Norway visa and entry requirements

Schengen, but not the EU

Norway follows Schengen rules at the border and its own rules at customs, and the customs ones are much tighter than anything in the EU. Getting in is usually easy; what you are carrying is where people come unstuck.

• Visa-free nationals get 90 days in any 180, counted across the whole Schengen area rather than per country. Days already spent in Sweden, Germany or Spain come out of the same allowance.
• Your passport must have been issued within the last 10 years and be valid at least 3 months beyond the day you leave Schengen. Airlines routinely enforce 6 months, so treat that as the real rule.
• EEA and Swiss citizens travel on freedom of movement: a national identity card is enough, no passport needed, no time limit and no biometric registration.

EES is running, ETIAS is not

• The Entry/Exit System has been fully operational since 10 April 2026. On your first crossing you give fingerprints and a facial image, and the system - not a passport stamp - counts your 90 days. Budget extra time at Gardermoen for that first arrival; later ones are quick.
• ETIAS has not launched and no date has been announced. The old target of late 2026 was removed from the official pages in July 2026. Any website selling you an ETIAS today is a scam, because applications are not open. When it does start it will cost EUR 20, free for under-18s and over-70s.

Svalbard is not in Schengen, and that catches people out

• Nobody needs a visa for Svalbard. Under the Svalbard Treaty any nationality may live and work there, and there is no residence permit to apply for.
• You still fly there through mainland Norway, which is Schengen. If you need a Schengen visa, you need one valid for two entries - flying to Longyearbyen leaves the Schengen area, and flying back re-enters it. A single-entry visa leaves you stuck in Svalbard.
• You clear passport control and customs in both directions, mainland to Longyearbyen and back.

Two nationality cases worth knowing

• Russian passports: Norway has not issued tourist visas since 2022 and, since 29 May 2024, refuses entry for tourism and other non-essential travel - at the Storskog land crossing and at the airports - even to holders of Schengen visas issued by other countries. Work, study and visits to close family are the exceptions.
• British passports are now third-country documents: the 90/180 limit applies, EES applies, and the 10-year issue rule catches people holding older passports that were extended beyond ten years.

What customs actually stops people for

• The alcohol quota is small and it is enforced. A visitor may bring in 1 litre of spirits, 1.5 litres of wine and 2 litres of beer, plus 200 cigarettes. You may trade down - the spirits litre for 1.5 litres of wine or beer, the wine for the same volume of beer - but never up.
• Carrying more than NOK 25,000 in cash must be declared on arrival, through the red channel. Failing to declare it costs a penalty of 20% of the money you are carrying, which is a genuinely expensive way to learn the rule.
• Go through the red channel if you are over any quota. Norway takes this seriously in a way that visitors used to intra-EU travel do not expect.