As of 20 October 2026. The rules have been checked against the legal text on riksdagen.se, the guidance of the Swedish Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket), EUR-Lex and Google’s help centres. The sources are listed at the end. This is a summary, not legal advice.

Black Friday falls on Friday 27 November 2026, and Cyber Monday on Monday 30 November. That leaves five weeks. This is our Black Friday check: what a shop, an online store or a local service business in Sweden needs to have ready week by week, from week 44 to week 48, and which rules apply this year. Swedish businesses usually plan in ISO week numbers, so we use them here too.

What should be ready before Black Friday 2026?

Prices, the campaign page and the rules first, then the Google profile and the emails. According to our reading of Google Trends, searches for “black friday” in Sweden reached half their peak around week 46 last season and peaked in week 48. Google says crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. In our assessment, a campaign page published in week 47 risks arriving too late.

WeekDatesWhat you do
4426 Oct–1 NovDecide whether to take part, with which products and on which dates. Save the lowest price of the last 30 days for each product. Check the withdrawal function and remove generic environmental claims.
452–8 NovPublish the campaign page and request indexing in Search Console. Check stock, delivery dates before Christmas and the terms for gift cards.
469–15 NovAdd special hours to your Google profile for Black Friday and Christmas. Schedule an offer post. Check the Automated promotions feature in Google Ads. Tell your email list when the campaign starts.
4716–22 NovFinal check: the same price on the website, on Google, in social channels and in the email. Test the checkout and the withdrawal function. Plan staffing and bookable appointments.
4823–29 NovThe campaign goes live. Answer questions in every channel. Remove the campaign text everywhere when the campaign ends, including after Cyber Monday on 30 November.

The order matters more than the details: the right prices and a published page first, the profile and the emails second.

Week-by-week timeline for Black Friday 2026: in week 44, decide on products and dates, save 30-day prices and check the withdrawal function; in week 45, publish the campaign page with dates, total price, delivery and returns; in week 46, add special hours and an offer post to the Google profile and check Automated promotions in Google Ads; in week 47, the same price in every channel and a tested checkout; in week 48, the campaign goes live and the campaign text is removed when it ends.
Five weeks to Black Friday on 27 November 2026. Prices and the campaign page should be ready before searches pick up; the profile and the emails come next.

The same order applies to a launch, which we cover in Product launch: how to launch a new product.

Which price must you show when you cut a price?

The lowest price you have charged in the last 30 days, right next to the campaign price. That follows from section 7 a of the Swedish Price Information Act (prisinformationslagen), which has applied since 1 September 2022. Its first sentence reads, in our translation:

“If a product is offered with an indication that the price has been reduced, the previous price must also be stated.”

Under the same section, the previous price is the lowest price you have applied to the product in the 30 days before the reduction. The Swedish Consumer Agency adds the following in its guidance (reviewed 15 September 2026):

  • The discount is calculated from the previous lowest price. If you state the reduction in percent or kronor, the calculation must start from that price.
  • “Ordinary price” and other reference prices are typically not allowed.
  • Struck-through prices and prices in brackets must be the previous lowest price.
  • Gradual reductions: if the price has been lowered step by step during the period, the price before the first reduction must be stated.
  • New products: if the product has been on sale for less than 30 days, you state the lowest price it has had during that period.
  • Exemption: goods that can deteriorate quickly, such as plants and fresh food. Frozen food, tinned food and dried pasta are not exempt.
  • The words count. “Black Friday” or similar is one way of indicating a price reduction. According to the agency’s position statement, the requirement also applies when the marketing otherwise gives the impression that the price has been cut, for example with “kampanj” (campaign) or “erbjudande” (offer).
  • Club prices that are in fact aimed at consumers in general are covered too.

Worked example with made-up prices A jacket has cost SEK 1,000 for two months but sold for SEK 800 over one weekend three weeks ago. The previous lowest price is then SEK 800. If you sell the jacket for SEK 700 on Black Friday, SEK 800 is the price to show next to it, and the discount is 12.5 per cent, not 30 per cent.

So save the price of each product for each day, for example as an export from your online store or till system, so that you can show what the price was. In one of the agency’s cases, the company had not shown that the struck-through price matched the lowest price of the last 30 days, and the marketing was found to be misleading. How to think about prices on your website more generally is covered in Prices on the website, or not?

