Moving to Norway — complete guides for newcomers

Moving to Norway or just arrived? NorgeStart explains Norwegian bureaucracy, work, taxes, housing, healthcare and daily life in plain language — with an AI assistant that explains important documents and gives clear, source-based answers.

• Family & children
  Children aged roughly one to five attend barnehage, and every child has a legal right to a place if they turn one by the end of……
• Renting a home
  Never transfer a rental deposit to a landlord's own account: Norwegian law requires it to be held in a separate deposit account……
• Healthcare
  In an emergency call 113 for an ambulance, 112 for police and 110 for fire — free from any phone, and you can speak English.…
• Studying
  Public universities in Norway charge no tuition to students from the EU/EEA and Switzerland…
• Work & your rights
  A written employment contract is mandatory in Norway and your employer must give you one within seven days of you starting.…
• Taxes
  Everyone who works in Norway needs a tax card (skattekort) before their first payday.…
• Find housing & jobs
  finn.no is where Norway advertises almost everything — homes to rent under Eiendom → Bolig til leie, jobs, cars and second-hand goods.…
• Immigration & ID
  EU/EEA citizens may move to Norway, live and work without a residence permit, but must register with the police after three months.…
• Money & banking
  Opening a Norwegian bank account needs a D-number or national identity number plus valid ID…
• Getting around
  Each region runs one app that covers all its local buses, trams, metro and ferries: Ruter in Oslo, Skyss in Bergen, AtB in Trondheim.…
• Driving
  A driving licence from an EU/EEA country stays valid in Norway for as long as it is valid at home, and exchanging it is optional.…
• Everyday life
  Grocery shops close early on Saturday and almost everything is shut on Sunday, so Norwegian weeks have a rhythm you have to learn once.…
• Culture & unwritten rules
  Norwegian social rules are mostly about not imposing: personal space is respected, small talk with strangers is uncommon…
• Nature & leisure
  Allemannsretten — the right to roam — lets you walk, ski, cycle, swim and camp on uncultivated land anywhere in Norway…
• Weather & seasons
  Norway has four seasons but they arrive at very different times depending on where you are…
• Laws to know
  The rules newcomers get caught by are rarely the obvious ones: drinking alcohol in a street or park is not allowed…
• Know Norway
  Norway is 5.6 million people spread along 1,750 kilometres — the distance from Oslo to Rome.…
• Translators & legal help
  For anything official — UDI applications, the police, courts, marriage, recognition of foreign qualifications…

NorgeStart is an independent private service. It is not a government agency and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or operated by any Norwegian public authority. NorgeStart brings information from many official Norwegian sources together in one place, and we work to keep it up to date. Even so, rules, rates and amounts can change at any time, and we cannot guarantee that a page here always matches the authority's latest wording. Always confirm with the responsible authority before you act. We give general information, not professional advice on legal, tax, immigration or medical matters, and we take no responsibility for differences between this page and the official source, or for decisions taken on the basis of it.