Your complete step-by-step settlement guide.

If you are an EU/EEA or Swiss citizen

If you stay more than three months, you must register and have a basis for your stay: worker, self-employed person, service provider, student or person with sufficient funds. You start online on UDI's website and complete the registration in person with the police or at a Service Centre for Foreign Workers (SUA). It is free. Workers may start work at once but must register within three months of arriving.

If you are a citizen of a country outside the EU/EEA

You generally need a residence permit from UDI before you start work, and you may not work before it is granted unless the police have confirmed an early employment start. The main work routes:

• Skilled worker: at least three years of upper secondary vocational training, a trade certificate, a degree or special qualifications, and a concrete full-time job offer (UDI accepts at least 80 percent). Pay must follow the collective agreement or normal pay: at least NOK 624,700 a year before tax for positions that require a master's degree, or NOK 545,400 for a bachelor's degree (2026).
• Job seeker: up to six months to look for skilled work if you do not need a visa, or up to one year after completing education or research in Norway.
• Seasonal worker: work tied to a time of year, such as agriculture, forestry or tourism, for at most six months in any twelve.
• Self-employed person: running your own sole proprietorship (enkeltpersonforetak) in Norway; a limited company does not qualify.
• Researchers: with a Norwegian employer you apply as a skilled worker; researchers with their own funding have a separate permit.
• Assignments for a foreign employer, and self-employed contractors with a company abroad: two years at a time and six years in total, not counting towards permanent residence.

UDI also decides family immigration. Family members from outside the EU/EEA of an EU/EEA citizen living here under the EEA rules apply for a free residence card instead, within three months of entry.

If you stay lawfully and intend to stay at least six months, you are registered as resident and get an 11-digit national identity number (fødselsnummer); if you need a residence permit, it must first be granted for at least six months. Others who need a Norwegian number, for example for a tax deduction card, get a D-number. You cannot apply for either yourself: the National Population Register decides residence, and a D-number is requested by the authority or business that needs it. The national identity number gives access to all services in Norway; a D-number covers most.

How your move is registered

• Most residence permits from UDI: no separate notification. After your police appointment, UDI informs the Norwegian Tax Administration (Skatteetaten), and your number arrives by post, usually within a few weeks.
• Other permit types: you get a D-number first. If you will stay at least six months, send form RF-1401 within 30 days; after that, you must book an ID check.
• EU/EEA citizens report the move in person within three months and eight days of arrival; others who must report, within eight days.
• ID checks take place at 42 selected tax offices, by appointment only.

Skatteetaten expects 2 to 25 weeks to register a move to Norway, so start as soon as you can.

For online public services and banking you use an electronic ID: BankID from your bank, or MinID, the public e-ID. Both need a national identity number or D-number. For BankID you visit your bank in person with your passport (minimum age 12). For MinID you order an activation letter, posted to your address in the National Population Register, or abroad if you have a D-number but no Norwegian address.

Everyone who works in Norway must have a tax deduction card (skattekort). It covers one calendar year, and your employer retrieves it electronically. Without one, your employer must deduct 50 percent tax.

Foreign citizens apply to Skatteetaten (form RF-1209E), or the employer applies for them (RF-1355). Without a Norwegian identity number you first attend an ID check, and the D-number is assigned in the process. Skatteetaten states up to 5 days, often longer for foreign workers. You will be asked for:

• Passport or national ID card
• Employment contract or written job offer
• If you are posted by a company in the EU/EEA: confirmation of the assignment
• If you are not an EU/EEA citizen: proof of a right of residence of at least six months, such as your residence card

Ordinary taxation in 2026: 22 percent on ordinary income (18.5 percent in Finnmark and the Nord-Troms action zone), bracket tax from 1.7 percent above NOK 226,100 and a 7.6 percent national insurance contribution on wages, with a personal allowance of NOK 114,540. You become tax resident after more than 183 days in 12 months or 270 days in 36 months. The tax return is due by 30 April.

