Taxes in Norway in 2026

Who counts as a Norwegian tax resident

Norway settles residence with a formal day count, not with soft criteria such as the centre of vital interests. You become a tax resident if either condition is met:

• you spend more than 183 days in Norway in any 12-month period;
• you spend 270 days or more in Norway in any 36-month period.

Every started day counts, including arrival and departure days, weekends and holidays. The purpose of the stay is irrelevant: a tourist, a student and a business traveller are counted the same way.

Moving mid-year

If the threshold is crossed within a single calendar year, residence applies retroactively from your first day in the country that year. If the 183 days straddle two calendar years, residence starts on 1 January of the second year. In practice, someone who arrives in September and stays through the winter becomes a resident on 1 January, not in September, and is taxed under limited liability rules for the first months.

How to stop being a resident

Leaving Norwegian residence is harder than entering it. The rule depends on how long you lived in the country.

A dwelling counts as available if it is at the disposal of you, your spouse or your minor children, whether owned or rented. One flat left behind in Oslo can keep you inside Norwegian residence for years. The general logic of day counting is covered in our guide to the 183-day rule.

If domestic rules make you a resident of two countries at once, the tie-breaker article of the relevant tax treaty decides: permanent home, centre of vital interests, habitual abode, nationality.

Personal income tax: 2026 rates and thresholds

Norwegian income tax is two parallel calculations on the same income, which is why a single headline number always describes it badly.

The first is tax on general income (alminnelig inntekt): a flat 22% on net income after deductions. The rate is identical across the country. The revenue is split between the municipality, the county and the state, but that split does not change your bill - there are no local surcharges that vary from town to town.

The second is the bracket tax (trinnskatt): a progressive surcharge on employment and pension income, calculated on the gross amount with no deductions at all.

On top of this come national insurance contributions of 7.6% on gross salary. The top marginal rate on employment income in 2026 is 22 + 17.8 + 7.6 = 47.4%.

Allowances and basic deductions

• Personal allowance (personfradrag) - NOK 114,540, deducted from the 22% base.
• Minimum standard deduction (minstefradrag) - 46% of salary capped at NOK 95,700; for pensions 40% capped at NOK 75,400.

Together they keep roughly the first NOK 210,000 of salary out of the 22% tax. On top of that you can deduct interest on any loan including a mortgage (at 22%), commuting costs above a floor, union fees and pension contributions.

Being honest about it: Norway has no tax-free allowance in the usual sense. The bracket tax is charged on gross income, and the 7.6% contribution applies to income above NOK 99,650 a year with no deductions whatsoever.

What a non-resident pays

A non-resident has limited tax liability: only Norwegian-source income is taxed.

The PAYE scheme

The default regime for people coming to work is kildeskatt på lønn, known as PAYE. The rate is 25% and it already includes the 7.6% contribution. If you are exempt from Norwegian national insurance - for example with an A1 form or a social security certificate - the 2026 rate is 17.4%. Workers under 17 or over 69 pay 22.5%.

Conditions for using it:

• annual income does not exceed the step 3 threshold, NOK 725,050 in 2026;
• no business income in Norway;
• no deductions at all - no mortgage interest, no commuting costs, no personal allowance;
• it does not apply to offshore workers or seafarers;
• no tax return is required and the tax is final.

New foreign employees are normally placed in PAYE automatically when they apply for a tax card in their first year. The scheme is voluntary: you can opt out into ordinary taxation, which pays off if you have substantial deductions or income close to the ceiling. Exceed NOK 725,050 and you are moved to ordinary assessment retroactively.

Withholding taxes

Income from Norwegian property is taxed in Norway regardless of your residence and regardless of whether a treaty exists with your country.

Corporate taxes

Corporate income tax is 22% and it is flat. There is no reduced rate for small business in Norway: a company earning NOK 200,000 pays the same rate as a corporation. There are no tax holidays for new companies either.

The only deviations go upward, in sectors with natural or regulatory rent.

Participation exemption

Under the exemption method (fritaksmetoden) dividends and share gains received by a Norwegian company from EEA companies are exempt. However, 3% of dividends is added back to the tax base, giving an effective charge of 0.66%. For companies outside the EEA the exemption requires at least a 10% holding for two years and that the jurisdiction is not classified as low-tax.

Withholding on outbound payments

• Dividends - 25%. Zero for EEA corporate shareholders carrying on genuine business activity. Treaties usually cut the rate to 15% or 5%.
• Interest and royalties - 0% as a rule. Since 2021 a 15% withholding tax applies to interest, royalties and lease payments made to related parties in low-tax jurisdictions, with an exception for genuine EEA businesses.

Norway also applies an interest deduction limitation based on tax EBITDA, CFC rules (NOKUS), transfer pricing rules and the 15% global minimum tax for large multinational groups. The minimum share capital of an AS is NOK 30,000. Procedure and timing are covered on our company registration page.

