Norway
Norway’s a great place for hiring remote talent. If you’ve found someone you’d like to hire in Norway, read on—we’ll teach you how to do it without running into red tape, expensive fees, and lengthy processions of paperwork.
Country snapshot
CURRENCY
Norwegian krone (NOK)
EMPLOYER TAXES
14.10%
PAYROLL FREQUENCY
Bi-Monthly/Monthly
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
Norwegian/English
It’s the fastest way to hire globally
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Thera's locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It’s a lot cheaper
It costs just $0 to sign up for Thera, then $25 per month to hire your contractors with Thera. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
It’s more flexible for you & your team
Can be less risky than hiring employees
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.
Some people want to be employees
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
You might not have as much control over your talent
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
No matter where you’re based out of, we can tell you one thing: Norway has different labor laws than your home country (unless your home country is Norway, that is). If you don’t do things right, you’ll be putting your company at the risk of fines—and risk losing the talent you brought onboard. Fortunately, doing things right is pretty easy if you take the right route.
Hire talent as contractors
Hire talent as employees
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Norway than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Norway
Employer tax
Social Security (depending on zone)
Individual tax
184,800 – 260,100 - 1.7%
1,021,550 NOK and above - 16.20%
Paid Time Off (PTO)
Employees are entitled to four weeks and one day of paid holiday each calendar year.
If the company is bound by a collective agreement, its employees are entitled to five weeks' holiday a year.
Five weeks is the most common arrangement, even in companies that are not bound by a collective agreement.
Annual leave is compensated at a minimum rate of 10.20% of the employee’s total salary, commonly paid in June.
Some collective bargaining agreements will state an increased rate of the vacation payment at 12.00%, and employees over the age of 60 are compensated at 12.50% of their total salary.
Public Holidays
There are 10 public holidays.
Sick Days
The duration of sick leave entitlement provided to workers is dependent on how long they have been employed by their employer:
- In general, employers pay for the first 16 calendar days of sick leave. The Norwegian Labor and Welfare Service (NAV) pays from the 17th day forward, unless different terms are stated in the employee’s contract or CBA.
- Employees must notify their employer if they are absent due to illness.
- Unless otherwise negotiated with the employer, sickness benefits are limited to six times the National Insurance basic amount per year.
- To be eligible for the social security benefit, an employee must meet a specific criterion, including being a member of the National Insurance Scheme, has worked for four consecutive weeks, and have a minimum income of 49,929 NOK annually.
- Within three days of sickness, an employee must provide a completed written sick leave form, and if the sick leave exceeds three days, a doctor’s note is required.
Maternity Leave
Female employees are entitled to paid maternity leave for 3 weeks prior to giving birth and must take a leave of absence for the first 6 weeks after birth unless able to provide a medical certificate indicating it is better to resume work.
Female employees are entitled to 59 weeks of paid maternity leave which is compensated by the national insurance.
The national insurance will pay a mother 80.00% of the regular income for 59 weeks of leave. If the employee opts to take a reduced leave of 49 weeks, they will be compensated at 100.00% of their income.
Parents are entitled to a leave of absence for a total of 47 weeks, or up to 57 weeks with reduced benefits, before the child’s third birthday.
Paternity Leave
Male employees are entitled to 2 weeks’ unpaid paternity leave.
Parental Leave
Maternity leave may be split between the mother and father; however, three weeks before the expected due date and six weeks after the birth are reserved for the mother.
A parent can take an additional year of unpaid leave after maternity leave.
Employees who earn more than 480,000 NOK annually are not entitled to paid parental leave.
Other Leave
Occupational injury insurance - an employee is injured in the workplace, they are entitled to compensation up to 72,662 NOK per year. If the employee is unable to work, they will be entitled to disability compensation. The rate of compensation depends on the employee’s incapacity to work.
Marriage Leave
Employees are entitled to one (1) paid day off on the occasion of their wedding.
Bereavement Leave
There are no laws in Norway that gives day off for funerals. But most companies however do still give you 1 or 2 days off with pay for funerals for close family members
Termination Process
The main form of dismissal is with prior notice. Such dismissal must either be objectively justified on the basis of circumstances relating to the undertaking, the employer or the employee.
If termination is related to curtail or rationalization related to the undertaking, the termination is not objectively justified if the employer has other suitable work in the undertaking to offer the employee.
Furthermore, when deciding whether a dismissal is objectively justified by curtailed operations or rationalization measures, the needs of the undertaking must be weighed against the disadvantage caused by the dismissal for the individual employee.
Additionally, where employees are dismissed on the grounds of circumstances related to the business or organization, the criteria for selection of employees for dismissal must be objectively justified.
An employee who has been dismissed, owing to circumstances relating to the undertaking, has a preferential right to a new appointment at the same undertaking, unless the vacant post is one for which the employee is not qualified.
The statutory notice period for an employer when dismissing an employee varies between 1 and 6 months
There are no statutory provisions on severance or redundancy payment.
Notice Period
The notice period in Norway is:
The statutory notice period for an employer when dismissing an employee varies between 1 and 6 months, depending on the term of employment, age and length of service with the company. It is most common to agree to 3 months’ notice.
Employees giving notice normally have to observe notice periods as agreed to in the employment contract, but these cannot be longer than 3 months.
Severance Pay
There are no statutory provisions on severance or redundancy payment.
These can be included in collective agreements.
Probation Period
Probationary periods in Norway are typically between 3 and 6 months.
Working Hours
The standard workday is 9 hours per day, with one hour included for lunch.
The typical Norwegian employee work five day weeks scheduled between 0600 and 1800 and has arranged work between 37 and 38 hours per week.
Overtime
Any hours worked in excess of 9 hours per day and 40 hours per week are considered overtime and employees must be paid at a premium rate of at least 40% over the normal rate, or provided time off in lieu.
Work hours should not exceed more than 10 hours of overtime per week, 25 hours of overtime per every 4 weeks, and 200 hours of overtime per every 1 year.
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