Want to check your own prices? Our 30-day rule calculator (in Swedish) shows which earlier price you may display and the discount in per cent, based on the prices you enter.

Does the rule apply to services as well?

Yes, on Black Friday 2026 it does. The law refers to products, and the Price Information Act counts both goods and services as products. The Consumer Agency writes that the previous lowest price must be stated if “the goods or the service” is marketed with a price reduction. If a salon, a gym or a restaurant cuts its prices in a Black Friday campaign, the previous lowest price must be shown.

In a draft bill sent to the Council on Legislation (lagrådsremiss) on 15 October 2026, the government proposes limiting the rule to goods from 1 March 2027. It is a proposal and has not been decided. The proposal only changes section 7 a of the Price Information Act, so the Marketing Practices Act’s rules against misleading marketing apply as before.

How long can a campaign run?

There is no absolute limit. According to the Consumer Agency’s guidance, a sale should normally last only a few weeks, and the Swedish Patent and Market Court has said that sales over a whole year should not add up to more than a couple of months. If you let Black Week grow into the whole of November, count it alongside your other campaigns during the year.

Does the Consumer Agency check discounts?

Yes, several years running. This is what the authorities have reported:

  • In autumn 2024 the Consumer Agency reviewed 800 products from 80 traders on their websites. About three in ten discounted products had shortcomings, and 30 of the 80 traders, about four in ten, had shortcomings. They were particularly common among traders the agency had not supervised before.
  • In November 2025 the Consumer Ombudsman (KO) ordered seven companies to correct their price information, with conditional fines totalling SEK 8.6 million. In spring 2025, KO had acted against ten other companies.
  • The agency’s advice to consumers before Black Friday lists misleading price reductions as the first trap.
  • A coordinated EU check of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, published by the European Commission on 26 March 2026, covered 314 online shops in 23 EU countries, Iceland and Norway. 30 per cent had incorrect sale prices. 18 per cent used pressure tactics, such as falsely claiming a product was almost sold out or countdown timers, and 10 per cent added fees such as shipping late in the checkout.

Not every case goes KO’s way. In the case against Inet AB, KO argued that the company had not stated the correct previous lowest price for a product, and the company said this was due to a technical fault in its price system that had been fixed. Both the Patent and Market Court and the Patent and Market Court of Appeal found that the company had not breached section 7 a, according to the Consumer Agency’s page of 30 September 2026. The ruling cannot be appealed. We have not read the court’s reasoning and draw no conclusions from it.

Does your online store have a withdrawal function?

It should, since 19 June 2026. Under chapter 2, section 10 a of the Swedish Distance Contracts Act (distansavtalslagen), a business that concludes contracts with consumers through an online interface, meaning a website or an app, must provide a function for exercising the right of withdrawal. Check it before the campaign brings more orders than usual.

  • Labelling: the function must be labelled in a clear and legible way. The Consumer Agency gives the example “ångra avtalet här” (withdraw from the contract here), or an equally clear wording.
  • Place and time: it must be on the same website or in the same app where the contract was concluded, and be easy to access throughout the withdrawal period.
  • Content: the customer must be able to state or confirm their name, which contract it concerns and how the acknowledgement of receipt should be sent, and then expressly confirm the withdrawal.
  • Acknowledgement of receipt: the business must send the customer an acknowledgement without delay, stating the time it was received, in a form that can be saved, such as an email. In our reading, a form that only sends an email to the shop does not meet the requirement.
  • Information before the purchase: that the function exists and where to find it.

The requirement applies when the consumer has a right of withdrawal, and the Consumer Agency lists the exceptions. The section makes no exception for smaller businesses. If a business breaches it, the Marketing Practices Act applies and the conduct is treated as unfair, and according to the Consumer Agency the consumer’s withdrawal period may be extended. The agency asks consumers to report shops where the function is missing or unclear.

Can you call your products “eco-friendly” in the campaign?

Avoid it. Under Article 4 of EU Directive 2024/825 on empowering consumers for the green transition, the new rules apply from 27 September 2026. The directive adds generic environmental claims to the list of practices that are always prohibited, unless the business can demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance. It gives “environmentally friendly”, “eco-friendly” and “green” as examples of generic claims. In Swedish that covers words such as “miljövänlig”.

