Your Hire Landed. Why Can't You Pay Them Yet?

The offer is signed, the permit granted, the flight landed. Then payroll asks for a personnummer and a Swedish account, and the new hire has neither. The first weeks in Sweden are a chain where each link waits on the one before. Knowing the chain is how HR shortens it.

The chain

1. Registration. For a stay of a year or more, the hire reports the move to Skatteverket (the e-service opens 14 days before the move) and goes to a state service centre for the identity check after arriving. Skatteverket: Moving to Sweden
2. Personnummer. The decision comes by post, after the registration.
3. ID card. Applied for with the personnummer (at the Police from 1 December 2026); each bank decides which ID documents it accepts for BankID.
4. Bank account and BankID. Consumers resident in the EEA have the right to a payment account with basic features, after the bank has checked their identity. Finansinspektionen: the right to a payment account

For stays under a year the chain is shorter: a coordination number the hire applies for, then a basic account. Skatteverket: Coordination numbers

Where it stalls

• The move is reported late because nobody said it can start before the flight.
• No booked identity check, or the family goes on different days.
• The personnummer letter arrives and nobody tells payroll.
• One bank meeting, weeks away.

What HR can do

• Send the pre-move list two weeks before the start date.
• Ask for the personnummer the day it arrives.
• Watch the chain as one date, and act on the link that stalls.

How Settio shows the date you can pay them

Settio turns the arrival chain into one ready-for-payroll date on the person page: amber when it falls after the start date, red when a step stalls, with the step that holds it up one click away. The employee ticks the steps in the employee portal, adds the personnummer as they tick it, and you get a notice. See Settio after arrival or book a demo.

Sources

3 official sources

• Skatteverket: Moving to Sweden
• Skatteverket: Coordination numbers
• Finansinspektionen: the right to a payment account (in Swedish)