A Norwegian passport ( no, norsk pass, se, norgga pássa) is the

passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...

issued to nationals of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

for the purpose of international travel. Beside serving as proof of Norwegian citizenship, they facilitate the process of securing assistance from Norwegian consular officials abroad (or public officials in the mission of another Nordic country in case a Norwegian consular official is absent).Article 34 of the Helsinky Treaty
Article 34 p. 8
The

, along with the

national identity card National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

allows for the

freedom of movement Freedom of movement, mobility rights, or the right to travel is a human rights concept encompassing the right of individuals to travel from place to place within the territory of a country,Jérémiee Gilbert, ''Nomadic Peoples and Human Rights ...

in any of the states of the

European Free Trade Association The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is a regional trade organization and free trade area consisting of four European states: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The organization operates in parallel with the European U ...

and the

European Economic Area The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade As ...

. This is because Norway is a member state of EFTA, and by virtue of it also being a member of the EEA and part of the

Schengen Area The Schengen Area ( , ) is an area comprising 27 European countries that have officially abolished all passport and all other types of border control at their mutual borders. Being an element within the wider area of freedom, security and ...

. For travel within the

Nordic countries The Nordic countries (also known as the Nordics or ''Norden''; lit. 'the North') are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sw ...

no identity documentation is legally required for Nordic citizens due to the Nordic Passport Union.

Types of passport

Norway issues seven types of passports and travel documents: * Ordinary Norwegian passport, issued to Norwegian citizens. Their covers are red. Passports issued to adult are valid for 10 years. * Emergency passports, sporting white covers. * Diplomatic passports, sporting turquoise covers. * Service passports, sporting turquoise covers. * Special passports, sporting turquoise covers. * Immigrant passport, issued to those who lack Norwegian citizenship and have a residence permit in Norway, but cannot get a passport from their country of citizenship. Their covers are grey. Holders are not permitted to travel to their country of citizenship with the passport. ** Immigrant passport for a single journey, issued to those who lack Norwegian citizenship and have a residence permit in Norway, but cannot get a passport from their country of citizenship in time for a sudden trip abroad. Their covers are also grey. The passport may only be used for a single journey. *

Refugee travel document A refugee travel document (also called a 1951 Convention travel document or Geneva passport) is a travel document issued to a refugee by the state in which they normally reside in allowing them to travel outside that state and to return there. Re ...

, issued to those granted asylum in Norway. Their covers are blue.

Physical appearance and data contained

Current Norwegian

s are red in colour, with the

coat of arms of Norway The coat of arms of Norway is the arms of dominion of king Harald V of Norway, and as such represents both the monarch and the kingdom (nation and the state). It depicts a standing golden lion on a red background, bearing a golden crown and ax ...

emblazoned in the top left of the front cover. The words "Kongeriket Norge", "Kongeriket Noreg", "Norgga gonagasriika" and "Kingdom of Norway" ("Kingdom of Norway" in

Bokmål Bokmål () (, ; ) is an official written standard for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is the preferred written standard of Norwegian for 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. Unlike, for instance, the Italian language, there ...

and

Nynorsk Nynorsk () () is one of the two written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-No ...

(the two forms of

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

Northern Sami Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

respectively) are inscribed in the bottom left corner and the word "Pass", "Pássa" and "Passport" emblazoned below the name of the country. In the bottom right corner is the standard biometric symbol. The pre-october 2020 version of the regular Norwegian passports was burgundy in colour, similar but not identical to the design of most EU countries. It had the coat of arms of Norway emblazoned in the top of the front cover. The words "NORGE", "NOREG" and "NORWAY" ("Norway" in Bokmål, Nynorsk and English, respectively) are inscribed below the coat of arms and the word "PASS" and "PASSPORT" emblazoned below the name of the country.

Biometric passports A biometric passport (also known as an e-passport or a digital passport) is a traditional passport that has an embedded electronic microprocessor chip which contains biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of the pas ...

have the standard biometric symbol at the bottom.

Identity information page

Norwegian passport - Personal details page

The current version Norwegian passport includes the following data: * Photo of passport holder * Type (a two-letter code beginning with "P") * Code of Issuing State (NOR) * Passport No. * Surname * Given Names * Nationality (NORSK/ NORWEGIAN) * Date of birth * Date of issue * Date of expiry * Issuing authority (The police district) * Sex * Height * Place of birth (Three letter country code, NOR for those born in Norway) * CAN (six digit number)
The holder's signature and Personal No. was included on the information page in the previous passport version but was moved in the current version. The information page ends with the machine-readable zone starting with "P

Biometric data

According to Council Regulation (EC) 2252/2004 and 444/2009, Norwegian passports have to comply with minimum security standards. Norway is bound by the regulations as they constitute a development of provisions of the Schengen acquis within the meaning of the Agreement concluded by the Council of the European Union and Iceland and Norway. The biometric passports contain a

radio-frequency identification Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically Automatic identification system, identify and Tracking system, track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder, a radio receiver ...

(RFID) chip containing the passport's printed data in a digital format along with the photograph in a

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...

format and with a digital key to verify that the data contained is authentic and hasn't been tampered with.

Fingerprint A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfac ...

data was required to be stored on Schengen member states’ passports from 2009. Norway started storing fingerprint data of persons applying for a new passport on 6 April 2010.

Languages

For ordinary and emergency passports, the data page/information pages are printed in Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk), Northern Sami and English.

