Moving to the USA from Norway: tax, social security, your company, pensions and visas

A move from Norway to the United States touches your Norwegian tax residence, your shares, your pension and your company long before the moving van arrives. Here is how the Norwegian rules, the US-Norway tax treaty and the social security agreement fit together, so you can plan the move in the right order.

How your Norwegian tax residence ends

As long as you are tax resident in Norway, you are taxable there on all your income and wealth, in Norway and abroad. Residence arises after more than 183 days in any 12-month period, or more than 270 days in any 36-month period. Reporting your move to the Population Register (required for moves of more than six months, at the earliest 31 days before you leave) does not end your tax liability. Global liability continues until tax emigration is granted, and you claim it in your tax return under Krav om skattemessig emigrasjon.

When residence ends depends on how long you have lived in Norway:

• Resident for under ten years: residence ends for the income year in which you show permanent residence abroad, no more than 61 days in Norway, and no dwelling available to you or your close relatives.
• Resident for at least ten years: residence ends only after the third income year following the year you move, and the 61-day and no-dwelling conditions must be met in each of those three years.

Close relatives means your spouse, cohabitant or minor children. A dwelling you owned for at least five years before departure, and did not use as a home in that period, does not count as a dwelling.

If you are still resident under Norwegian law but resident in the US under the tax treaty, Norway generally taxes you only on income the treaty assigns to Norway as the source state, and you need a certificate of residence. While you remain liable, your return must report foreign income and wealth and claim double-tax relief, and deferred earned income such as holiday pay, bonuses and severance is allocated to the year your liability ends. After tax emigration, limited liability remains for Norwegian-source items such as real property, dividends from Norwegian companies and pensions from Norwegian payers.

The Norwegian exit tax on shares and other assets

When your liability ends, or your treaty residence moves abroad, gains on covered assets you own are taxed as if you had realised them the day before. The rules described here apply to emigrations and transfers on or after 20 March 2024, and the exit-tax information goes in the tax return covering the day before the emigration.

Covered assets include shares in Norwegian and corresponding foreign companies, share savings accounts, partnership interests, options and financial instruments on those assets, and capital insurance. Skatteetaten also includes foreign pension savings accounts treated as ordinary investment accounts, such as a US IRA or 401(k).

• Basic deduction: only the part of your total net gain above NOK 3 million is taxable.
• Only Norwegian years count: only value built up while you were resident is taxed, and assets you owned on arrival take their market value at that time as entry value.
• No losses outside the EEA: for a move to the US, losses are not counted.

Payment can be deferred for 12 years against adequate security, either in twelve annual instalments or at the end with interest. Deferral lapses if you realise or transfer the assets, on death unless your heirs assume the obligations, and for 0.7 times any distribution you receive. The exit tax lapses entirely if you become resident in Norway again within 12 years after the end of the year the tax is allocated to. If the exit tax is not reported, Skatteetaten can assess it up to 15 years after the emigration.

The US-Norway income tax treaty

The Norway-United States income and property tax convention was signed in Oslo on 3 December 1971 and entered into force on 29 November 1972, with a general effective date of 1 January 1971. It was amended by a Protocol signed in Oslo on 19 September 1980, in force from 15 December 1981. The IRS lists Norway among its treaty partners.

Tie-breaker. If both countries treat you as resident, you are resident where you maintain your permanent home (defined as the place where you dwell with your family), then where your centre of vital interests is, then your habitual abode, then your citizenship, and otherwise by mutual agreement.

Dividends. The source state may tax dividends paid to a resident of the other state at no more than 15 percent of the gross amount. There is no lower rate for corporate shareholders, so the treaty has no 5 percent or 0 percent dividend rate.

Pensions. Private pensions and similar remuneration for past employment, as well as alimony and annuities, are taxable only in your state of residence. Social security payments and other public pensions are taxable only in the paying state, so a Norwegian folketrygd pension paid to a US resident is taxable only in Norway.

Saving clause. The United States may tax its citizens and residents as if the convention had not come into effect. This does not override the articles on social security payments, relief from double taxation, non-discrimination, Article 26 or the mutual agreement procedure.

Social security: the US-Norway agreement

The US-Norway social security agreement signed in Oslo on 30 November 2001 has been in force since 1 September 2003. It replaced an earlier agreement that had entered into force on 1 July 1984.

