Norway

Norway is not in the European Union, so Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 does not bind it as Union law. It reaches Norway twice over instead. The Regulation's own preamble says it is a development of the Schengen acquis within the meaning of the 1999 agreement associating Iceland and Norway with that acquis, and that agreement says acts building on the acquis are to be accepted, implemented and applied by Iceland and Norway. Norway then writes it into its own law: the Immigration Regulation exempts anyone whose nationality the Regulation exempts, with later amendments to it that apply to Norway, and reproduces the resulting list of visa-free states as an annex stated to be accurate at 14 August 2025. The free stay is 90 days in any 180-day period - but that number is in the regulation, not in the Act. The Immigration Act's own words, in the paragraph the regulation is made under, are still three months in any six months, the formula Schengen replaced in October 2013, and the same old wording stands in the section giving a right to a Schengen visa.

Chapter 6 of the Immigration Regulation is the complete list of residence permits connected with work and studies outside protection and family, and it runs from section 6-1 to section 6-35. Read through, it contains no permit granted on private income, passive income, savings or a pension. The closest things to it are two permits that are not income routes at all: section 6-18, for a self-employed person who must hold skilled-worker competence, show an economic basis for the business and be needed in it personally, and section 6-20, for a researcher at a Norwegian institution financing the stay from their own means. Money appears in the scheme only as a condition. Section 10-7 requires maintenance to be secured on a first application, and lists pension and other fixed periodic payments among the ways of securing it - but that is a test applied to a permit granted on some other ground, not a ground of its own. An EEA national is in a different position entirely: section 112 of the Act gives a right of residence to a person with sufficient means and sickness insurance, with no permit to apply for.

Norway has no residence permit for a retired person. Chapter 6 of the Immigration Regulation, which is the full list of permits connected with work and studies, contains no category for a pensioner and does not use the word; the only permits granted on the strength of the applicant's own money are section 6-18, self-employment, which also demands skilled-worker competence, and section 6-20, for a researcher at a Norwegian institution. A pension does appear in the rules, twice, and neither time as a ground of residence: section 10-7 counts a pension as a way of securing maintenance for a permit granted on another basis, and section 10-8 counts it towards the family-immigration income requirement. The nearest thing to an older person's route is section 46 of the Act, and it runs in the opposite direction from a retirement visa: a mother or father over 60, with no spouse, cohabitant or relative in the ascending or descending line in the home country, may be granted a permit to join a child over 18 who is already here.

Outside the EEA, work in Norway runs through section 23 of the Immigration Act and chapter 6 of the Immigration Regulation. The central provision is section 6-1: a worker trained to at least upper secondary vocational level, holding a trade certificate, holding a university or college qualification, or having special qualifications, has a right to a residence permit - the word is right, not may - where the competence is relevant to the post, any statutory professional authorisation is in place, and the worker falls within the skilled-worker quota. The conditions in the Act are an age of 18, a concrete full-time offer from one employer, and pay and working conditions no worse than the applicable collective agreement, or where there is none, no worse than what is normal for that place and occupation. That last phrase is the entire wage rule. There is no salary threshold in the Act, none in the regulation, and section 6-10 says in one sentence that what counts as pay is determined by the Directorate of Immigration. A skilled worker who does not need a visa can also come first and look: section 6-29a gives a six-month permit to search for skilled work.

Norway has no residence permit granted for investing. The word investor does not appear in the Immigration Regulation at all, and nor does investering. The only permit that turns on a business is section 6-18, for a self-employed person running a lasting business, and its first condition is not capital: the work to be done in the business must require that the self-employed person holds skilled-worker competence as defined in section 6-1, that is, training to at least upper secondary vocational level, a trade certificate, a higher qualification, or special qualifications. Money comes in as the second condition, and even then not as a sum - what must be shown is an economic basis, meaning a probability of drawing enough from the business to meet the ordinary maintenance requirement. The permit is tied to the particular business and does count towards permanent residence. The practical consequence is that a person whose asset is capital rather than a trade has no door here, not even an expensive one.