Sweden has not yet implemented the directive. The government inquiry SOU 2025:124 proposes that the Swedish changes enter into force on 1 January 2027, and we have not found a draft bill to the Council on Legislation or a government bill (20 October 2026). Whether the new points on the blacklist already apply in Sweden is an open legal question. The Consumer Agency describes the directive as a clarification of what already applies today, and environmental claims must already be qualified and verifiable under established practice.

So write what you can actually show, for example what the packaging is made of, and keep the evidence.

Your Google profile: hours, offers and what must not go there

Add special hours, put the offer in a post and keep the campaign text out of the profile itself. How the profile works in general is covered in Google Business for local businesses.

Special hours for Black Friday and Christmas

If you open late on Black Friday or have different hours in December, add them under Edit profile, Hours and Special hours, date by date. This is what Google says in its help centre:

  • Special hours cover temporary changes or closures of up to six days in a row. If you close for seven days or more, mark the business as temporarily closed instead.
  • Confirm your hours for official holidays even if they are the same as usual.
  • Special hours only show if the profile has regular opening hours set.

Go through these days: Black Friday on 27 November, the Advent Sundays (29 November and 6, 13 and 20 December), Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day (24–26 December), New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, and Epiphany (6 January), which is a public holiday in Sweden. In Sweden, Christmas Eve is the main day of celebration.

For different hours over Christmas and New Year, Julens öppettider 2026 (in Swedish) builds a ready list for your website and a checklist for your Google profile.

The offer post

Select Posts, Add post and Offer. An offer requires a title, dates and times and automatically gets a “View Offer” button. You can add a description, photo, video, coupon code, link and terms and conditions, and you can schedule the post in advance. Google reviews posts before they appear, so in our assessment you should put it up a few days before the campaign. Posts older than six months are archived unless a date range is set.

The campaign price in the post should be the same as on the website. According to the Consumer Agency’s position statement, the previous lowest price must be stated when marketing gives the impression that the price has been reduced, so the same rule applies to the post.

What must not go in the profile

  • In the profile itself, Google does not allow promotional text with time-bound promotions, pricing or direct calls to action. Offers and updates are allowed in posts.
  • The description must not focus on promotions, prices and sales, and it must not contain links.
  • The name must not contain unnecessary information, such as marketing taglines or opening hours.
  • Posts with contact details that Google has not verified, such as phone numbers, email addresses and social media handles, may be removed. Use the Call now button instead, which goes to the profile’s verified number.

So “Black Friday −30%” belongs in an offer post, never in the name or the description.

Does Google Ads pull offers from your website?

It can, through the Automated promotions feature. According to Google’s help centre, Google Ads identifies offers on your landing pages and shows them in active Search and Performance Max campaigns that have location assets, unless the campaign already runs a manual promotion. According to Search Engine Roundtable, which quotes an email from Google to advertisers, the feature is switched on automatically from 12 October 2026 for eligible accounts.

That means two things:

  • The prices on your website must be right, because that is where Google picks up the offers. Google itself says to keep your website’s promotional details up to date.
  • Old campaign text can live on. If it stays on the site after Cyber Monday, it may keep showing in your ads. Remove it, or turn the feature off under Assets, Account level automated assets and Advanced settings.

The same responsibility applies to Google Shopping. The Consumer Agency writes about Google Automated Discounts that the previous lowest price must follow the 30-day rule there too, and that it is the business’s responsibility to make sure the method complies with the law. When ads pay off is covered in When Google Ads is worth it, and when it’s a waste, and how we work with ads is described on our services page.

The campaign page: ready before the traffic arrives

In our assessment, publish it by week 45 at the latest, and let it answer what customers want to know before they have to ask:

  • What is included in the campaign and what is not.
  • The campaign price with the previous lowest price next to it, and the discount calculated from it.
  • Start and end, with dates and times.
  • The total price including VAT and shipping. The Consumer Agency’s main rule is that the total price including VAT must be stated, and in the EU check one shop in ten added fees late in the checkout.
  • The last order date for delivery before Christmas, if you can keep it.
  • Returns and the right of withdrawal, with a link to the withdrawal function.
  • Stock levels that are accurate. “Only two left” has to be true.

The page can go live before the campaign starts and say when it begins, so that Google has time to find it. Consider using the same address every year, for example /black-friday, so that the page can build up visibility over time. Both pieces of advice are our assessment. Request indexing in Search Console once the page is published. Google says that a request does not guarantee that the page will be included in search results. What a page that sells needs in general is covered in The website that actually creates customers.

