Sick Pay and the Qualifying Deduction

Sick leave is the most calculation-heavy item in payroll data, and the one that most often leads to questions from staff. This article explains exactly how Vendion calculates, so you can answer them.

The rules follow the Swedish Sick Pay Act and the Gröna riksavtalet agreement (Visita–HRF). If anything is unclear for your specific situation, check with your accountant.

What happens when someone reports sick

A sick note is approved instantly and never enters an approval queue. Nobody asks permission to fall ill.

From that moment Vendion calculates three things automatically:

1. The absence deduction — the pay for the hours the person did not work
2. The qualifying deduction — the initial part of the absence that earns no sick pay
3. Sick pay — 80 % of what the person lost

All three appear as separate items in payroll data, and day by day if you click the row.

The qualifying deduction is hours, not a day

This is the most common misunderstanding, and it costs money if you get it wrong.

The qualifying deduction is a period in hours equal to 20 % of the person's average weekly working time. Someone who normally works 40 hours a week therefore has an 8-hour qualifying period; someone working 20 hours has 4.

Three things follow from that:

• Weekly working time is measured on actual worked history, not on the employment rate in the contract. In restaurants nearly everyone is registered at 100 % while actual weekly hours vary widely — hence the measured figure.
• The qualifying period sits at the start of the absence and is taken from the first sick pay actually paid.
• The deduction can never exceed the sick pay. Because it follows the hours, it cannot take more hours than the person was absent.

The deduction is calculated as consumed qualifying hours times the hourly rate times 80 % — the same level as sick pay, since it is sick pay that is being reduced.

A long shift can absorb the whole qualifying period. A short shift means the qualifying period carries into the next sick day until the hours are used up.

Sick pay on days 1–14 — and what happens next

The employer pays sick pay at 80 % during the sick pay period, which is 14 calendar days counted from the first day of the sick case.

Calendar days, not scheduled days. A part-timer working three days a week is therefore not on employer-paid sick leave deep into week five — the fourteen days run regardless of how many of them were working days.

Sick pay is calculated on the person's actual scheduled hours for the day, not on a flat eight-hour day. That means a twelve-hour shift and a four-hour shift each produce the right amount.

Day 15 and beyond. From day 15 of the sick case, Försäkringskassan takes over. Vendion does not calculate sick pay for those days but reports them as a separate item — so you can see how many days have moved on, and avoid paying them yourself by mistake.

Unsocial hours pay is included in sick pay

Someone who would have worked an evening or a weekend loses not only base pay but the unsocial hours supplement too. Sick pay therefore covers 80 % of the supplement that was lost on the days sick pay is paid.

The amount is already inside the sick pay — do not add them together. It is reported separately so you can see where the sick pay comes from.

One detail that matters in practice: since no sick pay at all is paid during the qualifying period, the lost supplement is read on the shift minus its first qualifying hours. The qualifying period eats the start of the shift. On an evening shift from 16:00 to 24:00 with two qualifying hours, the supplement from 20:00 remains — the cheapest hours fall away, not the most expensive.

The break is distributed proportionally across the shortened shift, since a break has a length but no clock time.

Relapse within five days

If someone falls ill again within five calendar days of a previous sick period ending, it counts as the same sick case.

The consequence is that there is no new qualifying deduction, and the fourteen-day count continues where it left off instead of restarting. Sick cases spanning a month boundary are held together the same way — the period is not broken just because the calendar is.

The cap: ten qualifying occasions per twelve months

The Sick Pay Act limits the number of qualifying deductions to ten in a twelve-month period. Vendion counts occasions per sick case, not per absence row, and stops deducting once the cap is reached.

An occasion is only consumed if the qualifying period could actually be placed on sick pay that was paid. If there is no sick pay in that period, the occasion is not consumed.

Checking a single sick period

1. Go to Personal ▸ Löner (Staff ▸ Payroll) and select the month
2. Click the employee's row for the day-by-day view
3. Compare the items Sjukdagar, Sjuklön, Karensavdrag and Frånvaroavdrag
4. If the sick case is longer than fourteen days, check that the days after day 14 sit as Försäkringskassan days

If something looks unreasonable, the most common cause is the wrong absence type — for example a sick note that was really childcare leave. Change the type on the absence and the period is recalculated.