Specifics regarding restaurant and catering services in Sweden

No, sales of restaurant and catering services that take place via an app on the customer's smartphone by a customer sitting in the restaurant cannot be considered sales through distance contracts. All such sales must therefore be registered in the restaurant's cash register, and the customer must be offered a receipt from the cash register. In other words, fiscalization must be applied, with all predefined requirements.

We can find the background in different acts where the Tax Procedures Act (SFL) is important. A distance agreement is an agreement that is entered into within the framework of a system organised by the trader for reaching agreements at a distance, if the communication takes place exclusively at a distance.

What characterises a restaurant operation is that it consists of a varying number of different services, several of which take place before a possible agreement is entered into, such as the provision of premises, furniture and crockery, table placement, table setting, removal, order management, etc., which have the purpose of enhancing the customer experience as well as enabling immediate consumption on the spot of ordered food and drink. In a restaurant operation, the delivery of the food is only a part, and other services form the predominant part.

Considering what a restaurant and catering service includes for various elements and actions, it is the opinion of the Swedish Tax Agency that such services cannot constitute sales through distance contracts.