Working grants and long-term grants

You must be a professional artist in the field of music, such as a musician, composer, music producer or conductor. Musicians can use any instrument, including bass, vocals, electronics or ouds. Music producer refers to a record producer who receives copyright royalties for musical production.
To be considered a professional artist, you must earn a living entirely or partly from your artistic activities and regularly present your art to an audience or in an artistic context.

You must be a resident in Sweden or practice most of your art here.
You can be a foreign citizen and apply for our stipends and grants, but you must be a resident in Sweden or primarily practice your art here. If you are a Swedish citizen but live abroad, you must be able to demonstrate that most of your artistic activity takes place in Sweden.

You must not be a student for more than 50 per cent of your time when an award decision is made.
This means being enrolled in any type of studies, from undergraduate studies to doctoral studies and post-graduate education. You can be studying when you submit your application, but when a decision is made you cannot be enrolled for more than 50 per cent for a course or programme.

You must not owe any unpaid Swedish taxes or fees to the Swedish Enforcement Authority or be declared bankrupt.
This means that you cannot owe a debt on your Swedish tax account that has been passed on to the enforcement authority. This does not apply to other types of debts or charges from public organisations or private companies.

You must not have received de minimis aid exceeding a total of 200,000 euros during the current and previous two years.
Stipends and grants from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee are subject to the provisions of the European Commission Regulation (EU) No 1407/2013 on state funding, also known as de minimis aid.

The application for a working grant and long-term grant is open once a year. See the application deadlines.

You apply by logging in to “My pages”.

In order to submit an application, you need to answer all the questions marked as mandatory in the form and attach work samples.

Applications must be submitted by 14.00 CET on the application deadline.

Work samples are mandatory
Choose a current audio sample that is representative of you both in terms of quality and repertoire. Examples of audio samples include a live recording, published material or another publicly presented work. It must contain a total of at least 20 minutes of music. Your audio sample must not be older than three years.

File format: mp3, with at least 320 kbps bitrate and 44.1 kHz sampling rate

Total length of audio files: at least 20 minutes

Compressed files should contain metadata information about:

• artist (group name)
• album (title published phonograms)
• song title
• genre
• year
• your role on the sound sample

Scores: Scores can be uploaded as a multi-page pdf files. Do you work with longer orchestral works, opera e.g. we accept fewer works than three. Be sure to embed all fonts used in the pdf file.

Restrictions scores: max number of files 3

The Swedish Arts Grants Committee determines the grant period
You cannot choose the type of working grant you want to apply for. Instead, the Arts Grants Committee decides the grant period to be awarded.

One-year working grants are typically awarded, but two- and five-year working grants are also available. Ten-year long-term grants can be awarded to major artists who have been practising for a long time.

If you have received a tax-exempt working grant two years in a row, you cannot be considered for a new tax-exempt grant. On the other hand, you can be awarded a five-year working grant or a long-term ten-year grant that is taxable.

•  A one-year working grant is for SEK 80,000 and is tax-exempt.
• A two-year working grant is for SEK 100,000/year and is tax-exempt.
• A five-year working grant is three price base amounts per year (currently SEK 171,900 per year) and is taxable.
• The long-term grant is three price base amounts per year (currently SEK 171,900 per year) and is taxable.

When we receive your application, we verify that you meet all the formal requirements. Members of the desicion-making group for music will then read your application. The members are practising artists or experts in the field of music. At least three people read each application. The decision is made by desicion-making group for music.

If a member has a conflict of interest in relation to an applicant, that member is forbidden from participating in the review process or award decision for that application.

How is your decision made?
We select grant recipients based on the quality of artistic activities and the applicant’s financial need. This means that we assess the quality of the work samples and reference material that you submit. At the same time, we make an assessment of your financial need. This can mean, for example, that we do not prioritise an applicant who has a high income or has recently received other grants or stipends.

In our selection, we aim to distribute the grants to artists in different parts of the country and across a variety of artistic expressions.

The grant amount is deposited into the private account stated in your application within six weeks of the award decision being announced. If you have been awarded a multi-year short- or long-term grant, the remaining payments will be made once a year.

Note: For long-term grants, you must sign a form certifying that you will continue to meet the grant terms and conditions before you can receive your payment.

One- and two-year working grants are not taxable.

Five-year working grants and ten-year long-term grants are taxable. Therefore, 30 per cent of the grant amount is deducted for preliminary taxes. The Swedish Arts Grants Committee also makes retirement pension contributions.

Working grants and long-term grants are not considered income that qualifies for sickness benefits.

Working grants and long-term grants do not need to be reported to us.