ExportUpdated 17 Sept 2026Approx. reading time 10 min

Customs clearance in Norway: a complete guide (2026)

By Richard Coster

A white electric car on a sandy beach below a wooded bluff

Quick answer

Norway is outside the EU customs territory. When you ship goods there, you submit an export declaration to Swedish Customs, and the declaration’s MRN must accompany the consignment to the border. On the Norwegian side, Norwegian VAT and any customs duty are charged on import. The delivery term decides whether you or the customer bears that cost. If you sell to Norwegian consumers online, VOEC registration is the route for goods below NOK 3,000 per item.

Every consignment that leaves Sweden bound for a Norwegian customer must be declared for export here at home and cleared on import into Norway. This guide is written for you as the sender. With Digitoll, from 1 March 2027 the Norwegian customs declaration must be submitted at the latest when the goods cross the border.

What you do in Sweden before the goods are shipped

We can submit the export declaration for you. How it works is described on the page about exporting to Norway.

Norway is not part of the EU customs union. A delivery to Norway is therefore an export, whether the recipient is a business or a private individual, and however small the parcel is. You must always submit a customs declaration to Swedish Customs when you export goods.

Obtain an EORI number

Your business needs an EORI number to be named as exporter, declarant or representative in an export declaration. The number is free, you apply to Swedish Customs, and most applications are processed within an hour. If you are a private individual sending something for personal use, you normally do not need an EORI number. The code PRIVA is entered in the declaration instead.

Determine the commodity code and submit the export declaration

The commodity code governs the duty rate, charges, restrictions and statistics, both here and in Norway. Classify the goods in the customs tariff before you declare. Then submit the export declaration digitally to Swedish Customs, either through the online service for export declarations or through a system solution. You can do it yourself or have a representative do it. Often the carrier can also act as your representative.

The export process in AES, Swedish Customs’ export system, has three stages. Stage one is the export declaration, which you or your representative submit in message IE515. Stage two is the presentation of goods at the customs office of exit, submitted by an operator at the place of exit in message IE507. Stage three is the exit notification, which the carrier submits in message IE590 once the goods have left the EU customs territory.

The MRN must accompany the consignment

When Swedish Customs receives the declaration, you first receive an MRN in message IE528, and then message IE529 confirming that the goods are released for export. If you receive an MRN but no release, the case has gone to manual handling, and you wait for a decision. The consignment may not leave until the goods are released.

As the exporter, you are responsible for making sure the MRN reaches the right party in the logistics chain. The number must pass to whoever presents the goods at the place of exit, and from there to whoever submits the exit notification. The legislation does not name who does what, so you decide between yourselves, together with the freight forwarder, the terminal and the carrier, how the number is passed on and to whom.

At the Norwegian border, the goods are often presented over the counter. Make sure the driver can show the MRN as a readable barcode. The barcode may be shown on any document, on a phone or on a tablet. An export accompanying document, EAD, works well as a carrier of the barcode, but in AES the document is not a requirement. What must be available is the MRN, in readable form.

EORI numberApply to Swedish Customs if the business does not already have one. Free of charge, usually ready within an hour.
Commodity codeClassify the goods in the customs tariff. The code decides duty and restrictions on both sides of the border.
Export declarationSubmit the declaration digitally to Swedish Customs, yourself or through a representative, and wait for release.
Pass on the MRNSend the MRN to the forwarder and the terminal, and make sure the driver can show it as a barcode at the border.

Swedish goods on their way to the Norwegian border

What happens on the Norwegian side, and who pays?

When the consignment enters Norway, it must be cleared with Norwegian Customs. The declaration is submitted electronically in TVINN, normally by the recipient’s freight forwarder or by the carrier. The declaration is identified by a declaration ID and, once Norwegian Customs has processed it, receives a clearance number and a serial number. That is the receipt showing the goods are declared and released.

Norwegian VAT must be calculated on all imported goods. The rate is 25 per cent for most goods and 15 per cent for food such as food and drink. VAT is calculated on the total value of the goods including freight, insurance, any customs duty and any special tax.

If the recipient is a VAT-registered Norwegian business, no VAT is declared at the point of import. The business reports the import VAT in its VAT return to the Norwegian Tax Administration. In that case only customs duty and any special taxes are paid at the border.

The delivery term decides who bears the cost

Norwegian VAT and customs duty are always charged on import. Who pays, however, is a contractual matter, decided by the delivery term you and the customer agree on.

If you let the customer act as importer, the customer clears the goods, or has a freight forwarder do it, and pays VAT, duty and the carrier’s charge on arrival. That is simple for you, but the customer meets a bill she may not have expected. If you take on the import instead, you become responsible for the goods being declared correctly in Norway, and the cost lands in your own calculation.

