If your foreign company employs workers in Norway, you are required to comply with Norwegian regulations. One key obligation is ensuring proper calculation and payment of the employer's National Insurance contributions, which is a critical component of Norwegian compliance. In this blog, we'll take you through what the employer's National Insurance contribution is and how it is calculated and paid.
As a main rule, all entities that have employees working in Norway must pay the employer’s National Insurance contributions on salary, holiday pay, and other remuneration. The employer's National Insurance contributions are taxes that employers must pay for their employees as part of financing the National Insurance Scheme.
You must pay the employer's National Insurance contributions on the salaries, benefits and other remuneration for work, which you are required to report.
Mark that you also have to pay employer’s National Insurance contribution on pension, even though it is not connected to your reporting duty.
The employer's National Insurance contributions rates are regionally differentiated. Each municipality in Norway is assigned to a zone with associated contribution rates. You should calculate employer's National Insurance contributions at the rate which applies in the municipality in which your business is registered.
All foreign companies must be registered in The Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities (“Enhetsregisteret”). This is the starting point when considering were the company is registered. Normally, foreign companies with activity in Norway are registered at the tax office for foreign affairs. The rate for calculating the employer’s National Insurance rate, in these cases, is 14,1%.
Payroll withholding tax (tax deductions) and employer's National Insurance contributions must be paid six times a year.
The basis for the payment can be found in the a-melding which you are obliged to submit on the fifth day of the month after the payment of salaries and other allowances. The tax authorities do not send out a separate claim for the National Insurance contributions.
The tax withholding and the employer’s National Insurance contributions reported in the a-melding must be paid according to the following deadlines:
Note that if the employees are exempted from paying contributions to the Norwegian National Insurance Scheme, the employer should not pay employer's National Insurance contributions either.
Foreign employees in Norway are as a main rule obliged to join the Norwegian National Insurance Scheme.
However, if the employees are members of their home country's National Insurance scheme, they can be exempted from being a member of the Norwegian National Insurance Scheme.
This must be documented using a form called A1, (within EEA). This is a confirmation from the National Insurance authorities in the posting country that the employee retains their membership while working in Norway.
The form must be sent to NAV (the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration) for processing. The exemption from the requirement to calculate and pay contributions to the Norwegian National Insurance Scheme only applies to the period stated on the form.
Also read: Do the right things when doing business in Norway
For employees from countries outside the EU, the question is whether Norway has a social security agreement with that specific country. If Norway has an agreement, and the employee prefers to maintain a member of the home country’s national insurance scheme, they should submit a Certificate of Coverage equivalent to A1.
Norway has bilateral social security agreements with the following countries: Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, France, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Portugal, Quebec, Serbia, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, Switzerland, Turkey , Hungary (applies to health care), the United States and Austria.
The agreement with USA and Canada only covers the pension part. The employer’s contribution in these cases are 7,0 %
Article first published June 2020, updated December 2021.