In the late 1990s and early 2000s several revenue recognition scandals arose, which led to a discussion about the need for a new principle-based standard with a balance sheet-based approach for revenue recognition. On 1st of January 2018 IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers became effective and replaced all previous revenue recognition standards and interpretations. All companies are expected to be affected regarding when and how much the company reports its revenue, though the scope may vary from one company to another.

This study aims to investigate how the application of IFRS 15 has impacted companies based on the business models they apply in their customer agreements.

To operationalize the purpose of the study a quantitative method was adopted to gather the empirical data, which have been obtained from the companies’ annual reports. An enumeration was implemented, why all listed companies on Nasdaq Stockholm which are required to implement IFRS 15 have been studied.

The results indicate that a minority of the companies have showed an impact and most of the companies have not been impacted after an implementation of the new revenue recognition standard. The study has identified that the reason why companies are affected by IFRS 15 depends on the business models’ companies apply in their customer agreements. The minority of companies that have been affected by IFRS 15 are the ones which have developed business models that includes complex customer contracts, i.e. customer contracts consisting of complex commitments and promises of goods and services to customers. Accordingly, the majority of the studied companies uses business models with non-complex customer contracts in their customer agreements, e.g. simple sale of only one good, hence their revenue recognition under IFRS 15 does not differ from previous accounting standards.