Visa information

Norway's immigration system is employer-led in the 2026 guide: the main route is a Skilled Worker permit tied to a job offer at market salary, alongside a short Job Seeker visa for skilled workers and a self-employed permit for approved businesses. The guide is explicit that there is no passive-income or nomad visa, and it scores Norway just 40/100 for visa and bureaucracy — the paperwork stage runs about 6 to 10 weeks depending on tier.

The three routes the guide names

Skilled Worker permit — the headline route, requiring a job offer at market salary. The guide gives no krone figure for that salary test, so this page does not invent one.

Job Seeker visa for skilled workers — described only as short; neither source gives its exact length or funds test.

Self-employed permit for approved businesses — approval is part of the route as the guide words it; no capital threshold or business-plan criteria are printed.

Just as important is what is absent: the third visa line ends “no passive-income or nomad visa,” and the remote-work section repeats that there is no nomad visa, noting only that Svalbard is visa-free but impractical. There is likewise no retirement visa for non-EU citizens without family (see the Retirement page).

The income tests — what the sources actually say

Unlike guides that print a monthly threshold, this guide states its tests in words only. For the Skilled Worker permit the test is a job offer at market salary — no amount, occupation list or salary table appears in either source. For the Job Seeker visa and the self-employed permit, no income, savings or investment figure is printed at all.

For planning conversions the guide gives an exchange rate of $1 ≈ kr10.3 (Norwegian krone). Any salary you are offered in kroner converts at roughly that rate in the guide's terms — but whether it counts as “market salary” is a question for the employer and the authorities, not something either source defines further.

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

The guide does not publish an itemised schedule of government application charges. What it gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” budget line in each move plan, and those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself:

• $1,250 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,800 — Mid-range and Retirement plans
• $4,300 — Luxury plan (the plan notes the luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer)

These are the guide's plan budgets for the whole paperwork bundle — apostilles and translations included in the line's own description — not a quote of any single official charge.

Application steps and timelines, by tier

The guide builds the application into each plan's timeline rather than printing a single step list. The common sequence across the plans and checklists is:

• Choose the route first and print its requirements; the Affordable checklist starts with “Visa route chosen and requirements printed.”
• Gather and legalise documents — apostilles and translations are named in every tier.
• Check your passport — the Affordable checklist requires a passport valid 18+ months.
• Arrange health insurance before you file (see the Hospitals page for the guide's first-year insurance budgets).
• File — yourself on the Affordable tier, or with a lawyer or agent on the Mid-range, Luxury and Retirement tiers; the Luxury checklist has an immigration lawyer engaged and the visa route confirmed.

Paperwork-stage durations in the guide: ~10 weeks filing yourself (Affordable), ~8 weeks with a lawyer or agent filing (Mid-range), ~6 weeks with a lawyer filing everything (Luxury), and ~14 weeks for the Retirement paperwork stage. After the move, the settle stage includes registering your address and opening a bank account.

Renewals and the path to residency — the honest limit of the guide

Neither the guide nor the site data gives renewal intervals, years to permanent residence or citizenship, absence limits, or family-reunification rules for these permits — so this page states none. The one forward-looking benefit the guide does name is in its schemes list: free healthcare after residency. Treat the routes themselves as confirmed in the guide's terms, and the renewal timetable as something to confirm through the official sources below or with an immigration lawyer before you rely on it — the Luxury plan's lawyer line exists for exactly this kind of question.

Frequently asked questions