Former Norwegian citizen over the age of 12
If you hold a valid residence permit in Norway and live here on a permanent basis, you can apply for Norwegian citizenship.
If you or your child does not hold a residence permit, you must apply for one to be able to live in Norway. The most common way of doing this is by applying for family reunification.
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 over the age of 12.
- 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.
- You must have stayed in Norway continuously for the past two years and have held residence permits that were each valid for at least one year.
- This means that you cannot have been abroad for more than two months per calendar year during the past two years.
- Nor can you have stayed in Norway without a valid residence permit for more than two months in total during the past two years, reckoned from the date on which we make a decision in your case.
- 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.
Exemptions from the requirements
- If you were given incorrect information by the Norwegian authorities and believed in good faith that you or your child would not lose your Norwegian citizenship, you may be granted an exemption from the above requirements.