RUT is a Swedish tax reduction that cuts the labour cost of household cleaning in half for private customers. You invoice the customer for their share, then claim the rest from Skatteverket. Handled well, it's the strongest sales argument in domestic cleaning; handled badly, it's a monthly paperwork tax on your own time.
What is the RUT deduction?
RUT (rengöring, underhåll och tvätt) is a tax reduction private individuals in Sweden get for household services carried out in their home. For cleaning work it covers half the labour cost, and you claim it, not the customer: they pay the reduced amount, and you ask Skatteverket for the difference.
The reduction applies to labour only. Materials, equipment and travel are never deductible, so a quote that lumps everything into one line makes your customer's benefit smaller than it needs to be. Each customer also has an annual ceiling, and it's shared with anyone else doing RUT work for them that year, so the same claim can go through in full for one household and come back cut for another.
Which cleaning work qualifies?
Ordinary and periodic cleaning in the customer's home qualifies, along with window cleaning, laundry done at the home and moving cleans when someone leaves a property. The work has to be done in or in direct connection with a home the customer owns or rents — cleaning a company's premises never qualifies, even if the company is run from a spare room.
The customer must also have paid enough tax that year to use the reduction. That's their business, not yours, but it's worth a sentence in your terms: if the claim is reduced because their allowance is spent, the difference falls back to them.
How do you invoice RUT, step by step?
Quote the price both ways — before and after RUT — so the customer sees what they will actually pay. Invoice them for their share, split so the deductible labour is separate from any materials. When the invoice is paid, send the begäran (request) to Skatteverket for the remainder, then reconcile their decision against the invoice it came from.
The reconciliation is the step small companies underestimate. Decisions arrive per customer and rarely match the request line for line, so without something keeping score you end up with a spreadsheet, a stack of decisions and a month you can't close.
What if Skatteverket turns part of a claim down?
It happens most often because the customer's annual allowance is already used, sometimes because the work was not eligible. Either way, you have delivered work you have only been half paid for, and you need to invoice the customer the shortfall.
Say so in your agreement before it happens. A line stating that a rejected deduction is invoiced to the customer turns an awkward conversation into an expected one — and it's far easier to raise the top-up invoice when the system already knows exactly which lines were refused.
The short version
- RUT covers half the labour cost of household cleaning — never materials or travel
- The customer pays their reduced share; you claim the rest from Skatteverket
- Every customer has an annual ceiling, shared across all their RUT purchases
- Agree up front, in writing, who pays a shortfall when a claim is reduced
FAQ
Can a company customer use RUT?
No. RUT is a reduction for private individuals on work carried out in their home. Offices, stairwells and other commercial premises are billed the normal way, so most cleaning companies run both kinds of contract side by side.
When do you get the money from Skatteverket?
After the customer has paid their share and you have sent your request. Payment normally arrives within a few weeks, which is worth planning for: the second half of your revenue on household work always lands later than the first.
What happens if a customer's RUT allowance is used up?
Skatteverket reduces or rejects the claim, and the unpaid part becomes an invoice to the customer. Agreeing that in the contract before the first visit is what keeps it from becoming a dispute.
SweepOS applies the deduction on the invoice, produces the Skatteverket request file, imports the decision and prepares any top-up invoice for you — so RUT stays the reason customers say yes, not the reason your month-end runs late.