Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

POLITICS

EXPLAINED: How to vote in Norway’s local elections 

Foreign residents who have lived in Norway for more than three years will have the opportunity to vote and shape their local area in the years to come. Here’s what you need to know about casting your vote. 

Published: 6 September 2023 16:29 CEST
Pictured is Oslo City Hall at night.
Here's what you need to know about the voting process in Norway. Pictured is Oslo City Hall at night. Photo by Andre Morales Kalamar on Unsplash

There isn’t long to go until Norway’s population heads to ballot boxes nationwide for the September 11th county and municipal elections. 

Far from simply acting as a barometer for the 2025 general elections, the local elections offer an opportunity for foreign residents to vote. 

Those who are 18 or are turning 18 by the end of the year will be allowed to vote in the local elections. Nordic citizens who have registered as living in Norway before June 30th 2023, will be able to vote in the local elections, as will all other foreign citizens who have lived in Norway for at least three consecutive years before the election date.

The local elections offer foreign residents the chance to make an important difference in their local areas by casting their vote. We have covered the biggest election talking points and where the mainstream parties stand on them in Bergen and Oslo. 

All those with the right to vote should have received an election card. The card contains details about the location of the polling stations on election day and information on voting in advance. Voting cards have been sent to digital mailboxes and Alltin. Those without any digital mailboxes should have been sent a paper version. 

Enrollment in Norway’s electoral role happens automatically, and residents can vote in the municipality they were registered as living in as of the end of June this year. 

Voting in advance is available but will end shortly (September 8th). When voting in advance, you can vote anywhere in the country, and the vote will then be posted to your home municipality. You can use this tool (in English) to find your nearest polling station.  

To vote, you must bring a photo ID with you. This can be a passport, national identity card, driving licence or bank card with a photo. You do not need to bring your voting card, which will speed up the process. 

In Norway, the voting system is geared towards proportional representation, so the ballot paper will look slightly different from other places. 

When you enter the ballot booth, there will be a set of papers for the municipal election (or district if you are in Oslo) and one for the county (or city council in Oslo). The ballots for the different sets of elections will have different colours. 

If you want to vote for a specific party list, these are the candidates representing one party and are assigned seats proportionally to votes, you take the ballot party of the vote and need nothing else. To give a personal vote to specific candidates on the party list, you place a mark in the box next to their name. 

Norwegian elections allow you to give some of your power to specific candidates only and even candidates from other parties. 

This is known as “throwing” and means a list vote is given to the party the ‘thrower’ comes from at the expense of the party being voted for. 

To give a personal vote to specific candidates on the party list, you place a mark in the box next to their name. To assign a vote to a candidate from another party, you add the name of the candidate(s) in the specified place on the ballot paper. When you do this, a proportion of your vote will be transferred from the party ballot paper to that specific candidate. 

Once you’ve done this, you fold your ballot paper. All ballots look identical, and there is no way to identify the party ballot you have selected. 

Then, you will be asked to show some photo ID to confirm your right to vote, and you’ll get a stamp from the election official. Your vote will not be counted if you don’t get a stamp. Once you’ve been stamped, you can put your ballot papers in the ballot box, and you’ve officially voted. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

TAXES

Will Norway’s new exit tax slow the exodus of ultra-rich from the country?

You can check out -- but you still have to pay! Norway is looking for ways to hang onto its ultra-rich who are increasingly moving abroad to escape one of the rare European countries to impose a wealth tax.

Published: 24 May 2024 10:55 CEST
Will Norway's new exit tax slow the exodus of ultra-rich from the country?

Industrialist Kjell Inge Røkke, former cross-country ski legend Bjørn Dæhlie, and the father of football star Erling Haaland are among the dozens of super-wealthy who have packed up and left in recent years.

The reason? The centre-left government in power since 2021 has hiked the wealth tax from 0.85 percent to one percent — and to 1.1 percent for the very wealthiest — and raised the dividend tax.

Norway, Spain and Switzerland are the only European countries that have a tax on net wealth. In Norway it also applies to unrealised capital gains (gains not yet realised through the sale of shares, for example).

Owners of companies are among those hit hardest, often drawing a modest salary even though their company has a high value.

“If your salary is one million and you have to pay three million in (wealth) tax, it’s clear that it’s untenable,” said Tord Ueland Kolstad, a real estate magnate who “grudgingly” moved to Lucerne, Switzerland in 2022.

“The system is designed so that it confiscates more than what you can produce,” he said.

To pay a wealth tax which can exceed their yearly income, entrepreneurs often need to take out dividends, hampering their company’s capacity to invest.

And those dividends are also subject to a tax rate of 37.84 percent.

“So basically you have two options: either leave Norway, or sell your company,” said Kolstad.

‘Breach of the social contract’ 

Between 2021 and 2023, more than 100 of Norway’s wealthiest people went into exile, with the large majority relocating to Switzerland.

Others transferred their wealth to heirs already residing abroad, as Norway does not have inheritance tax.

Labour Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has criticised the mini-exodus, stressing that taxes are what pay for Norway’s generous welfare system.

“When you’ve made your wealth in Norway, put your kids in school, benefitted from the health care system, driven on the roads and reaped the rewards of its research, it’s a breach of the social contract,” he said in a speech in parliament.

The government is now working to tighten the country’s “exit tax”.

People who move abroad would have 12 years to pay the exit tax — also 37.84 percent of gains made in Norway from shares and other sources over many years — that has until now been easy to circumvent or defer.

“The aim is that gains made in Norway be taxed in Norway,” explained Erlend Grimstad, a state secretary in the finance ministry.

“Our nurses and teachers have to hand over a large share of their earnings to society in the form of taxes,” he said.

“If they see that the most well-off can simply avoid contributing their share by leaving the country, that undermines the legitimacy of the tax system.”

‘Don’t come to Norway’

That does little to quell the anger of the ultra-rich.

Christer Dalsbøe, who started his own company, made buzz on social media recently singing a little ditty discouraging other entrepreneurs from starting businesses in the country.

“Don’t come to Norway, We will tax you till you’re poor. And when you have nothing left, We will tax you a little more,” he sang, sitting at a piano.

The liberal think tank Civita said the government’s plans to tighten the “exit tax” were in reality aimed at setting up roadblocks for millionaires and billionaires.

“Instead of attacking the reasons that push them into exile, meaning easing the tax burden on Norwegian shareholders, they seem to prefer to set up regulatory obstacles,” said Civita economist Mathilde Fasting.

In Lucerne, Tord Ueland Kolstad said he can receive “several calls a week” from other Norwegians considering moving to Switzerland.

“The flow has not stopped. Maybe it is just beginning.”

SHOW COMMENTS