Restaurant personnel registers in Sweden: rules and routines

A personnel register should show who is actually working in the business. It needs to function during lunch preparation, service and closing. A completed rota shows planned staffing, not who is present.

Establish whether the business is covered

Restaurant operations normally fall within personnel-register requirements, including businesses such as cafés, street-food outlets and catering. The rules form part of Sweden’s tax-procedure framework; see the Swedish Tax Agency’s restaurant guidance.

Some businesses are exempt when only the proprietor or business leader, their spouse and children under 16 work there. Under the stated conditions, this can also apply to closely held companies and partnerships. Mixed activities have separate rules. Assess your setup against the guidance and review it when staffing or activities change.

Record the right people at the right time

The register needs identifying information for the business and workers, plus the start and end of work periods. Record times as work starts and ends, rather than copying a weekly rota afterwards. See the required information.

Being active in the business is broader than being employed by it. Agency workers, unpaid helpers and many trainees can need recording. An outside service technician temporarily carrying out their own company’s work is a different situation. The agency also distinguishes upper-secondary trainees from compulsory-school work-experience pupils in its guidance on who must be recorded.

Include people working a single shift in induction. Make sure their details and method of registration are ready before they start.

Choose paper or electronic format

A manual register must be bound, have pre-numbered pages and use permanent writing. Loose sheets and ordinary spiral notebooks are unsuitable. Electronic registers need traceable events and changes, with older information available for review. The agency’s guidance sets out the requirements.

Digital tools can make recording, searching and access easier. Staff still need to register, and managers must handle missing or incorrect entries. Test how a correction records who made it, when and why. Do not overwrite history to make it match the rota.

Make inspection access practical

Decide who can show the register when the owner is absent. Test access from the premises, including for the evening supervisor. A login known only to the owner is unhelpful during another shift.

The agency can charge a control fee if the register is missing, incorrectly maintained or unavailable. Its guidance states SEK 12,500 plus SEK 2,500 for each active person not recorded. See the inspection and retention guidance, which also explains retention based on the end of the tax year. Include retention in system changes and staff-departure routines.

Separate the register, timesheet and payroll

A payroll period may need correction after a missed clocking event is investigated. That does not justify erasing the personnel register’s event history. Document what happened and have the payroll manager approve the records used for payment.

Vendion Personal brings personnel registers, schedules and time reporting together. Walk through registration, corrections, inspection access and export in a demo. Finish by having the next evening supervisor demonstrate the process themselves.

Regulatory information checked on 13 September 2026.