Norway taxes residents on worldwide income and non-residents on Norway-source income only. Norway operates a largely pre-filled administrative assessment system: the Norwegian Tax Administration (Skatteetaten) pre-populates most individual returns using third-party-reported data and issues a tax assessment notice (skatteoppgjor) determining the final liability, which the taxpayer reviews and can amend rather than building the calculation from a blank return.
The Norwegian tax year is the calendar year. The standard individual filing deadline is 30 April of the following year.
Norway's headline corporate income tax (CIT) rate is 22% (25% financial sector).
The headline personal income tax (PIT) rate is 39.8% (22% general + 17.8% top bracket).
The standard VAT/GST (or equivalent consumption tax) rate is 25%.
An individual is a Norwegian tax resident if present in Norway for more than 183 days in any 12-month period, or more than 270 days in any 36-month period (all days and partial days count), or if they have established a permanent home in Norway regardless of day count. Norwegian tax residence does not automatically end upon departure - individuals who have been resident less than ten years prior to emigration must both cease using a Norwegian dwelling and stay under 61 days per year in Norway during the emigration period before residence ceases (longer conditions apply for those resident ten-plus years). Residents are taxed on worldwide income; non-residents only on Norwegian-source income.
A non-Norwegian entity has a Norwegian permanent establishment through a fixed place of business or a dependent agent habitually concluding contracts in Norway on the entity's behalf, following the OECD Model Treaty definition as applied under Norwegian domestic law and any applicable tax treaty.
Norway's CFC regime (Norsk-kontrollert utenlandsk selskap, "NOKUS") taxes Norwegian owners currently on their proportionate share of a foreign company's profit where Norwegian taxpayers, alone or together, own or control at least 50% of the company (measured at both the start and end of the income year) and the company is resident in a low-tax jurisdiction - defined as facing an effective tax rate below two-thirds of the Norwegian rate. Two key exemptions apply: entities resident in a country with which Norway has a tax treaty are exempt unless their income is mainly passive, and entities within the EEA are exempt if genuinely established with real economic activity there. A per-country foreign tax credit is available for tax the CFC has already paid.
Norway has no fixed debt-to-equity ratio; instead, an EBITDA-based interest limitation rule (extended to both intra-group and external loans since 2019) caps deductible net interest expense at 25% of tax-EBITDA once net interest expenses in the Norwegian part of a group exceed NOK 25 million (a separate NOK 5 million threshold applies to interest paid to a related party outside the group, typically an individual holding 50%+ of the shares). An equity-ratio "safety clause" grants a full deduction where the Norwegian entity's equity ratio matches or exceeds the wider group's. Disallowed interest carries forward ten years.
Norway does not use an elective check-the-box classification system; entity classification generally follows the entity's actual legal characteristics. Norway has implemented ATAD2-aligned anti-hybrid rules denying deductions for payments producing a hybrid mismatch outcome.
No foreign bank account or foreign financial asset reporting regime exists in Norway requiring residents to separately disclose foreign accounts; foreign income and assets are reported through the standard annual tax return.
Norway operates a broad participation exemption (fritaksmetoden) covering dividends and capital gains on qualifying shares, with no minimum ownership threshold or holding period for EEA-resident subsidiaries, though a small 3% portion of otherwise-exempt income is added back as taxable (yielding an effective tax rate around 0.66% on exempt gains/dividends rather than a true 100% exemption); non-EEA subsidiaries generally require the exemption to be assessed under stricter conditions, including genuine business substance.
Norway has a real foreign tax credit regime for both individuals and companies, an ordinary credit under Norwegian domestic law capped at the Norwegian tax otherwise due on the same foreign-source income, applying whether or not a tax treaty is in force with the relevant country.
Norway has concluded 89 double tax treaties and signed the OECD's Multilateral Instrument (MLI) on June 7, 2017.