 years old
- Be registered with the Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen)
- Be actively looking for work and able to take a job
- Fulfill an income requirement during the qualification period.
You fulfill the income requirement if you during the qualification period have earned:
- a total of at least 120,000 SEK
- at least 11,000 SEK in at least four separate months.
What does … mean?
Qualification period
The qualification period is the 12 months we look at to determine if you are eligible for benefits. It is usually 12 months before you applied for benefits. If you have not worked due to, for example, illness, parental leave, or full-time studies, we can look further back to see if you qualify.
If your total income is less than 120,000 SEK
If your total income is below 120,000 SEK, you might still fulfill the income requirement through an alternative rule. To qualify this way, you must have earned at least 11,000 SEK in four consecutive months during the qualification period.
If you fulfill the alternative rule, we will use a standard monthly income of 10,000 SEK to calculate your benefit, no matter how much you actually earned.
How long can I receive benefits?
The number of benefit days you get depends on how many months you earned at least 11,000 SEK:
- 11 months or more: 300 benefit days
- 8–10 months: 200 benefit days
- 4–7 months: 100 benefit days
If you qualify through the alternative rule, you will get 66 benefit days, regardless of how many months you earned 11,000 SEK.
All income registered with the Swedish Tax Agency counts
We get your income details directly from the Swedish Tax Agency, so all registered income is included in the income requirement. You can also include certain benefits from the Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan), like parental or sick pay. If you have been self-employed, we will look at the income you paid tax on in previous years.
We can look further back to see if you fulfill the income requirement
Sometimes we can include income from more than 12 months ago, for example if you have been studying full-time, on parental leave, or sick.
We can skip a month when both of these apply:
- You earned less than 11,000 SEK that month
- More than half the month was covered by something we can skip (like illness or parental leave)
But there are exceptions where we can skip a month regardless of your income or how much of the month qualifies to be excluded. In these cases, we will skip months if it gives you a higher benefit:
- You finished a full-time education.
- You ended your own business within 60 months from when you started it.
- You had a short-time work.
- You received student finance for transition and retraining part-time
How much can I get?
Your benefit depends on your previous income and how long you have been a member of an unemployment insurance fund:
- 80% of your previous income if you have been a member for at least 12 consecutive months
- 60% if you have been a member for 6–11 consecutive months
- 50% if you have been a member for 0–5 consecutive months
The highest income we can base your benefit on is 34,000 SEK. That means the maximum benefit is 80 percent of 34,000 SEK, which is 27,200 SEK. If you qualify through the alternative rule, we will use a standard income of 10,000 SEK to calculate your benefit.
If you are not a member of an unemployment fund
If you are not a member of Alfa-kassan or any other unemployment fund, you can get 50 percent of the income you had during the qualification period.
Income, illness, and other factors affect your benefit
If you are fully unemployed during the month, you will get benefits for 22 days. If you had income, were sick, on parental leave, or had other hindrances, your payment will be reduced. Even weekends count. For each day with an hindrance, we subtract 1/22 from the monthly amount you would have received if you were fully unemployed.
Your benefit decreases over time
No matter how much you get, your benefit will gradually decrease:
- After 100 benefit days, your benefit level drops by 10 percentage points
- After 200 benefit days, it drops by another 5 percentage points