Sweden's National Board for Consumer Disputes charges 150 kronor per application. Its pages, read on 17 September 2026, state the fee is not refunded even where the board decides not to examine the case, that an unpaid fee means no examination, and that a normal handling time is about six months.
Yes, 150 kronor. The board's fee page states Avgiften är 150 kronor per anmälan, and in the next line Avgiften återbetalas inte. ARN's English page puts the same thing as an application fee of 150 SEK, and adds that if you do not pay the fee, it will not handle your case. We read all of it on 17 September 2026.
The charge sits in law rather than in a price list. The fee page cites 20 a § förordning (2015:739), the instruction that governs Allmänna reklamationsnämnden, so it is not a service charge that can be argued away.
This is the part most English language writing about SAS and Norwegian claims gets wrong. Nordic escalation is described as free, and in some Nordic countries it is. In Sweden it is not. ARN's own answer to the question confirms the money is taken at the point of submission on the web form, and that a paper form gets you an order to pay instead.
Not from ARN itself. The consumer page states Avgiften betalas inte tillbaka även om vi beslutar att inte pröva ärendet, which is the sharp end of it. The fee is gone even where the board never reaches the merits. A claim under the value threshold, a claim filed outside the one year window, a claim against a company that has entered bankruptcy, any of those can be closed on formal grounds with your 150 kronor already spent.
There is one route back to the money and it is not automatic. The fee page states that on the applicant's request, the board may recommend that the trader reimburses the fee. You have to ask for it inside the application. And ARN's recommendations are not binding, per its English page.
Skipping the payment is not a strategy either. The consumer page is blunt about it, Betalar du inte avgiften, prövar vi inte ärendet. None of the three fee pages we read lists a hardship waiver or an exemption.
Four filters, all of them published. ARN's travel department page sets a value threshold of 1500 kronor for travel disputes generally, then carves out passenger rights cases and puts them at 750 kronor. The same page notes that the application fee is not counted towards the amount, so a 700 kronor claim plus the 150 kronor fee is still under the line.
The second filter is time, and ARN calls it ettårsregeln. The application has to reach the board within one year of the first time the consumer complained to the company. Not one year from the flight.
The third is jurisdiction, and it is the one the free ARN posts leave out. The English page states that ARN only handles claims subject to Swedish legislation, and that its inquiry is normally limited to contracts entered into in Sweden. A booking made on a UK site with a UK card is not an obvious fit.
Check the CAA's list first, because SAS is on it. The Civil Aviation Authority's alternative dispute resolution page names Scandinavian Airlines SAS among the airlines signed up to CEDR, alongside BA CityFlyer, British Airways and Cathay Pacific. The same page describes ADR as simple and free, says the written decision can take up to three months, and says the airline or airport is then required to follow it.
So for a SAS flight that touches the UK, there is already a route that costs nothing, binds the carrier and takes half the time. ARN matters for the flights that do not touch the UK, a Stockholm to Malaga cancellation on a Swedish booking being the obvious case. Work out which of the two you are in before you pay anything to anyone.
The UK route also has a longer memory. The CAA page states you can use ADR for issues that happened within the last six years, or five years if you live in Scotland, against ARN's one year from your first complaint.
| Body | What you pay | Time quoted | Binds the airline |
|---|---|---|---|
| ARN, Sweden | 150 kronor, not refunded | About six months | No, recommendations are not binding |
| CEDR via the CAA, UK | Free | Up to three months | Yes, the airline is required to follow it |
| Transportklagenemnda, Norway | No application fee on the passenger | Not published on the pages we read | Not stated on the pages we read |
There is no application fee on the passenger. Luftfartstilsynet, the Norwegian civil aviation authority, sends passengers to transportklagenemnda through Norsk reiselivsforum, and the funding sits on the industry side. Paragraph 8-1 of forskrift 2012-01-20-84 states that the costs of setting up and running the board are covered through cost based fees calculated separately for the transport sectors the scheme covers. Nothing in those fee provisions puts a charge on the person complaining.
That is the whole reason to read the country before you read the airline. Same carrier, same delay, and one border decides whether escalation costs 150 kronor or nothing. Luftfartstilsynet's page also notes that every airline flying passengers in, to or from Norway falls under the board, along with airport operators, travel agencies and package organisers.
Against the amounts in play, yes. Article 7 of Regulation 261/2004 sets compensation at 250 euro for flights of 1500 kilometres or less, 400 euro for the middle band and 600 euro for the longest, as the EU's own air passenger rights page sets out, and our EU261 guide has the conditions attached to each band. The fee is a rounding error on a successful claim.
The cost is not the 150 kronor. It is the six months ARN's consumer page quotes as a normal handling time, with no priority available, and it is the chance of spending both and getting a recommendation the airline is free to ignore. If the carrier has refused you in writing and the flight touched the UK, take the free binding route instead. If it did not, you are choosing between ARN, a claims company that takes a percentage, and a court.
We publish what the claims companies take in what Compensair takes out of your compensation, so the comparison is on the table before you sign anything.
Check your flight with CompensairOur partner works on a percentage of what it recovers, so weigh that against 150 kronor and six months of your own admin.Tracked on mobile web only, the page works on desktop too.
Six checks, in this order. Each one is a reason ARN can close the file with the fee already taken.
Keep your own paperwork through all of it. Airlines reject reconstructions, which is the point of Jet2 rejects bank statements as receipts, and an insurer will net off whatever the airline already paid, covered in what an insurer deducts and in our travel insurance guide. How we date every figure on this page is set out in our methodology.
No. ARN charges 150 kronor per application. The fee page reads Avgiften är 150 kronor per anmälan, and the English page states that if you do not pay the fee, the board will not handle your case. Read 17 September 2026. Norway's transport board, by contrast, is funded by the transport sectors rather than by an application fee on the passenger.
Not automatically. The consumer page states the fee is not repaid even where ARN decides not to examine the case. The fee page says the board may, on the applicant's request, recommend that the trader reimburses it, so you have to ask inside the application. Recommendations are not binding, so the airline can decline that too. Read 17 September 2026.
About six months. ARN's consumer page states that a normal handling time is roughly six months and that priority cannot be obtained, and the English page repeats it as about six months from the claim to a decision. The CAA's own page says the UK ADR decision can take up to three months. Read 17 September 2026.
No. ARN's English page states that the board submits recommendations on how disputes should be resolved, that those recommendations are not binding, and that the majority of companies follow them anyway. That is the structural difference from the UK route, where the CAA's page says the airline or airport is required to follow the adjudicator's decision. Read 17 September 2026.
750 kronor for claims under the EU passenger rights regulations, per ARN's travel department page, against 1500 kronor for travel disputes generally. The same page states that the application fee is not counted towards the amount, so the claim itself has to clear the line. ARN can still take a case below it where the dispute raises a point of principle.
Check the CAA list first. The Civil Aviation Authority names Scandinavian Airlines SAS under CEDR, which is free, takes up to three months, and produces a decision the airline is required to follow. ARN's English page also states that it only handles claims subject to Swedish legislation and is normally limited to contracts entered into in Sweden. Read 17 September 2026.