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WORKING IN NORWAY

Five things to know about wages in Norway

Norway is a great country to live and work in, and many point to the high salaries as a major pull factor. Here’s what you need to know about the wages in Norway. 

Published: 19 April 2024 13:04 CEST
Updated: 26 April 2024 13:17 CEST
Pictured is a person in the old district of Oslo.
There are several important things you need to know about the wages in Norway. Pictured is a person in the old district of Oslo. Photo by Eirik Skarstein on Unsplash

Norway doesn’t have a minimum wage 

Many wrongly assume that the high wages in Norway must be the result of a high minimum wage. 

However, the country doesn’t have a minimum wage which covers all sectors. Instead, wages are agreed upon through negotiations between trade unions and individual employers or employer organisations. 

This contributes to high levels of trade union membership in Norway. 

Those who aren’t in a union or sectors where membership isn’t widespread negotiate their own wages. 

Some industries, where workers are likely to be exploited or where there may be a large number of foreign workers, have minimum wages enforced by the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority.

READ MORE: Which industries in Norway have a minimum wage?

How Norwegian wages compare 

The average salary in Norway (more on that later) was 56,360 kroner per month in 2023. 

This equates to an annual salary of around 676,000 kroner. This is a salary equivalent to 49,000 pounds, 57,510 euros, or 61,266 dollars. 

The average annual salary in the US is 59,428, according to Forbes magazine.  Eurostat, the official statistics office of the European Union, measured the average annual salary for a single worker without children at 26,136 euros and 55,573 euros for a working couple with two children. 

However, wages vary greatly across the EU. In 2022, the net annual earnings of an average single worker without children were 47,640 euros in Luxembourg compared to 8,412 euros in Bulgaria. 

Meanwhile, the average Dane earns 46,972 Danish kroner before taxes, according to Statistics Denmark. This is around 73,981 Norwegian kroner. In Sweden, the average salary was around 38,300 Swedish krona or roughly 38,534 Norwegian kroner. 

Average wage versus median wage 

The average monthly wage of 56,360 kroner is pulled up by the very highest earners. The highest earners in Norway are found in the private sector. 

Statistics Norway used to keep data on the very highest earners, and around 41,600 people were in the top one percent in 2021 (the year Statistics Norway last kept data) 

To be in Norway’s top one percent required annual earnings of 1.8 million kroner or 150,000 kroner monthly. 

The median wage is a far more modest 50,660 kroner. 

Income tax 

Norway uses a mixture of progressive and flat taxation. The majority of wage earners in Norway, they will pay a flat income tax of 22 per cent, along with a bracketed tax based on earnings. 

The bracket tax ranges between 1.7 and 17.5 percent, depending on one’s earnings. This means that you can have income tax of up to 39.5 percent in Norway. 

Foreigner workers who are new to Norway will be sorted into the PAYE scheme. This is a flat tax rate of 25 percent, however there are no deductibles available. After a year, they will be sorted into Norway’s regular tax system. 

Norway’s gender and immigrant wage gap 

Foreigners in Norway typically make less money than their Norwegian counterparts. The average salary for a foreign resident in Norway is around 50,270 kroner per month, according to figures from the national data agency Statistics Norway.

Furthermore, when you take immigrants out of the wage statistics, the average wage rises to 58,190 kroner. 

The highest earners amongst foreigners in Norway were those  from North America and Oceania. They made 61,810 kroner on average. 

Africans, and those from countries that joined the EU after 2004, had the lowest earnings among all immigrant groups in Norway. 

While women’s wages increased more than men’s last year, a gender wage gap still exists in Norway. An average woman’s salary amounted to 88.3 percent of a man’s monthly pay packet.

A bigger gap existed between Norwegian men and foreign women. 

READ ALSO: How much money do Norway’s different foreigners make?

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MONEY

EXPLAINED: How wealthy is the ‘average’ Norwegian? 

Norway is known for its high wages and stable economy. New figures have revealed the wealth of the average resident in the Nordic country. 

Published: 23 April 2024 15:50 CEST
Updated: 1 May 2024 11:37 CEST
EXPLAINED: How wealthy is the 'average' Norwegian? 

High salaries go hand in hand with the high cost of living in conversations about Norway.

However, other factors, such as high homeownership rates, indicate that there is plenty of disposable income for locals to save and invest in their futures. 

Previous studies have also suggested that Norwegians are the seventh wealthiest nationals in the world. 

Norway’s national data agency, Statistics Norway, has compiled its own set of figures indicating that the average Norwegian household has a net wealth of around 3.8 million kroner. 

Net wealth accounts for everything a person owns, including property, stocks, or cash, minus any debts or liabilities. 

The vast majority of this wealth was derived from the estimated value of property. This alone gives the average Norwegian an estimated wealth of 3.74 million kroner. 

READ ALSO: How much does an apartment in Norway cost?

The value of second homes was included, which skewed things as only around 10 percent of households owned a secondary residence. 

The average price of a home in Norway was 4.5 million kroner in March of this year, and house prices have increased substantially in recent years. 

Savings, cash, stocks and other capital accounted for 1.72 million kroner, giving Norwegians an average wealth of 5.46 million kroner. Average debts of 1.68 million kroner gave Norwegians an average net wealth of 3.8 million kroner.  

The figures from Statistics Norway were obtained using figures from tax returns for 2022, which were submitted in 2023.  

Those aged between 67 and 79 years old were the wealthiest generation in Norway on average. This is partly because they have more capital than most other groups and more expensive property. 

However, the most significant factor is the lower levels of debt. They had half the debt of the next richest group, those aged between 55 and 69. 

Younger age groups weren’t as wealthier as they had much higher debts and lower capital. 

Still, Norway’s wealthiest individuals significantly boosted the average. When using the median, the average Norwegian household had a net wealth of just under 2 million kroner. 

When the median was applied to capital, the figure was 339,300 kroner compared to the average of 1.76 million kroner. 

The large difference in capital was attributed to Norway’s wealthiest individuals significantly pulling up the average. 

“This is mainly due to large fortunes in shares and securities, where a few own very much. Shares and other securities and share savings accounts are assets with a median value equal to zero, which indicates that these are not important asset items for most households,” the report said. 

Money kept in the bank was still important for most residents of Norway, though. The median value of bank deposits in Norway was 215,000 kroner, compared to the average of 600,000. 

The gulf between the average value of property owned and the median was roughly 500,000, with the median being 3.25 million kroner. 

Furthermore, Norway’s median debt level was around 860,000 kroner compared to the average of 1.67 million kroner. Around 85 percent of Norwegian households were in some form of debt. 

Significant differences also exist between Norway’s wealthiest and poorest residents. Residents belonging to the country’s poorest ten percent had an average net wealth of almost minus 1 million kroner. 

Meanwhile, Norway’s wealthiest ten percent had a net wealth of 19 million kroner. The top 50 percent also owned considerably more than the bottom 50 percent. 

“Despite the former comprising 1.27 million households, while the latter comprises approximately 25,000 households, the bottom 50 percent own only 4 percent of the total net worth, while the top 1 percent owned as much as 22.3 percent in 2022,” the report read. 

There was also significant variation in wealth depending on household type. For example, a single mother or father with a child aged between 6 and 17 had a net wealth of 2.24 million kroner, compared to a couple with children of the same age with an average net wealth of 5.12 million kroner. 

Typically, households with more than one person had more money as more than one wage earner likely lived at the address. 

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