Northern Sámi Northern or North Sámi ( ; se, davvisámegiella ; fi, pohjoissaame ; no, nordsamisk; sv, nordsamiska; disapproved exonym Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sámi languages. The area where Northern Sámi is spoken covers the ...

was added in 2020. However, for diplomatic, service and special passports, all content (including the cover and inner pages) are printed in English and French only. Until the 1990s, the data and information pages of ordinary passports were printed in Norwegian, French, English and German. French and German were dropped when the data were moved to just one page.

New passports

The Norwegian Police Directorate and Kripos (the national unit for combating organized and other serious crime) launched a design competition for new passports, ID-cards and travel documents. It was later announced that the winner of the competition was “The Norwegian Landscape” by Neue Design Studio, an Oslo-based graphic design company. The new passports were set to be issued in 2016. But first Neue had to work closely with the National Police Directorate in order to combine the winning design with the necessary security measures that are required of passports. The purpose of the competition was to redesign the document with a high quality of design whilst still serving its purpose and functionality. Further, the new design was to increase the security of Norwegian passports, ID-cards and travel documents. In 2016 it was announced that the introduction of new passports was postponed to the middle of 2018. In August 2019 it was announced that the introduction of new passports was postponed for the seventh time, to October 2020. The new passports were introduced on 19 October 2020.

National ID card

Norwegian national ID cards were released 30 November 2020. As an alternative to presenting a passport, Norwegian citizens are entitled to use a valid

to exercise their right of free movement within EFTA the EEA,Articles 4 and 5 of the Citizens' Rights Directive 2004/38/EC
L 158, pp. 77–123
and Svalbard. Furthermore, the card can be used as a travel document to the

European Microstates The European microstates or European ministates are a set of very small sovereign states in Europe. In modern contexts the term is typically used to refer to the six smallest states in Europe by area: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Sa ...

, Balkan countries, French Overseas Territories,

Montserrat Montserrat ( ) is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about long and wide, with roughly of coastline. It is n ...

(for max. 14 days) and organized tours to

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

. It was usable to the United Kingdom until 1 October 2021.

Issuing

Application is done at special passport offices or embassies. As of 2021 there were 79 indoor offices (including one in Svalbard) and 43 locations for mobile (bus) offices. Emergency passports are only issued at major Norwegian airports (Oslo-Gardermoen, Stavanger, Bergen and Trondheim) or embassies.

Identification requirements

When doing the application identification of the applicant is needed. This is done by: *Showing a Norwegian passport, valid or expired, if having any (if stolen or lost, must be reported as such) *If having no Norwegian passport, showing a valid Norwegian identity card, e.g. bank card *If having no identity document, a document such as a letter from employer or school certifying the identity *New citizens need a letter of approval of Norwegian citizenship, the Residence permit card, and passport from the other country or

The identity is clarified when there is no doubt that the information or documents that the applicant has given supports the applicants identity.

Different spellings of the same name

Names containing special letters (æ, ø, å) are spelled the correct way in the non-machine-readable zone, but are mapped in the machine-readable zone, æ becoming "AE", ø becoming "OE", and å becoming "AA". This follows the standard for

machine-readable passport A machine-readable passport (MRP) is a machine-readable travel document (MRTD) with the data on the identity page encoded in optical character recognition format. Many countries began to issue machine-readable travel documents in the 1980s. Mos ...

s, which must not contain letters other than A–Z.

Manufacturing defect

Machine-readable Norwegian passports issued between 1999 and 2005 suffered from a manufacturing defect that could result in the identity page coming loose, thus invalidating the passport. The Norwegian passport authorities replaced such passports free of charge.

Visa requirements

Visa requirements for Norwegian citizens are administrative entry restrictions by the authorities of other states placed on citizens of Norway. Norwegian citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 185 countries and territories, ranking the Norwegian passport 7th overall in terms of travel freedom (tied with the Czech Republic, Greece, Malta, the United Kingdom and the United States) according to the

Henley Passport Index The Henley Passport Index ( abbreviation: HPI) is a global ranking of countries according to the travel freedom enjoyed by the holders of that country's ordinary passport for its citizens. It started in 2006 as Henley & Partners Visa Restricti ...

. As a member state of the

(EFTA), Norwegian citizens enjoy freedom of movement to live and work in other EFTA countries in accordance with the EFTA convention. Moreover, by virtue of Norway's membership of the

(EEA), Norwegian citizens also enjoy freedom of movement within all EEA member states. The

Citizens’ Rights Directive The Citizens’ Rights Directive 2004/38/EC (also sometimes called the "Free Movement Directive") defines the right of free movement for citizens of the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes the member states of the European Union (EU) a ...

defines the right of free movement for citizens of the EEA, and all EFTA and EU citizens are not only visa-exempt but are legally entitled to enter and reside in each other's countries.

References

;General references *

Council A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/ shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or nati ...

regulation Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. ...

539/200

*

1932/200

*

539/2001 consolidated version, 19.1.200

;Specific citations

External links

About Passport and ID Card
on

Norwegian Police Service The Norwegian Police Service ( no, Politi- og lensmannsetaten) is the Norwegian national civilian police agency. The service dates to the 13th century when the first sheriffs were appointed, and the current structure established in 2003. It c ...

Norwegian Passport Info
on

PRADO The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...

Images of a 1923 Norwegian passport
on Passportland {{Passports

Foreign relations of Norway European Economic Area European Free Trade Association