DDP, Delivered Duty Paid, places the full responsibility on you as the seller. You cover transport to the named place, import clearance in Norway and all charges levied there. If you price on DDP terms, Norwegian VAT and any customs duty must already be included, otherwise they eat into the margin.

If the recipient is a private individual and the consignment does not go through the VOEC scheme, the carrier charges for declaring the goods, on top of VAT and any customs duty. In September 2026, Posten charges NOK 46 for consignments up to NOK 500, NOK 78 for consignments between NOK 500 and NOK 3,000, and NOK 278 for consignments above NOK 3,000, for food and for restricted goods. Other carriers have their own price lists. The charge is a payment to the carrier. Norwegian Customs takes nothing.

Incoterms 2020, the delivery terms and where responsibility passes

Do you sell to Norwegian consumers online?

Then VOEC is the scheme that applies. VOEC stands for VAT on E-Commerce. As a foreign seller of low-value goods to Norwegian consumers, you are obliged to charge Norwegian VAT at checkout and pay it to the Norwegian Tax Administration. The customer then avoids being stopped at the border, and you avoid her purchase costing more than the price you displayed.

When you must register

You may apply for registration in the VOEC register if the business has no registered address in Norway, sells goods below NOK 3,000 or remotely deliverable services, and sells to consumers. You must register at the latest once you have sold taxable goods or services to Norwegian consumers for NOK 50,000 or more over a twelve-month period. The period is rolling and does not have to follow the calendar year.

You may apply as early as the first sale. That is often wise, because you then have your VOEC number before the goods start moving and can provide the right details from the outset. If you establish a company in Norway instead, VOEC does not apply, and you register in the ordinary Norwegian VAT register.

What the NOK 3,000 limit means for you

Only goods with a value below NOK 3,000 may be sold with Norwegian VAT under the VOEC scheme. The limit is counted per item, not per consignment. You convert the value of the goods into Norwegian kroner at the time of sale, and freight and other additional costs are not included when you test the value against the limit. All additional costs must, however, be included when you calculate how much VAT to charge.

You may place several items that are each below the limit in the same consignment, even if the total exceeds NOK 3,000. If any single item is above the limit, however, it may not be sent in the same consignment. If you send it anyway, everything is cleared in the ordinary way, and you may not charge VAT on any of the goods.

Some goods can never go through VOEC. That covers food, meaning all food and drink including food supplements and vitamins that are not medicines, goods subject to special taxes, and goods that are prohibited or restricted under Norwegian law. They must be declared in the ordinary way regardless of value.

The VOEC number must be provided digitally

This is the step that most often goes wrong. You must always provide your VOEC number digitally to whoever transports the goods, and that party is in turn obliged to provide the number digitally to Norwegian Customs. You must also provide details of the consignment’s contents, value, description of the goods and quantity.

If the consignment goes by post, you enter your seven-digit VOEC number in the electronic advance data, in the field sender.identification.reference in ITMATT, with no extra letters or characters. If it goes with another carrier, you enter the number in the EDI message or through an API as the carrier instructs. If the number is missing, you risk delays, charges from the carrier, and the customer having to pay VAT a second time at the border.

If the customer has paid VAT twice, it is up to you to put it right. You refund the VAT to the customer, document the refund, obtain evidence showing that she also paid VAT at the border, and deduct the amount in your next quarterly return.

Reporting and B2B

You report and pay the VAT you have charged quarterly. The deadline is the 20th of the month after the end of the quarter, that is 20 January, 20 April, 20 July and 20 October. If the date falls on a Saturday or a Sunday, it moves to the following Monday.

VOEC only applies to sales to consumers. If you sell to a Norwegian business, you must not charge VAT, as the obligation then rests with the buyer. You do not need to prove that the buyer is a business if she states that she is. If you have charged VAT to a business customer, you must refund it and correct the quarterly return.

Applies to: Goods below NOK 3,000 per item, sold to Norwegian consumers
Registration duty: At the latest at NOK 50,000 in sales over twelve months
Outside the scheme: Food, goods subject to special taxes, restricted goods
When shipping: The VOEC number is provided digitally to the carrier, seven digits
Reporting: 20 January, 20 April, 20 July and 20 October
Sales to businesses: No VAT, the obligation rests with the buyer

Will the goods be duty-free in Norway?

Most goods carry no customs duty into Norway. Duty applies only to clothing and certain textiles, and to food and other food products. Other industrial goods are duty-free, and that includes footwear. The duty rate varies with the type of goods (tariff number), the country of origin and any free trade agreement. You can use the Norwegian customs tariff search service to find the correct rate for your goods.