A student admitted to a university, university college, vocational college or, in particular cases, upper secondary school may be granted a residence permit under section 6-19 of the Immigration Regulation. It is granted only for full-time study, the education must be the purpose of the stay, and the student must need to be at the place of study. It carries a right to work twenty hours a week and full time in the ordinary holidays, granted at the same time as the permit rather than applied for separately. Two things follow it that a reader should know before starting. The permit does not form a basis for permanent residence, so the years spent studying do not count towards settling. And a separate statute now requires payment: section 2-6 of the Universities and University Colleges Act says state institutions shall charge tuition to students who are citizens of countries outside the EEA or Switzerland, with four exemptions. What there is instead of a settlement path is a bridge - section 6-29 gives a qualifying graduate one further year to look for skilled work, with full-time work allowed during it.

Norwegian descent works through nationality law, not through immigration law. Section 4 of the Nationality Act makes a child a Norwegian citizen at birth if either parent is a Norwegian citizen and parentage follows from the Children Act - so a child of a Norwegian is Norwegian and needs no permit. Beyond that the Immigration Act has nothing. Chapter 6 of the Act, which carries every family route, runs from a spouse and a cohabitant through children, parents of a Norwegian child, a parent with access rights, and a single parent over 60 joining an adult child - and there is no provision anywhere in it for a descendant of a Norwegian claiming residence on ancestry. Chapter 6 of the Immigration Regulation, the list of work and study permits, has none either. The two provisions that come closest both run the wrong way: section 44, for the mother or father of a Norwegian child, and section 46, for a single parent over 60 joining a child over 18. Each is a parent joining a descendant, which is the reverse of an ancestry route.

Section 40 of the Immigration Act gives the spouse of a qualifying sponsor a right to a residence permit - the sponsor being a Norwegian or Nordic citizen resident or about to settle here, a foreign national with permanent residence, or one whose permit can lead to permanent residence. A cohabiting partner of two years has the same right under section 41, as does a partner with a child in common. Three further conditions sit on top. Both parties must be 18, and where the relationship was formed after the sponsor arrived in Norway, both must be 24. The sponsor must show future income of at least 3.2 times the National Insurance basic amount - 136,549 kroner from 1 May 2026, so 436,956.80 kroner for a year. And a sponsor whose own status comes from asylum, resettlement, collective protection, humanitarian grounds or family immigration must additionally have worked or studied in Norway for four years. The permit can be refused outright where the main purpose of the marriage appears to have been to establish a basis for residence.

Norway is outside the European Union and inside the European Economic Area, and chapter 13 of the Immigration Act is where that lands. It is a near-literal rendering of the Union's free-movement directive: three months on an identity card or a passport, longer as a worker, a self-employed person, a service provider, a self-supporting person with sickness insurance, or a student, five years of that for a permanent right, and a registration certificate issued on the spot once the papers are shown. Two things in it are better than the directive's floor. A job-seeker and the job-seeker's family may stay six months and, in particular cases, longer. And a residence right under chapter 13 does not block an application under the Act's ordinary rules, so an EEA national may take an ordinary permit instead if it suits them. Running underneath all of it is the older Nordic arrangement: a Danish, Finnish, Icelandic or Swedish citizen needs no permit for anything, and the 1957 passport agreement printed at the back of the Act defines the Nordic area it covers - Norway, but not Svalbard and not Jan Mayen.

Section 7 of the Nationality Act gives a right to Norwegian citizenship on application: identity established, twelve years old, resident and intending to remain, meeting the conditions for permanent residence under section 62 of the Immigration Act, eight years in the realm out of the last eleven on permits of at least a year each, Norwegian speech at level B1 with the citizenship test passed, and no criminal penalty or waiting period running. Four groups count differently. A spouse or cohabiting partner of a Norwegian needs five years of the last ten, with residence and marriage together making at least seven. A Nordic citizen needs only to have been in the realm for the last two years and is excused the permanent-residence condition. Someone with a right of residence under the EEA chapter needs the last three years. And since 2022 an applicant with sufficient income in the last assessed tax year is excused the eight-year rule and needs six of the last ten instead. What is not in the Act is any requirement to give up another citizenship: section 10 used to carry one, it was repealed with effect from 1 January 2020, and the number now holds the income shortcut.

