There was alot of information on a certain post about moving to Norway so I decided that this needed a page of its own. Please feel free to put any questions in the comments section as these will get through to me.

Homework before going

First thing is if you are thinking about moving to Norway, then it helps to check whether you can first. Those that are married or have cohabitted in a long term relationship with a Norwegian are off to a good start, and so are those in EEC or EU countries, particularly the UK because of long standing relationships between our countries, but others don’t often fare so well. It is worth checking and doing you homework before you set your sights on the country. Phoning your local Norwegian Embassy is a good start, then contacting Authorities in Norway as a second.

Basically you are checking whether you can get work or residancy permit, depending on your situation you will need some form of documentation (unless you hold a Norwegian passport) and these are the standard ones. I personally choose to pay for a years permit, this with my situation means that after 3 years of paying and being with a Norwegian partner I can apply for permanant residency. If you are a member of the EEA/EU countries there is another permit that you can gain, but it is restricted to a certain amount of time before applying again.

Second thing is there seems to be alot of conflicting advice around, and although some helpful websites are around, they are quite vague in certain important areas (it almost sometimes seems like they don’t want more to move here, strange that…) , but being persistant is the key, and try to find out from someone in authority. I managed to get a helpful written guide sent to me in London from the Norwegian Embassey before moving.

Thirdly you might have to declare that you have enough money to stay in Norway with you permit, this figure might change so I am not going to quote it here but it is based on the living costs of Norway, which are high by world standards.

Fourthly there is a requirement to speak Norwegian, most everyday communication is held in Norwegian and although English is well understood here it is sometimes difficult (and perhaps rude) to conduct the rest of your life in Norway in anything but NyNorsk or Bokmål (the two official languages of Norway). If you don’t speak Norwegian, English or a close Nordic relation to Norwegian I am not so sure how you would fare, but I am sure that it will be tougher to get along in everyday life.

Utlendingsdirektoratet (Norwegian Directorate of Immigration)
http://www.udi.no/

Useful Norway website:
http://www.norway.org.uk/

Getting ready to move

Once you are ready to make the move it is obviously important to see what you can bring into the country, particularly as there are very strict rules on alcohol compared to some countries. Your first port of call should be to check with Tollvesenet ( http://www.toll.no/ ) what you are allowed to bring and how some items should be imported (animals, guns, tools etc).

Some items that you want to bring into the country require tax being paid on them and this now applies to Motor vehicles, whether you have owned them for along time or not.

Finding accomodation.

This is actually something that we did in advance, and we put an advert in www.finn.no saying that we were looking for a place to rent in Bergen, and in a few days we had plenty of phone calls even though we hadn’t left England. We where also lucky enough to have friends willing to look at places for us and within in a few days we had somewhere. Unseen by us, but it added to the excitment of course!

You could go down the same route, or if you are shipping your goods over come over and stay in other types of accomodation in fact it is just about the same as anywhere else but if you are renting be sure to have a sizeable deposit to put down.

Removals

Personally we got a van and filled it full of our belongings (checking against what we could bring) and drove it back over on the Ferry, but for those on further distances a packing company is probably the best way, of which I found many just through searching on Google. These can be expensive to very expensive and it is worth shopping around for a quote which they will be happy to provide, and this can be based on volume or weight and often a combination of the two. Doing a search will provide weblinks to many of these.

Getting to and from Norway without a major amount of belongings isn’t really worth me writing suffice to say there are plenty of commercial flights, and if not directly via Copenhagen, London Heathrow or another major English airport.

Upon arriving

Once you have arrived, accomodation will be your number one priority along with setting up electricity, and utilities.
Second, you must register with the police station. They will be able to direct you to what you need to do, and often it involves filling out some forms. You can apply for the Norwegian national number here, but be aware that it takes some time to setup. You also should go the local tax office, and fill out a residency form and also go to the bank. I chose DnB as they seemed the most willing and helpful, and knew about giving out a temporary number that will take the National numbers place until you have received it.

There are ways and means of staying here and these details can change depending on your situation but whatever it is it is advisable to go to the Police station to find out about your status.

For instance with EEC, EU and EEA citizens there are agreements about staying Norway very different to those for countries outside of this area.

Finding work in Norway:

There are 2 ways of finding work in Norway and of these the one that I found most useful was networking with people that you know, and the people that they know. In fact this is the way that I got my current position, after going through interviews and the normal process.

The other was is to look at the normal job boards, sign up with job agencies, check the papers and put in the hardwork required as with anywhere.

There is some information here about getting work that is work reading: http://www.aetat.no/cgi-bin/aetat/imaker?id=106

There are also job boards such as http://www.finn.no and alot of these seem to have the same information on so pick a couple that you like and you will probably be well served.

When working in Norway

Norway has different tax rules from most other places in the world, and although there are higher taxes on alot of things when you start working it is slightly different.  If it is your first year working in Norway each week that you take off for holiday you don’t get paid for, and if you take 3 weeks off in a year, you don’t get paid in June.  Which comes as quite a shock.  How is this fair?  Well the next year you get paid in June, but not the normal amount - 10.2% tax free of your wages which can add up nicely of course.  Its one to look out for.