• Posted employees: if your employer sends you from Norway to the US for an assignment not expected to last more than 5 years, you stay only under Norwegian coverage, provided you are on a Norwegian payroll as determined by Norwegian legislation. An accompanying spouse and children are covered the same way while not employed in the US.
• Self-employed: you are covered only by the country where you reside, so a self-employed person living in the US is covered in the US.
• Proof of coverage: a certificate of coverage is issued by the Social Security Administration in the US, and in Norway by NAV's office for social insurance abroad for posted workers. SSA states that US employers and self-employed workers must request a certificate to establish an exemption from US Social Security contributions.

Benefits are totalized. With at least three years of Norwegian coverage (or one year if you were covered while working in Norway), your US quarters of coverage count towards Norwegian disability, survivors and old-age pensions, with four US quarters equal to one Norwegian year. On the US side, Norwegian credits count towards a partial US benefit only if you have at least six US credits. Unless the agreement says otherwise, rules that make cash benefits depend on residence in one country do not apply to covered persons living in the other.

Keeping your Norwegian company with a US subsidiary

NOKUS (Norway's CFC rules). Norwegian participants are taxed on their share of the profit of a Norwegian-controlled company in a low-tax country, whether or not profits are distributed. Norwegian control means Norwegian taxpayers own or control at least half of the shares or capital at both the beginning and the end of the income year. A low-tax country is one where the tax on the company's profit is less than two thirds of what it would pay in Norway; with the 2026 company rate of 22 percent, that is about 14.67 percent of a Norwegian-computed profit. NOKUS does not apply where the company is covered by a Norwegian tax treaty and its income is not mainly passive. A US corporation is a US resident under the treaty, so an operating US C corporation is outside NOKUS, and only a US company with mainly passive income can be caught. The separate EEA carve-out does not cover the United States.

Dividends up to the Norwegian parent. Under the participation exemption, a Norwegian company is exempt on dividends and gains from shares in corresponding foreign companies, and cannot deduct losses on them. For a US subsidiary, dividends are exempt only if the parent owns at least 10 percent of the capital and votes continuously for two years including the dividend date, and a gain is exempt only after two years of at least 10 percent ownership up to the sale. The exemption never covers a subsidiary in a low-tax country outside the EEA, and here there is no treaty carve-out. Three percent of exempt dividends remain taxable, an effective 0.66 percent; the group exception to this rule names only EEA companies.

US withholding and credit. The US may tax dividends paid to your Norwegian parent at no more than 15 percent. The treaty has no modern limitation-on-benefits article, but Article 20 denies the dividend, interest, royalty and capital gains articles to a company enjoying special low-tax measures and at least 25 percent owned by persons other than individual residents of its state. Where Norway does tax a dividend from a US corporation that is at least 10 percent owned, the treaty gives an indirect credit for the US corporate tax, provided the credit is grossed up as income.

Your Norwegian pension when you move to the US

Nav lists the USA among the countries with which Norway has a social security agreement, so you can as a rule take your folketrygd old-age pension with you without reduction. Payment of certain benefits, such as basic benefits, attendance benefits and the guaranteed minimum supplementary pension for people disabled at birth or a young age, to people not resident in Norway is still decided under Norwegian law. Pensions in payment are uprated annually with an average of wage and price growth. Pension capital cannot be paid out as a lump sum on moving, but payments can go to a foreign bank, and other pension providers have their own export rules.

If you live in the US and apply for a Norwegian pension, you send a special application form to Nav by ordinary post; Nav sends the form on request. Pensioners moving abroad must notify Nav and the Population Register and order a new tax deduction card.

Norwegian withholding on pensions to non-residents is 15 percent of gross income, with no tax-free amount. To claim the treaty limits, you document US tax residence with IRS Form 6166.

Health cover changes too. Compulsory membership of the National Insurance Scheme ends on a stay abroad of more than 12 months, and you lose the right to a GP. A pensioner settling outside the EU/EEA can apply to Nav for voluntary membership with 30 years' membership after age 16, including 10 years immediately before applying, and voluntary members get partial reimbursement abroad, claimed from Helfo within 6 months.

Visas: E-1, E-2 and the Visa Waiver Program

Norway is a treaty country for both the E-1 treaty trader and the E-2 treaty investor visa, under a treaty in force since 18 January 1928. For Norwegian citizens building or buying a business in Texas, the E-2 is often the natural route.

The reciprocity fee is charged in addition to the MRV application fee. For short visits, Norway is a Visa Waiver Program country, so Norwegian citizens are eligible to travel under the program.

To map your own move from Norway, book a consultation with Mount Bonnell Advisors or start with the firm's free potential analysis.