Section 2-1 of the Tax Act gives two tests and you become resident on failing either: more than 183 days in the realm in any twelve-month period, or more than 270 days in any thirty-six-month period. The second is the one most summaries miss, and it catches a pattern of stays none of which breaks 183 days. Residence starts in the income year in which the count is passed, not retrospectively, and it brings worldwide tax: subsection 9 says the liability covers all wealth and income here in the realm and abroad. Leaving is harder than arriving. Residence ends only in a year in which you prove both that you spent no more than 61 days in the realm and that neither you nor a close relative had a dwelling available here - and if you were resident for at least ten years before moving, that has to hold for three consecutive income years. Svalbard is a separate tax jurisdiction with its own Act, and the 270-day rule is disapplied for a person resident there.

Section 4-1 of the Financial Contracts Act opens with a duty: a payment service provider may not, without objective grounds, refuse to provide payment services on ordinary terms. For a consumer it adds two protections - the provider may not make a payment account conditional on taking other products, and a request for a payment account must be decided within ten working days of the provider receiving the necessary information. Then the third subsection takes much of it back for anyone not settled here: a provider may refuse to provide services outside the EEA, or to enter into an agreement with a customer who is not resident or registered in the EEA. It may also refuse where the anti-money-laundering rules are not satisfied. Those rules are the practical obstacle: the Money Laundering Act requires a name, an address and a Norwegian national identity number or D-number, and where the customer has neither, a date and place of birth, sex and citizenship, with identity confirmed on valid identification in person.

The National Insurance Act makes everyone resident in Norway a compulsory member, and defines resident as staying in Norway when the stay is intended to last, or has lasted, at least twelve months. A person moving to Norway counts as resident from the date of entry - so the twelve months is a test of intention at the start, not a waiting period to be served. Lawful residence is a condition. Separately, the Patient and User Rights Act applies to everyone staying in the realm, and a regulation made under it draws the line: full rights under chapter 2 belong to a person with lawful residence who either has a fixed stay of at least twelve months, is a member of the National Insurance scheme with a right to health service benefits, or is covered by a reciprocal agreement. Everyone else in the country, lawfully or not, still has a right to assessment by the specialist service and a right to emergency help, and anyone under 18 has close to the full set.

A licence from another EEA state is valid in Norway according to its own content. Everything else runs on a short clock and a short list. A licence issued outside the EEA is good for three months of driving in Norway, or six months for a holder with a residence permit of more than three months and a current employment contract, who must carry both documents while driving. For exchange into a Norwegian licence the Driving Licence Regulation names eight countries - Australia, Canada, Israel, Monaco, New Zealand, San Marino, South Korea and the United States - and then four more that exchange under their own sections: Greenland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Japan. The next sentence is the one that matters most and is almost never quoted: licences from other countries cannot be exchanged at all. An application made within three months of taking up fixed residence can get a temporary driving permission, and once exchange is approved there are two years to complete it.

Council Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009, which gives relief on personal property moved into the European Union, has no application here: the EEA Agreement is a free trade area, not a customs union, and its own article 8 limits free movement of goods to products originating in the Contracting Parties and to chapters 25 to 97 of the Harmonised System. Norway's equivalent sits in its VAT legislation. Section 7-3 of the VAT Act exempts flyttegods - removal goods - from import VAT, and section 7-3-2 of the VAT Regulation sets the conditions: the importer must have stayed abroad continuously for at least one year, must have owned or possessed and used the goods abroad, and must bring them in within a reasonable time and at the latest one year after moving. Motor vehicles, aircraft and professional equipment are excluded, as are food, drink, tobacco and nicotine. Customs duty follows automatically - section 6-2-1 of the Customs Duty Regulation says no duty is charged on anything exempt from VAT under sections 7-3 to 7-5 of the VAT Act - so one set of conditions settles both charges. The relief is not automatic in the administrative sense: it is granted on permission from the customs authorities.