Spouse, registered partner or cohabitant of a Norwegian citizen
If you hold a valid residence permit in Norway and you live here on a permanent basis, you can apply for Norwegian citizenship. Your residence permit must be valid both when you apply for Norwegian citizenship and while your application is being processed. Applying for Norwegian citizenship does not mean that you have a valid permit to stay in Norway. It is therefore very important that you renew your permit in the normal manner no later than one month before it expires.
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 have permanently residence when you apply for Norwegian citizenship and when the application is processed.
- If you are between 18 and 67 years old, you must meet the following requirements:
- You must have passed an oral test in Norwegian at level B1 at the minimum, or
- You must have passed an oral test in Norwegian at level A2 at the minimum, if you are:
- a stateless person
- over 55 years of age and came to Norway on the basis of an application for protection or as a resettled refugee, or
- over 55 years of age and receive disability benefits, and
- Passed a test in social studies in Norwegian or a citizenship test
- 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.
- You must have a permanent residence permit – or fulfil the requirements for a permanent residence permit – at the time we reach a decision on your application for citizenship.
- If you have not been granted a permanent residence permit, you should consider applying for a permit for permanent residency at the same time you apply for Norwegian citizenship. Please make yourself aware of the implications of applying for Norwegian citizenship without applying for permanent residency.
- Your application for citizenship will be rejected if you do not have a permanent residence permit – or do not fulfil the requirements for a permanent residence permit – at the time we reach a decision on your application for citizenship.
- If you have submitted an application for a permanent residence permit in addition to an application for Norwegian citizenship, it is sufficient that you fulfilled the requirements when you applied for permanent residency (i.e. on the day you submitted your documents to the police).
- If you do not meet the requirements for a permanent residence permit, you should wait to apply for Norwegian citizenship until you fulfil these requirements. Read more about the requirement for being granted a permanent residence permit.
- If you do not wish to apply for a permanent residence permit, then your temporary residence permit must be valid while you wait for your application for Norwegian citizenship to be processed. Therefore, you need to renew your temporary permit at least one month before it expires unless you have received a decision concerning your application for Norwegian citizenship by that time.
- You must have stayed in Norway for at least five years during the last ten years and have held residence permits that were each valid for at least one year.
- In addition, your combined residence period and marriage period must be at least seven years.