The same price everywhere

The website, the Google profile’s posts, Google Ads, the social channels, the newsletter and the sign in the shop should show the same price and the same dates. Conflicting details make it harder for customers to trust the offer, and AI services such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews may repeat the wrong one. That is our assessment, and how it works is explained in How your business shows up in ChatGPT. Emailing existing customers is covered in Email marketing for local businesses.

Stock, delivery before Christmas and gift cards

  • Stock: do not sell what you do not have. The Consumer Agency reminds consumers that an order confirmation shows the seller has accepted the order, and that agreements must be honoured.
  • Delivery: only promise dates you can keep. According to the Consumer Agency, if goods are delivered later than agreed, the consumer may withhold payment and demand delivery, and cancel the purchase if the delay is of significant importance to them. We have not found the carriers’ last posting dates for Christmas 2026 (20 October 2026). Add them to your website when your carrier publishes them.
  • Gift cards: the business decides how long a gift card is valid, but if no validity period is stated, the card is valid for ten years, according to the Consumer Agency. The shop bears the burden of proof that the customer received this information at the time of purchase, so print the validity period on the card and show it at checkout. The customer cannot expect cash in change when spending less than the card is worth, so state how a remaining balance is handled, for example that it stays on the card.

According to our reading of Google Trends, searches for “presentkort” (gift card) in Sweden reach half their peak around week 50 and peak in week 52. So keep the gift card visible on your website after Black Friday too.

Salons, restaurants and other service businesses: should you take part?

Not necessarily. “The same price today as yesterday” is a perfectly valid choice, and for a service business with a limited number of appointments it is often the simplest one.

  • If you take part, the 30-day rule applies to services on Black Friday 2026, and it also applies when you write “campaign” or “offer” and that gives the impression of a reduced price.
  • If you do not take part, you can say so calmly, for example in a post saying your prices are the same as usual, and highlight gift cards and available appointments in December instead.
  • Capacity decides. A campaign that fills December with discounted appointments can push out customers who would have paid full price. That is our assessment. Open only the appointments you can staff, and make sure your booking system and your Google profile’s hours say the same thing.
  • Gift cards often suit service businesses better than discounts, because they are sold before Christmas and used later, when there is room in the diary. That is also our assessment. The rules on validity apply in the same way as for shops.

More advice by industry is available in Visibility for hairdressers, Visibility for beauty salons and Visibility for restaurants.

The Black Friday check: ten points to tick off

Frequently asked questions

When is Black Friday 2026?

Black Friday 2026 is on Friday 27 November, week 48, and Cyber Monday is on Monday 30 November. Many shops run the campaign all week, known as Black Week, but according to the Swedish Consumer Agency’s guidance a sale should normally last only a few weeks.

What is the 30-day rule for sales in Sweden?

When you advertise a price reduction, section 7 a of the Swedish Price Information Act requires you to state the lowest price you have charged for the product in the 30 days before the reduction. A discount in percent or kronor must be calculated from that price. If the price has been lowered gradually, the price before the first reduction applies.

Does the 30-day rule apply to services?

Yes. In Sweden it currently covers both goods and services, because the law refers to products. In a draft bill sent to the Council on Legislation on 15 October 2026, the government proposes limiting the rule to goods from 1 March 2027, but that has not been decided. On Black Friday 2026 it therefore still applies to salons, gyms and restaurants.

Does an online store in Sweden need a withdrawal button?

Yes. Since 19 June 2026, a business that concludes contracts with consumers on a website or in an app must offer a withdrawal function there when the consumer has a right of withdrawal. It must be clearly labelled, for example “ångra avtalet här” (withdraw from the contract here), stay available throughout the withdrawal period and send the customer an acknowledgement of receipt with the time.

Can you write Black Friday in your Google Business Profile?

In a post, yes. Google’s rules do not allow time-bound promotions, pricing or direct calls to action in the profile itself, and the description must not focus on promotions, prices and sales. Use the Offer post type, which requires a title, dates and times.

Do you have to take part in Black Friday?

No. Keeping your usual prices is a perfectly reasonable choice, especially for service businesses with a limited number of appointments. If you do take part, the price reduction must follow the 30-day rule.

Sources

All web pages read on 20 October 2026 unless stated otherwise. The rules may change, and the proposals below have not been decided.