Applicants abroad must submit their application to the nearest embassy/consulate in the country of which they are citizens or in which they have been legally resident for the last six months. Applicants located within Norway and with a right to apply from within the country must submit their application to their local police district. Applications that are to be processed by the UDI are sent to the UDI by post and this can take time in some cases. Case Procedure - Work.

When the UDI receives the application it is recorded in the archive and then sent on to the unit that is to process the application.

The unit then examines the application and checks whether the applicant meets the relevant conditions, whether the form has been filled in correctly and whether all the documentation is in place.

Incomplete applications may be sent to the local police district or the embassy/consulate in order to obtain more information or documentation. The UDI may also contact parties who have been granted power of attorney (power of attorney form) or employers in order to obtain more information. If important information is missing it can take longer than the specified case-processing time to process an application.

Once a decision has been taken, the official processing the case writes a notice of decision and sends it to the police district where the application was submitted or where the applicant intends to live. The police pass on the decision to the applicant. If you applied from an embassy or consulate, the UDI will send a fax or a letter containing information about the decision in your case. The embassy or consulate will then pass on the decision to the applicant. In the case of the granting of citizenship, the decision is sent directly to the applicant, whereas the letter conveying citizenship is sent to the police, who will pass it on to the applicant.

It takes a few days or weeks from when the UDI takes a decision until the applicant is informed of the decision. The length of that period is dependent, amongst other things, on the postal service and the workload of the police or embassy/consulate that is to pass on the decision. For those requiring visas it may also take some time before the visa can be issued as a result of the workload of the embassy/consulate.