VAT: rates and registration threshold

The standard VAT rate (merverdiavgift, MVA) is 25%, one of the highest in Europe, and unlike many countries Norway keeps only two reduced rates.

The registration threshold is NOK 50,000 of taxable turnover in any 12 months, or NOK 140,000 for charitable and non-profit organisations. Foreign companies without a presence in Norway register through a VAT representative, and in practice the threshold offers them little protection: liability can arise from the first taxable supply.

Foreign online retailers can use the simplified VOEC scheme: the seller registers, charges Norwegian VAT on goods worth up to NOK 3,000 and remits it directly. More expensive goods go through normal customs clearance.

VAT returns are normally filed every two months, six periods a year. Businesses with turnover below NOK 1 million can apply to file annually.

From 1 January 2026 the VAT exemption threshold for the sale and leasing of electric vehicles was cut from NOK 500,000 to NOK 300,000, so the part of the price above that threshold now carries 25% VAT.

Social contributions: employee and employer

Both sides pay, and neither part is capped. That is a fundamental difference from Germany, Austria or Switzerland, where the contribution base has a ceiling: in Norway a high salary carries contributions in full.

Employee (trygdeavgift)

• employment income - 7.6%;
• business income - 10.8%;
• pension income - 5.1%.

The lower threshold is NOK 99,650 a year: below it nothing is charged. Just above it a smoothing rule applies, so the contribution cannot exceed 25% of the amount over the threshold until the ordinary rate becomes lower.

Employer (arbeidsgiveravgift)

The rate depends on the geographic zone where the employer is registered. It is a regional policy tool: the further north and the more sparsely populated, the cheaper it is to hire.

The extra 5% contribution on salaries above NOK 850,000, introduced in 2023 as a temporary measure, was abolished from 1 January 2025. The financial sector still pays the financial activity tax - an additional 5% on the payroll base.

In concrete terms: an employee in Oslo on NOK 800,000 costs the employer about NOK 913,000 and takes home about NOK 581,000. The gap between the cost of a job and the money in the pocket is the Norwegian norm, not an anomaly.

Capital taxes: dividends, wealth, property

Dividends and share gains of individuals are taxed at an effective 37.84%. The mechanism: the amount is multiplied by a factor of 1.72 and the ordinary 22% is applied.

This is softened by the shielding deduction (skjermingsfradrag): the part of the return matching a risk-free yield on the capital invested is not taxed. The shielding rate for 2025 is 3.6%; the 2026 figure is set at the start of 2027. Unused shielding carries forward on the same share. Other capital income - bank interest, rental income, currency gains - is taxed at a flat 22%.

Wealth tax

This is Norway's defining feature and the main reason wealthy Norwegians leave. A resident pays tax annually on net worldwide assets, whether or not those assets produce any income.

Assets are valued with discounts: shares, fund units and business property at 80% of market value; a primary residence at 25% of its assessed value, with the part above NOK 10 million valued at 70%; a second home at 100%. Raising that threshold to NOK 14 million has been under discussion, so check the current figure when you file. Debt is deductible but is reduced proportionally where assets are valued at a discount.

An example: net assets of NOK 6 million produce a bill of (6,000,000 - 1,900,000) × 1% = NOK 41,000 a year, even if those assets earned nothing.

Property

There is no national property tax. Municipalities may levy their own (eiendomsskatt) and most do. The maximum for residential and holiday property is 4 per mille (0.4%), and 7 per mille for other property; the base cannot exceed 70% of market value, and a municipality may set its own allowance.

A gain on the sale of a home is exempt if you owned it for at least a year and lived in it for at least 12 of the last 24 months. Otherwise the gain is taxed at 22%. Letting part of your own home is tax-free if you let less than half of it measured by rental value. Short-term letting of under 30 days is exempt up to a small annual threshold (NOK 15,000 under the 2025 rules), above which 85% of the income enters the tax base.

Inheritance and gifts

Inheritance and gift tax was abolished on 1 January 2014. But the continuity principle applies: the heir takes over the original acquisition cost, so the tax is deferred to the eventual sale rather than removed.

Exit tax

The rules have been tightened twice in recent years. If your latent gains on shares and equivalent assets exceed NOK 3 million when Norwegian residence ends, they are treated as realised the day before departure and taxed at 37.84%. Share savings accounts (ASK) and endowment insurance policies are included. Payment can be deferred, but for no more than 12 years - after that it falls due even if you never sold anything. Returning to Norway within five years cancels the charge. Exit planning belongs before the move, not after it.

Special regimes for newcomers

Let us be blunt: Norway has no preferential tax regime for new residents. No non-dom status, no lump-sum taxation, no flat expat rate, no pensioner holiday - nothing of what Italy, Portugal, Greece, Switzerland or Cyprus offer. The standard deduction for foreign workers (standardfradrag) was abolished in 2019 and survives only for seafarers and offshore workers.

