An appointment at the Oslo police takes up to sixteen weeks, against the thirty days promised for the decision itself. Meanwhile there is not a single pressure event against newcomers, 100 out of 100.
between leaguesNorway leaves legal residents in peace: we found no campaigns against foreigners, no mass revocations and no go-home rhetoric. The law allows a permit to be revoked in two cases only: false information in the application, or the conditions for the permit no longer being met. There are no other grounds, but a revocation wipes out all the residence time you have built up.
The weak spot is delivery. The agency struggles to keep its 30-day norm: simple cases take 1-4 months, and for some nationalities the check of vocational diplomas has a backlog running to the end of 2026. Oslo police said on 20 July 2026 that the wait for a document appointment is up to 16 weeks. The state does not publish refusal rates for work permits.
Twice in two years the bar was raised for people already living there. Since 1 February 2025 the income requirement for family reunification is higher, and it also applies to renewals of family permits. Since 1 September 2025 permanent residence needs spoken Norwegian at A2 instead of A1 and a passed social studies test, counted from the application date rather than the arrival date.
Status survives a job loss well: you may stay up to six months to look for new work while the permit is still valid, as long as you notify the police within 7 days. Moving to the same type of job with another employer needs no new permit; a different type of job does, and you cannot start it before the decision. A renewal filed on time lets you live and work until the decision. A spouse may work from the moment the family permit is granted.
Day to day, the main pain is a paperwork loop: the BankID e-signature needs a bank account, the account needs an address and a national ID number, and some banks refuse people who only have a temporary D-number. Registering in the population register is mandatory and unlocks banking, a GP and taxes.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
Visa-free short stays, as in the rest of the Schengen area: up to 90 days in 180. To live and work, the same skilled worker route.
No work or residence permit needed. Citizens of Denmark, Iceland, Finland and Sweden work under the common Nordic labour market agreement.
Norway is not in the EU and runs its own temporary collective protection. Since spring 2026 it is no longer granted to new male applicants aged 18-60, with exceptions (men exempt from service, sole carers of children and others); people who already hold it are not affected. The government has said collective protection will not end in 2027, and on 17 September 2026 it proposed that holders granted protection by that date who earn at least NOK 382,337 a year could switch to a work-based permit leading to permanent residence after three years. The proposal is open for consultation until 30 October 2026, with a planned start in summer 2027.
Since 2022, clarified on 29 May 2024, no visas are issued for tourism or other non-essential travel. Exceptions cover work or study in Norway or another Schengen country, visiting parents, a spouse or children living in Norway, maintaining your own property and transit. The work route is formally open, but you must apply in your country of permanent residence.
When we checked on 9 August 2026 we found no restrictions specific to Belarusian citizens: the general rules for non-EEA nationals apply.
The place interval 25-43 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
Between leaguesThe league holds in fewer than half of the recalculations. Read this country as sitting between two leagues, not as a member of the upper one.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Pressure on newcomers: 100 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 65.2. The weakest is Agency processing: 27 against 48.7. Above the world average: 4 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
The ministry asks for skilled worker cases to be decided normally within 30 days; in practice it is 1-4 months. Add the document appointment: up to 16 weeks with Oslo police.
Barely. A self-employed permit exists but demands solid proof that the business is viable, and Norway has no remote-work visa.
The work permit fee is NOK 6,300 (about $580) per adult and NOK 3,150 per child, plus NOK 3,500 per family member joining you. A family of three pays about NOK 26,600 (about $2,450) over five years.
Losing your job does not end it at once: you may look for new work for up to six months while the permit is valid, after notifying the police within 7 days. Revocation is only possible for false information or if the conditions are no longer met.
Permanent residence after 3 years, with passed tests in spoken Norwegian A2 and social studies; the decision itself takes about 24 months. Citizenship after 8 of 11 years (6 with sufficient income) with spoken Norwegian at B1; dual citizenship is allowed.
We found no pressure on legal residents, spouses can work straight away and the road to permanent residence is short. The problems are slow agencies, months-long appointment queues and language and income requirements raised in two years even for people already living there.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.