Even where goods carry zero duty, VAT must always be calculated. Zero duty applies to practically all industrial goods, electronics for example, regardless of origin. For clothing, textiles and food, the duty can be reduced or removed through the EEA Agreement or other free trade agreements, but only if the goods have origin in the agreement country under the agreement’s rules of origin, if there is a proof of origin such as an EUR.1 certificate or an origin declaration from the exporter, and if the preference is claimed in the declaration. Shipping the goods from Sweden is not enough. Many agricultural products are not covered by the EEA Agreement.

The proof of origin is your job

Proofs of origin are drawn up by the exporter in the country of export. It is therefore you, not the customer and not Swedish Customs, who makes sure the proof exists. Without it, your Norwegian customer gets no preferential treatment, and duty is charged as it would be against any third country.

Since 1 January 2026, only the revised PEM Convention applies between the EU and Norway, and only two proofs can be used: an origin declaration on an invoice or another commercial document, and movement certificate EUR.1. The EUR-MED variants are gone. You no longer need to write REVISED RULES on the proof.

The origin declaration is a set wording that you add to the invoice, the delivery note or another commercial document. You need to contact neither Swedish Customs nor a chamber of commerce to use it. If the value of the originating products in the consignment is no more than EUR 6,000, you may draw up the declaration without an authorisation. Above that limit, an authorisation as approved exporter is required. The goods must be described in the document in enough detail to be identifiable, and any items not covered must be clearly marked.

Proofs of origin to and from Norway are valid for ten months. You must always be able to demonstrate to Swedish Customs that the conditions for the proof are met, so keep the calculations and supplier’s declarations that show how you arrived at the origin.

The documents that must accompany the consignment

A commercial invoice with seller and buyer, invoice number and date, description of the goods, quantity, price per type of goods, discounts, number of packages and gross weight, delivery terms and payment terms.
The MRN of the export declaration, passed on through the logistics chain and readable as a barcode at the customs office of exit.
A proof of origin when you want to give the customer preferential treatment, that is an origin declaration on the invoice or movement certificate EUR.1.
Transport documents, a packing list and the freight invoice.
An export permit or export licence when the goods are subject to export restrictions.
Your VOEC number, provided digitally to the carrier, when the consignment goes through the VOEC scheme.

If there is no sales price, for instance with warranty replacements, samples, returns or goods for a trade fair, you draw up a pro forma invoice instead. It must carry the heading Pro Forma Invoice, a value for customs purposes that is not zero, and the wording No charge. Value for customs purposes only.

If the goods are food or products of animal origin, requirements from authorities other than Swedish Customs apply, and Norway may make different demands on the invoice and the documentation than those that apply here. Check them before you book the transport, not after. The same goes for goods that need a permit on export, for example refrigerators and freezers, hunting weapons and ammunition, or cultural objects.

As the exporter, you must keep your supporting documents for five years, counted from the start of the year after the year in which the declaration was submitted. A representative may keep them on your behalf for no more than 30 days from the request for clearance, after which they must be handed over to you.

Digitoll, and why the date 1 March 2027 matters

For businesses, the process changes with Digitoll. Since 15 September 2026, the carrier must provide details of the transport and the goods digitally to Norwegian Customs before, or at the latest at, the border crossing. The customs declaration is still submitted in TVINN and can be sent up to five days before the border crossing. Until 1 March 2027 it is still possible to declare after the event through direct transit. From that date, the declaration must be submitted at the latest when the goods cross the border.

For you as the sender, that means the details of the consignment must be ready earlier than they are today. The material your freight forwarder needs in order to declare in advance, that is the invoice, commodity codes, values, weights and proofs of origin, can no longer arrive afterwards. Review when in your order process those details become available, and agree with the carrier how you will exchange them.

Common mistakes when Swedish businesses ship to Norway

The most common one is the MRN not getting through. The declaration is submitted and the goods released, but the driver has no number to show at the border and the transport comes to a standstill. Decide in advance who sends the number to whom, and how.

The second most common is the delivery term not being agreed. The customer assumes the price is all she has to pay, and meets a bill for Norwegian VAT plus the carrier’s charge when the parcel arrives. Write the term out in the quotation and in the order confirmation.

A third mistake is promising duty exemption that does not exist. Shipping the goods from Sweden gives no preferential treatment. Clothing sewn in Asia and sold by a Swedish shop is dutiable as if it came from a third country, however Swedish the sender is.