Banks must check your identity under the Anti-Money Laundering Act (hvitvaskingsloven), as a rule in person. Official guidance for newcomers says you must be resident, have valid ID and have a national identity number or D-number. Accepted ID includes passports, EEA national ID cards and the Norwegian immigrant's passport, but some banks set stricter rules, for example requiring a passport.

A bank may not refuse payment services on ordinary terms without an objective reason (finansavtaleloven), an exception Finanstilsynet says must be read strictly. The Anti-Discrimination Tribunal (Diskrimineringsnemnda) has found it discriminatory to refuse BankID only because a passport was issued outside the EEA. Your employer must as a rule pay wages into your account, and services such as Vipps need a Norwegian bank account.

If you move to Norway for at least 12 months, you are as a rule a member of the National Insurance Scheme (folketrygden) from the date you arrive; if you work here, normally from your first working day. Workers posted temporarily from abroad usually stay in their home country's scheme. Most people do not need to apply.

• Regular GP (fastlege): everyone registered as resident in a Norwegian municipality has the right to one; people with a D-number normally do not. Choose or change your GP on helsenorge.no, up to twice a calendar year.
• User fees: once you have paid more than NOK 3,278 in approved user fees in 2026, you get an exemption card (frikort) automatically. From 1 August 2026, everyone under 18 is exempt from user fees for the services the exemption card covers.
• Family members of employees from outside the EEA need their own membership, applied for at NAV (the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration).

Call 113 for accidents, serious illness or danger to life. When your GP is unavailable and help cannot wait, call the out-of-hours emergency clinic (legevakt) on 116 117. Everyone living in Norway is entitled to emergency health care.

Start your housing search early, especially in Oslo, where rents are highest. Key facts:

• Average rent for a 2-room flat in 2025: NOK 15,260 a month in Oslo and Bærum, NOK 11,870 in Bergen, NOK 11,850 in Trondheim, NOK 11,400 in Stavanger and NOK 11,790 nationally (Statistics Norway, SSB).
• Under the Tenancy Act (husleieloven), a deposit is at most six months' rent, paid into a deposit account (depositumskonto) in your name, never in cash. A guarantee, for example from NAV, can replace it.
• A lease with an end date must as a rule run for at least three years (one year for some flats in the landlord's own house, shorter only for a reason stated in the contract). Without an end date, notice is three months unless agreed otherwise.
• Disputes go to the Rent Disputes Tribunal (Husleietvistutvalget, HTU), part of Husbanken since 1 January 2026; the average wait is about 11 months.
• Buying: the concession forms set conditions on a property's type, size and use, not on the buyer's nationality. Document duty is 2.5 percent of market value, and banks may lend at most 90 percent of the home's value.

Once your permit, tax deduction card and bank account are in place, you can start work. Check these points early:

• Contract: in writing, at the latest seven days after you start if the job lasts more than one month (Working Environment Act, arbeidsmiljøloven). Normal hours are at most 9 a day and 40 a week; overtime pay is at least 40 percent extra.
• Minimum pay: statutory minimum wages exist only in nine industries with generalised collective agreements, such as construction and cleaning. On a skilled worker permit, pay and conditions must not be worse than normal in Norway.
• Holiday: at least 25 working days a year and holiday pay of at least 10.2 percent of last year's pay (Holiday Act, ferieloven); many collective agreements give 12 percent.
• Pension: employers covered by the Mandatory Occupational Pension Act (OTP-loven) pay at least 2 percent of your salary up to 12 G into a pension scheme (G is NOK 136,549 from 1 May 2026).
• Losing your job on a skilled worker permit: notify the police within seven days; you may stay up to six months to look for work while the permit is valid (utlendingsforskriften § 6-11).

Children start school in August of the year they turn six and attend for ten years; public school is free. A child likely to stay more than three months has the right to a school place, which the municipality must offer no later than one month after arrival.

