Spouse, registered partner or cohabitant of a Norwegian citizen
If you have registered as an EU/EEA national with the police in Norway and you live here on a permanent basis, you can apply for Norwegian citizenship. You must meet the requirements for registration both when you apply for Norwegian citizenship and while your application is being processed.
Requirements for Norwegian citizenship
- You must pay an application fee.
- You must have your identity verified. As a general rule, you are required to present a passport.
- You must be residing in Norway and intend to continue living here in the future.
- You must reside in Norway both when you apply for Norwegian citizenship and when the application is processed.
- You must have resided in Norway for a total of five years during the last ten years with a right of residence or permits with a minimum length of one year.
- You have had a right of residence if you yourself are an EU/EEA citizen and have exercised your right of residence in Norway through work, self-employment or studies in Norway. You have also had a right of residence if you have been family reunited with an EU/EEA citizen, and this person has had a right of residence in Norway.
- Read more about how to calculate the length of your residence period.
- Your combined residence period and marriage period must be at least seven years in total.
- You are required to either have a permanent right of residence or having stayed in Norway with a right of residence for the past three years. If you do not have a permanent right of residence, your stay for the last three years must have been continuous. This means that you cannot have traveled more than two months abroad per calendar year during the last three years.
- You have a permanent right of residence if you have received a permanent residence card or a permanent residence certificate. You may also have a permanent right of residence even if you have not applied for a residence card.
- If you are wondering whether you have a permanent right of residence, you can find information about your residence if you log in using ID-porten on «My page».
- If you are between 18 and 67 years old, you must meet the following requirements:
- Passed an oral test in Norwegian at level B1 at the minimum or provide proof of sufficient Norwegian skills
- Passed a test in social studies in Norwegian, passed a citizenship test or provide proof of sufficient knowledge about the Norwegian society
- You may request exemption from these requirements if you are unable to meet them due to health, personal circumstances or other compelling reasons
- If you over the age of 15 years: You must order a criminal record certificate (external website), which you must hand in with the application. The certificate cannot be more than three months old when you meet for your appointment with the police to submit the application documents. Therefore, you must wait to apply for a criminal record certificate until you know when you have an appointment with the police. If you already have a criminal record certificate that is older than three months, you must apply for a new certificate before you have your appointment. If you have been convicted or fined by the police or if you are under investigation for a criminal offence, you might have to wait longer to become a Norwegian citizen.
- From 1 January 2020, you are not required to give up your original citizenship to become a Norwegian citizen. You can have one or more citizenships in addition to a Norwegian citizenship. However, if the country you are a citizen of now does not allow you to have more than one citizenship, you may still lose this citizenship when you become a Norwegian citizen.
- You must make sure what the rules are in your current country of citizenship. You can, for example, look for information on an official website which belongs to the authorities in that country or ask an embassy.
- You do not have to inform Norwegian authorities that you wish to keep your previous citizenship.