What does exist:

• PAYE - a flat 25% for people arriving to work, in the first year and on income up to NOK 725,050. It is a simplification rather than a relief: on higher income or with large deductions it often costs more than ordinary assessment.
• Svalbard - a separate tax jurisdiction. Salary is taxed under a withholding scheme at 8% up to 12 times the national insurance base amount and 22% above it. The base amount from 1 May 2026 is NOK 136,549. There is no wealth tax and no VAT on Svalbard. But the regime requires genuinely living and working on the archipelago.
• Withholding tax on pensions - 15% for those drawing a Norwegian pension while living abroad. A treaty may lower it or hand the taxing right to the country of residence.
• Tonnage tax for shipping companies: tax is computed on fleet tonnage rather than profit.
• SkatteFUNN - an R&D tax credit for companies.
• Startup option rules - deferred taxation of employee options in small young companies, subject to conditions on age, size and activity.

If your goal is to reduce personal tax, Norway is not the instrument. A comparison of neighbouring jurisdictions is in our review of taxes in Europe, and the full country list is in the tax directory.

Filing, deadlines and penalties

The Norwegian Tax Administration pre-fills your return (skattemelding): salary, bank accounts, mortgage, securities and property arrive automatically. Your job is to check the figures and add what the system does not know - foreign accounts, foreign assets, expense-based deductions.

If there is nothing to correct in a pre-filled individual return, you do not have to submit it - it is treated as filed. Companies must always file, even with no activity. When a deadline falls on a weekend it moves to the next working day.

Penalties

• Tilleggsskatt - an additional tax for incorrect or incomplete information, normally 20% of the understated tax, with an aggravated surcharge on top for gross negligence or intent.
• Tvangsmulkt - a coercive fine for failing to file. It accrues per day of delay, is tied to the court fee unit and has an upper limit. Check the exact amount against the current fee unit at the time of default.

Audit requirements

A small AS may opt out of audit if none of three thresholds is exceeded: revenue NOK 7 million, balance sheet total NOK 27 million, an average of 10 full-time equivalents. Breaching any one of them brings the audit obligation back. Annual accounts are filed with the Brønnøysund Register Centre and are public. Help with bookkeeping and audit is in our audit and reporting section.

Double taxation and treaties

Norway has around 90 double tax treaties in force. For the Nordic countries the multilateral Nordic Tax Treaty applies on top, dealing in detail with cross-border employment.

Russia

The 1996 Russia-Norway treaty has not been formally terminated, but from 8 August 2023 Russia suspended most of its substantive articles by Decree No. 585 - the allocation of taxing rights and the reduced withholding rates. In practice treaty rates can no longer be relied on in Russian-Norwegian payments, and Norwegian dividends carry the domestic 25% rate. The articles on exchange of information, residence and permanent establishment formally remain, but their application is contested. The status can change, so verify it for the date of the specific payment rather than trusting older summaries.

CIS countries

A treaty is in force with Kazakhstan, among others: withholding tax on dividends is 5% on a qualifying holding and 15% otherwise. Coverage and status vary across the rest of the region, and the current list is published by the Norwegian Ministry of Finance. Without a treaty, double taxation is relieved only by whatever unilateral credit each country's domestic law provides - which is not always available and is often narrower.

How the credit works

Norway applies the credit method: foreign tax is credited against Norwegian tax, but never above the Norwegian tax on the same income. Excess credit carries forward for five years. Some treaties provide the alternative exemption method with progression: the income is exempt but still counted when setting the rate on the rest.

Separately, the one-year rule (ettårsregelen) lets a Norwegian resident working abroad for at least 12 consecutive months, with limited days in Norway, claim exemption from Norwegian tax on that salary. National insurance contributions and wealth tax still apply.

Worked examples: employee and entrepreneur

All figures use 2026 rates and include only mandatory elements and standard deductions, without individual items such as mortgage interest.

Employee

The contrast is instructive: the whole progression sits in the upper steps. Norway treats an average income more gently than its reputation suggests, and a high income considerably harder.

Entrepreneur

Sole trader (ENK) with net business income of NOK 900,000. The minimum standard deduction does not apply to business income. Tax on general income: (900,000 - 114,540) × 22% = 172,801. Bracket tax: 41,806. Contributions at the higher 10.8% rate: 97,200. Total NOK 311,807, an effective rate of 34.6%.

An AS with NOK 900,000 profit, all distributed as dividends. Corporate tax at 22% is 198,000. The remaining 702,000 is taxed at 37.84% on distribution - 265,637. Combined NOK 463,637, an effective rate of 51.5%.

An AS that pays the owner a salary instead. Out of the same NOK 900,000 of labour cost, the salary is 788,783 because 111,217 goes to the employer contribution. Personal tax is 213,795. Total burden NOK 325,013, effectively 36.1%, with almost 575,000 in hand.

The conclusion surprises many: in Norway taking profit as dividends is usually more expensive than taking it as salary. The dividend route wins only with a meaningful shielding deduction or when profit is deliberately retained in the company. And remember that the shares themselves fall into the wealth tax base, so they are taxed every year even before any distribution.

What matters about taxes in Norway

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