What the BIK setting does to cost and payroll

How turning BIK on or off changes social fees, reimbursement, and salary deductions for a benefit category or benefit.

BIK (benefit in kind, or förmån in Swedish) is the setting that decides whether a benefit is treated as a taxable benefit. You set it per category with the BIK (Benefit in Kind) switch on the Benefit settings page, and a single benefit can have its own BIK in the BIK column of the category's benefits list. This article explains what flips when you turn it on or off: the employer social fee, how much of a cost fits in an employee's benefit allowance, what gets reimbursed, and what gets deducted from salary. These are Sweden tax rules; the linked docs are the canonical source.

When BIK is off (tax-free)

With BIK off, the benefit is tax-free, so no employer social fee applies. The cost is a simple split:

• The employee's benefit allowance covers as much of the cost as it can.
• There is no förmånsvärde (benefit value) to report and no social fee.

What happens to anything the allowance cannot cover depends on how the employee got the benefit, which is covered below.

When BIK is on (taxable)

With BIK on, the benefit is taxable. A 31.42% employer social fee applies to the portion paid from the benefit allowance, and CLVR builds that fee into the allowance deduction so the company stays net-zero:

• For every kr of benefit value drawn from the allowance, the allowance is also charged the 31.42% social fee. That means less benefit value fits in the same allowance than with BIK off.
• The benefit value (not the fee) is registered as the employee's förmånsvärde and is benefit-taxed on their next payroll, according to their tax table.
• The social fee is remitted to Skatteverket. It is not paid to the employee and never appears as its own payroll row.

When an employee submits an expense in a BIK category, they see a notice that they will be benefit-taxed on the next payroll after the report is approved.

Receipts vs Benefit Store: where the uncovered amount goes

The same BIK math applies whether the employee uploaded a receipt or ordered through the Benefit Store. The only difference is what happens to the amount the allowance could not cover:

• Uploaded receipts. The employee already paid out of pocket. Anything above what the allowance can cover (after reserving the social fee, if BIK is on) is not reimbursed. It is the employee's loss, not a salary deduction. In the employee's view this shows as Reimbursement and Not reimbursed.
• Benefit Store purchases. CLVR or the provider fronted the cost, so the uncovered remainder is deducted from the employee's salary to recover it. This applies whether BIK is on or off.

Tax-free thresholds (for example wellness)

Some categories carry an annual tax-free threshold, such as wellness (friskvård) up to 5,000 kr per year. The threshold is tracked cumulatively per employee, per category, per year, and resets on the company's allowance reset date. When BIK is on:

• Amounts within the remaining tax-free threshold incur no social fee.
• Only the amount beyond the threshold incurs the 31.42% social fee.

When BIK is off, no social fee applies at all, so the threshold simply caps the tax-free benefit and any overshoot on a receipt is the employee's loss.

Salary sacrifice to pension is a special case

Salary sacrifice to pension is never BIK. Its BIK column shows No and can't be changed, so you do not configure it. When paid from the benefit allowance it uses a reduced 24.26% social fee instead of 31.42%.

Where you set it

• Uploaded receipts: the BIK (Benefit in Kind) switch under Payroll & tax on the Upload expense report tab. Receipts uploaded in the category follow it.
• Benefit Store purchases: the BIK switch under Defaults for all benefits on the Benefit Store tab. It is the default for the category's benefits.
• One benefit: the BIK column in the benefits list on the Benefit Store tab. Default (Yes) or Default (No) follows the Benefit Store default. Pick Yes or No to give one benefit its own BIK.

The two category switches are separate: a category can be BIK for uploaded receipts and tax-free in the Benefit Store, or the other way round. When you turn the Benefit Store default on or off, every benefit that was on the default follows. A benefit with its own BIK keeps it.

Whether a category is BIK is a per-company choice, not a fixed property of the category. The same category can be BIK at one company and tax-free at another. Select Save changes for the change to take effect. It applies to new uploads and new Benefit Store purchases.