Reimbursement for service and membership fees

• Membership fees
• Service fees

If you want to join a professional or trade association or any other type of association, you may be entitled to be reimbursed for the membership and service fees. 

Membership fees

According to the Swedish Tax Agency, membership fees are taxable even if membership is fully linked to your employment as it is considered a personal living expense. Therefore, Lund University has a restrictive approach to reimbursing employees for personal membership fees for various professional and trade associations or other associations. 

For reimbursement to be made, there must be a clear link to the content of your work as part of your employment. Each organisation must therefore make an assessment on a case-by-case basis. If your manager decides that there are grounds to reimburse your membership fees, it will always be treated as a taxable benefit. 

Check with your manager and register it in Primula

If your manager has informed you that the University is willing to pay your membership fee, you must register the expense in Primula (invoices for personal memberships are not processed in Lupin/Proceedo). 

It is important that you choose “Member fee, taxable” from the list of various expenses when you register your expense on the travel expenses form in Primula. That way, tax is deducted automatically and the benefit does not need to be registered separately.

If you have any questions, contact SSC or your immediate HR official.

• Log into the SSC Portal

Service fees

Service fees defined separately from the membership fee are not treated as a membership fee by the Swedish Tax Agency. Where the services included in the service fee are essential to your work, the service fee is a tax-free benefit for you as an employee and can be paid by the University. 

The recommendation is that service fees should be invoiced to Lund University.

Check with your manager 

If your manager has informed you that the University considers the services included in the service fee to be essential to your work, you must notify the service provider of the correct invoice address for Lund University. If you are unsure of the invoice address, ask your line manager.