Parental leave for high earners
This guide covers you if you earn more than the SGI cap, which sits around 49,333 SEK/month before tax. Above that level, Försäkringskassan stops scaling your parental benefit, no matter how much more you earn. The daily benefit is the same whether you make 50,000 or 100,000 SEK/month.
Concretely, the maximum payout from Försäkringskassan lands around 37,800 SEK/month gross when claiming every calendar day (seven days a week). For most high earners that's a meaningful drop from regular salary. The collective-agreement top-up is what mainly lifts compensation back toward salary level, so it's the most important thing to check ahead of leave.
Where the cap sits
The SGI cap is ten times the prisbasbelopp, which for 2026 is 592,000 SEK/year (10 × 59,200). That's the equivalent of 49,333 SEK/month before tax. Salary above that amount still appears on your pay slip but isn't counted when Försäkringskassan sets your SGI.
What you actually get
Parental benefit is 77.6 % of SGI per day, which at the cap works out to about 1,259 SEK per claim day. Claiming every calendar day (seven days a week), that's roughly 37,800 SEK/month gross. Whether you earn 60,000 or 100,000 SEK/month doesn't change the Försäkringskassan payout. The gap between regular salary and what Försäkringskassan pays is largest for those farthest above the cap.
What you can do about it
There are two main ways to narrow the gap. For employees, the collective-agreement top-up is the lever: a common white-collar pattern is around 10 % of salary below the cap and up to 90 % above, though the exact figures vary by agreement. For limited-company (AB) owners, it comes down to how you've split salary vs dividends in the months that drive SGI. Both routes need to be planned ahead of leave to have time to take effect.
Frequently asked questions
The SGI cap is 592,000 SEK/year, or about 49,333 SEK/month before tax. It's calculated as ten times the prisbasbelopp (59,200 SEK for 2026) and is adjusted annually. Salary above the cap still appears on your pay slip but produces no additional parental benefit from Försäkringskassan.
Not for Försäkringskassan. The parental benefit is the same as long as both salaries are above the cap. What differs is the size of the gap between regular salary and parental benefit, and how much a collective-agreement top-up can fill it in.
Recurring allowances like OB count, and bonuses can count if they're regular. But none of it helps once you're above the cap, because the cap is what limits the maximum payout, not how much of the salary is fixed vs variable.
It varies by agreement, but a common pattern is around 10 % of salary below the cap and up to 90 % of salary above it, for a limited period (often six months). For high earners that's typically the single biggest factor in actual compensation during leave. Check with HR for what your specific agreement offers before planning your leave.
If you're already above the cap, a salary increase has no effect on the Försäkringskassan benefit. It can still affect the collective-agreement top-up, since that's calculated on salary rather than SGI. For AB owners, the raise also has to be genuine and actually paid out in time, or Försäkringskassan can challenge the SGI basis.