• Kindergarten (barnehage): a child who turns one by the end of November in the year you apply has the right to a place. The national maximum fee is NOK 1,200 a month for a full-time place from 1 August 2025 (NOK 700 in centrality zones 5 and 6), with sibling discounts.
• International schools exist in Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim; most charge fees, but Oslo also has free public international classes.
• Upper secondary education is voluntary and free.

• EU/EEA licences are valid in Norway and can be exchanged without new tests. UK and Swiss licences have the same rights.
• Licences from Australia, Canada, Israel, Monaco, New Zealand, San Marino, South Korea and the USA can be exchanged after a theory test and a practical test (category B); Japanese and Greenlandic licences can also be exchanged.
• Other licences from outside the EU/EEA can be used for three months from the date you are registered as resident in the National Population Register, and cannot be exchanged: you then need a Norwegian licence through the normal training and tests.

To exchange, you need normal residence in Norway (usually shown by a residence certificate from Skatteetaten), the original licence and, if it is not in English, French or German, an approved translation or an international licence. Check vegvesen.no in good time.

Your permit decides whether Norwegian training is free or mandatory. Family immigrants whose permit can lead to permanent residence, and participants in the introduction programme (ages 18 to 67), have a right and a duty to free training in Norwegian and social studies. Work immigrants from outside the EEA and their reunited family have a duty but must pay: the municipality must offer training until you reach the Norwegian goal or have used 225 hours. EU/EEA citizens and students have neither a right nor a duty, but may be offered training.

Tests matter later: permanent residence requires oral Norwegian at level A2 or higher and a social studies test; citizenship requires oral Norwegian at B1 or higher and the citizenship test (ages 18 to 67).

Family immigration follows one of two sets of rules:

EEA rules (Directive 2004/38/EC)

These apply when the family member in Norway is an EU/EEA citizen living here under the EEA rules. Family members from outside the EU/EEA apply for a free residence card within three months of entry; it is valid for up to five years and leads to a permanent right of residence after five years. The rules can also cover the family of a Norwegian citizen who lived with them in another EEA country first. UDI decides, and appeals go to UNE.

Norwegian rules (chapter 6 of the Immigration Act)

These apply when the reference person in Norway is a Norwegian or Nordic citizen, or a foreign national with a residence permit, such as a skilled worker. For spouses and cohabitants the main conditions are:

• Both must be over 18. In many cases where the relationship began after the reference person moved to Norway, both must be at least 24, unless the relationship is obviously voluntary.
• Income: the reference person must normally expect at least NOK 436,957 a year before tax (from 1 May 2026) and, unless they hold a skilled worker permit, must have had at least NOK 409,972 in 2025.
• Cohabitants: at least two years of living together, or a child together (born or expected).
• Four-year rule: a reference person with protection, a humanitarian permit or a family immigration permit who formed the relationship after moving here must normally have worked or studied full-time in Norway for four years.
• No housing requirement for spouses and cohabitants. Fee: NOK 11,900 for adults and NOK 5,950 for children (first application).

Permanent residence: utlendingsloven § 62

Permanent residence gives the right to live and work in Norway indefinitely. The main conditions are normally 3 years of continuous residence on permits that count (5 for some protection and humanitarian permits), at most 7 months abroad, oral Norwegian at level A2 or higher and a social studies test (ages 18 to 67), and own income of at least NOK 341,373 before tax in the last 12 months (UDI, 2026). Since 1 September 2025, all conditions except self-support must be met at the time of the decision. Study, posted worker and contractor permits do not count. Fee: NOK 4,000 for adults.

Norwegian citizenship: the Norwegian Nationality Act (statsborgerloven)

Citizenship is an administrative decision by UDI, with appeals to UNE. The main conditions are normally 8 years of residence in the last 11 (6 in the last 10 with income of at least 3 times the average G, which was NOK 384,348 for tax year 2025), clarified identity, permanent residence or meeting its conditions, oral Norwegian at B1 or higher, the citizenship test (ages 18 to 67) and good conduct. Dual citizenship has been allowed since 1 January 2020. Fee: NOK 6,500 for adults. A government consultation in June 2026 proposed stricter residence rules, so check the rules before you apply.