Unemployment insurance

Freelance artists who are not permanently employed often struggle to receive unemployment insurance because they have short periods of employment, several clients, self-employed or a combination of these. When you are between jobs and assignments, you can receive compensation from unemployment insurance. You apply for the benefit from your unemployment insurance fund (A-kassan) or Alfakassan.

Register with the Swedish Public Employment Service

To be considered a jobseeker and be entitled to benefits, you must be unemployed and registered as a jobseeker with the Swedish Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen). If you are not a member of an unemployment insurance fund, you can still receive so-called basic compensation. However, it is low, which is why it is important that you are a member of an unemployment insurance fund.

Note: In order to receive unemployment benefits, you must register as a jobseeker with the Swedish Public Employment Service. Register on your first day of unemployment, because you cannot do it retroactively.

Your unemployment insurance fund will help you

The task of the unemployment insurance funds is to administer unemployment insurance and pay unemployment benefits. Contact your unemployment insurance fund for more information and how you can calculate the level of your unemployment benefits. Several unemployment insurance funds have sections for the self-employed. The fund investigates, determines and pays out your unemployment benefits.

You need to meet various requirements

To be considered a jobseeker and be entitled to compensation under the Swedish Unemployment Insurance Act, you must meet the following requirements:

• Be at least 20 years old
• Be unemployed and registered as a jobseeker with the Swedish Public Employment Service
• Be fit for work and be available to work for at least three hours a day and an average of at least 17 hours per week
• Be actively looking for a job
• Give input for creating an individual action plan in consultation with the employment service
• Be prepared to take a suitable job that the employment service offers you.

Do you meet the eligibility period requirement?

You must meet an eligibility period requirement to qualify for receiving compensation from the unemployment insurance fund. This means that you must have worked for a certain amount of time before you became unemployed. The eligibility period is normally the preceding 12 months before you registered with the Public Employment Service.

You meet this requirement if you have worked:

• At least 60 hours per calendar month during six of the previous 12 months, or
• At least 40 hours per calendar month and 420 hours in total over a continuous period of six months during the preceding 12 months.

Note: If you are employed by different employers and have several short-term contracts, or if you use a billing service company, you can be considered an independent contractor and not an employee.

Alternative calculation for professional artists

Since the time you worked in conjunction with preparations and rehearsals is not always stated in an employer’s certificate or temporary assignment contract, there are special rules for unemployment insurance. This applies primarily to artists who have performed artistic work as musicians, singers, actors or other artistic work.

The standardised hourly wage amount for artistic work is determined each year by the Swedish Unemployment Insurance Inspectorate (Inspektion för arbetslöshetsförsäkringen or IAF) at the request of one of the unemployment funds whose area of activity includes artistic work.

Time that can be skipped

Sometimes the time before unemployment can consist of something other than work. In some cases, such time is considered an exception to the eligibility period requirement and can be skipped. So, the eligibility period might extend beyond the past 12 months.

Examples include time when you received a sickness benefit or parental benefit, or studied full-time.

Membership condition

To receive compensation based on income, you must have been a member for 12 months or more. If you were a member for a shorter period of time, you can receive a lower amount based on your work hours.

Basic compensation

If you are not a member of an unemployment insurance fund or have been a member for less than a year, you can receive basic compensation. Read more about basic compensation here.

Unemployment insurance and sole trader

If you have had your own business as your main occupation, you must be considered as unemployed from an insurance perspective before you can receive unemployment benefits. You do this when you and anyone else in the company is no longer active in the company. You yourself must certify the date from when there is no longer any activity in the company.

You can take a break in the company and receive unemployment benefits after you certify that there is no longer any activity.

You are considered completely inactive in the company when you meet these criteria:

• Do not own your share in the company and are no longer registered for F-tax and VAT.
• Do not work in the company.
• Do not have significant influence over the company.

Rules for making your company dormant

When your business is dormant, you cannot have any ongoing sales of goods or services or be working on quotes or other assignment preparations. If you do so, the unemployment insurance fund will consider that you have resumed your activities. In that case, you must put the business on hold again to be able to receive unemployment benefits again.

Parliament has decided that the temporary rules introduced during the pandemic for the temporary suspension of operations for people with their own business will apply until further notice. This is an exception to the previous rule that you needed to have worked for the company for at least five years before you could receive compensation from the unemployment insurance fund if your company was made dormant again.

Combining a company and unemployment insurance

If you run a business alongside a full-time job

If you were running a business alongside having a full-time job, you can, under certain conditions, continue running your company if you lose your job when you apply for unemployment benefits. A decision can then be made that it is an approved extra job.

For this to be possible, you must have fulfilled both of the following conditions:

• You had a full-time job while simultaneously working in your company for at least twelve months.
• You showed that the company does not prevent you from taking a full-time job.

If you earned more than SEK 3,060 on average per week in your company, a deduction will be made of the excess amount from the daily compensation you receive.

If you run a business alongside a part-time job

If you were running your own business alongside working part-time, you can, under certain conditions, continue running your company if you lose your job. A decision can then be made that it is an approved part-time job.

For this to be possible, you must have fulfilled all of the following conditions:

• You worked in your company for a maximum of 10 hours per week.
• You had a part-time job in which you worked an average of at least 17 hours per week.
• You had your company and a part-time job for at least six months before becoming unemployed.
• You did not earn more than SEK 3,600 on average per week in your company.