A fourth is selling to Norwegian consumers without a VOEC number, or with a number that is never provided digitally. The effect is the same: the parcel is stopped, the customer has to pay VAT a second time, and you have a refund to handle.

Frequently asked questions about shipping goods to Norway

Must I submit an export declaration even for small consignments?

Norway is outside the EU customs territory, and when you export goods you must always submit a customs declaration to Swedish Customs. You can do it yourself in Swedish Customs’ online service or through a system solution, or have a representative do it. The carrier can often act as your representative.

Do I need an EORI number?

Yes, if you are an economic operator and are named as exporter, declarant or representative in the declaration. The number is free and most applications are processed within an hour. A private individual exporting goods for personal use usually does not need an EORI number; the code PRIVA is declared instead.

Who pays Norwegian VAT and customs duty?

VAT and any customs duty are charged on import into Norway. Who bears the cost is decided by the delivery term. If the customer acts as importer, she pays VAT, duty and the carrier’s charge on arrival. If you agree on DDP, you as the seller cover import clearance and all charges in Norway.

Must I register for VOEC?

If you sell goods below NOK 3,000 per item to Norwegian consumers, you must register at the latest once sales to Norwegian consumers reach NOK 50,000 over a twelve-month period. You may apply as early as the first sale, which is often simplest. If you sell only to Norwegian businesses, VOEC does not apply.

Can I send several items in the same parcel under VOEC?

Yes, as long as each individual item has a value below NOK 3,000. The total may exceed the limit. But if any single item is above the limit, it may not be sent in the same consignment. If you send it anyway, everything is cleared in the ordinary way and you may not charge VAT on any of the goods.

Will my goods be duty-free in Norway?

Most industrial goods carry zero duty into Norway regardless of origin. In practice, duty exists only on clothing and textiles and on food and other food products. For those, the duty can be reduced or removed through the EEA Agreement, but only if the goods have preferential origin under the agreement’s rules of origin, if there is a proof of origin, and if the preference is claimed in the declaration. Shipping the goods from Sweden is not enough.

Which proof of origin should I use?

Since 1 January 2026, it is an origin declaration on an invoice or another commercial document, or movement certificate EUR.1. If the value of the originating products in the consignment is no more than EUR 6,000, you may draw up the origin declaration without an authorisation. Above that limit you need an authorisation as approved exporter. The proofs are valid for ten months.

What applies if the goods are returned or the declaration was wrong?

If the customer bought from a VOEC-registered shop, it is the shop that refunds the VAT. If the goods were declared in the ordinary way, a refund of VAT is applied for from the Norwegian Tax Administration and of any customs duty from Norwegian Customs. For a VAT refund, the goods must have been re-exported within a year. Amendments to your own declaration must reach Norwegian Customs no later than three years after the declaration was submitted, under the Norwegian customs duty act, tollavgiftsloven § 9-4. The carrier’s clearance charge is not refunded.

Can my Norwegian customer clear the goods herself?

A Norwegian private individual can declare the goods herself, but not digitally. She notifies the carrier in advance and then visits one of Norwegian Customs’ service offices with the invoice, the transport document and the arrival notice. Norwegian Customs itself writes that in practice there is little or nothing to save, since the carrier charges for storage and handling anyway. Posten charges NOK 155 for that.

When does Digitoll become mandatory?

Since 15 September 2026, the carrier must provide details of the transport and the goods digitally to Norwegian Customs before, or at the latest at, the border crossing. From 1 March 2027, the customs declaration must be submitted at the latest when the goods cross the border, and the direct transit arrangement ends. In practice that means your material must be ready earlier than it is today.

Summary

When you ship goods to Norway, your part of the job is the Swedish one: an EORI number, the right commodity code, an export declaration to Swedish Customs, and an MRN that follows the consignment all the way to the border and can be shown as a barcode. The Norwegian side then takes over, with VAT and any customs duty on import.

Agree the delivery term before you set the price, so that both you and the customer know who pays what. If you sell to Norwegian consumers online, VOEC registration is what keeps the parcels moving, and the VOEC number must be provided digitally with every booking. If you want the customer to avoid duty on clothing, textiles or food, preferential origin and a proof of origin that you draw up are required. And with Digitoll, your details need to be ready earlier, at the latest at the border crossing from 1 March 2027.

Read on

How exporting to Norway works for businesses is covered on our page about exporting to Norway.

How the Norwegian declaration is filed before the border is covered on our page about the customs declaration into Norway.

More guides are collected in our customs guides.

Sources

The information on this page was checked against the following sources on 17 September 2026. Rules can change and the page may become outdated. Please let us know if you spot anything incorrect.

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