The country’s postal service Posten Norge announced the closures as part its ongoing process to replace post offices with counters in shops.

That means 25 post offices are to be closed by the end of 2022, NRK writes.

Five post offices in Oslo and one on Arctic archipelago Svalbard will remain, meaning there will be no post offices at all throughout most of the country.

“There is still a large enough volume in Oslo to justify that there are post offices there. There is a lot of post there connected to business customers, public administration and large institutions,” Posten Norge’s head of press communications Keneth Pettersen told NRK.

The closures will affect 170 employees and take place over the next two-and-a-half years.

A decline in the volume of physical post as well as the closure of DNB bank services at post offices were cited as primary reasons for the new round of post office closures.

“When the Post loses in September the ability to offer bank services from DNB and the decrease in letter volume grows, that will result in reduced activity and revenues for post offices. We have to adapt to that,” Pettersen said.

DNB announced last year that it intended to scrap post office banking and has instead reached agreements with Norgesgruppen supermarket chain to provide cash banking services in stores.

The closing post offices will themselves be replaced by counters in shops. An advantage of this for customers is more flexible opening hours in comparison with traditional post offices.

Posten Norge is also set to put in place around 1,000 ‘parcel boxes’ (pakkebokser) across the country, enabling parcels to be collected around the clock using an app.

“Society is becoming more digital and we must react to that. A solution such as this will make post services more accessible,” Pettersen told NRK.

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