For entrepreneurs
A business does not travel in boxes. It goes past different counters than you do, and in a different order.
The module for entrepreneurs covers both sides of the line: what happens to your Dutch business when you leave, and what has to be in place in Norway before you send the first invoice.
The module is part of Moving + Business. It assumes you are the one making the calls, and that you either have an accountant or are about to find one. Our job is to make sure you know what the conversation is about before it starts.
And what you should not come to us for:
There are three routes. Which one you end up on depends on where you live according to the tax treaty between the Netherlands and Norway, and on what sits inside the business. We put the routes side by side, with what you report where, and when.
You cannot move an eenmanszaak, because it is not a thing. It is you, listed in the Handelsregister, the Dutch trade register. In practice you deregister here and register there, and your clients move along to an invoice with a Norwegian organisation number on it. You get to keep your old clients. You do not get to keep your old invoicing rules.
A BV can stay in existence. The catch: for tax purposes a company is deemed to sit where it is run from. Run it from the kitchen table in Telemark and Norway has a view on that, and so does the Netherlands. Emigrating while holding a substantial interest (aanmerkelijk belang) also produces a protective assessment: the Belastingdienst, the Dutch tax office, settles the increase in value of your shares and postpones the payment for as long as you meet the conditions.
Deregister at KVK, one last VAT return, and cessation (staking) in your income tax. Think about what suddenly falls due: hidden reserves, investment allowance coming back as a divestment addition, and the old-age reserve if you still have one on the books. Building one up has not been possible since 2023. Settling it still is.
The thing people miss most often: your VAT number and your registration at KVK, the Dutch chamber of commerce, are two separate things. Deregistering at KVK does not mean you are finished with the Belastingdienst, and the other way round is just as true. That is why the timeline treats them as two steps, and tells you which comes first.
For almost anyone starting out from the Netherlands it comes down to two forms. The question is not which one is better, but which set of obligations suits you. What they cost you is mostly time and attention, not money.
The Norwegian one-person business. You register it with the Samordnet registermelding, it lands in the Enhetsregisteret and you get an organisation number. There is no line between you and the business: if something goes wrong, your private assets are on the table.
You are not an employee of your own ENK either. You pay yourself no salary; the profit is your income. That saves you paperwork and it costs you rights. No dagpenger when the work dries up, a weaker position when you fall ill, and no pension built up through the business.
A legal entity, roughly what a BV is. It needs share capital: the statutory minimum is 30 000 kroner, which you pay in and which has to be confirmed as paid. You register in the Foretaksregisteret and you have a styre, a board.
In your own AS you can be an employee, and that is usually the reason people pick it: a salary, the same position as any employee when you are ill, a pension. Everything else hangs off that. An a-melding every month, arbeidsgiveravgift (employer’s contribution) on the salary, and annual accounts that go to the Regnskapsregisteret.
You do not register on day one. It has to happen as soon as your turnover that falls under MVA passes 50 000 kroner within a twelve-month period. Read the wording closely: twelve rolling months, not a calendar year. You register with the same Samordnet registermelding and are then listed in the Merverdiavgiftsregisteret.
From that moment your invoice changes. The standard rate is 25 percent, with lower rates for food and passenger transport among other things. The letters MVA go behind your organisation number. From then on you can deduct the MVA on your own purchases, which is exactly why some new businesses want to register earlier than they have to. You cannot simply decide to, but there are situations where it is possible.
The MVA return goes in six times a year as standard, once every two months, and you have a month and ten days after the period closes. With one exception: for May and June the deadline is 31 August, not 10 August. That is exactly the period everyone is on holiday for, so give it its own line in the calendar. Small businesses can apply for an annual period. The return is digital, either straight out of your accounting software or through Skatteetaten, the Norwegian tax administration.
Invoice a Dutch client from Norway and the invoice often shows 0 percent MVA, with your client handling it in the Netherlands. Often is not always. This is one of those things you get confirmed once and then never think about again.
Bokføringsplikt does not mean you have to have an accountant. It means recording your transactions so an outsider can follow them: in order, numbered without gaps, with a document behind each one, in a system that cannot quietly be changed afterwards.
In concrete terms the law asks three things. Sales documents with fixed contents: the date, both parties, what you supplied, the amount and the MVA. Numbering with no holes in it. And books you can produce on request.
You keep it all longer than you think. Primary documentation, so your invoices, receipts, bank statements and the general ledger, has to be kept for five years after the financial year ends. Secondary documentation, such as correspondence about an entry, for less. Store it so you can still get at it in five years, after you have changed accounting packages twice in between. That is the mistake we see most.
An AS also has regnskapsplikt: annual accounts that go to the Regnskapsregisteret in Brønnøysund by 31 July at the latest. An ENK usually does not, unless you cross the thresholds for balance sheet total or number of employees.
Altinn is the Norwegian government’s digital letterbox for businesses. Almost everything you do with Skatteetaten, Brønnøysundregistrene, the Norwegian business register, or NAV, the labour and welfare service, passes through it or ends up in it. You log in with BankID. Without a Norwegian identity number and without BankID you do not get in, and that is precisely why those two sit near the top of your timeline instead of somewhere at the bottom.
The a-melding is the monthly report you file as soon as you pay anyone a salary, including when that someone is you in your own AS. In one message you report who is employed, what you paid out, how much wage tax you withheld (forskuddstrekk) and how much employer’s contribution (arbeidsgiveravgift) you owe. Skatteetaten, NAV and the statistics office all read along.
The deadline is the fifth of the following month. Every month, including a month in which you paid nothing out but still have someone employed. Filing late costs you an enforcement fine that keeps running per day. Put that date in your calendar before you pay a salary for the first time, not after.
Have an ENK and only pay yourself? Then there is no a-melding for you, because you are not an employee. Take on summer help and there is, and you have to register as an employer first.
Put that date in your calendar before you pay a salary for the first time, not after. The a-melding
OTP stands for obligatorisk tjenestepensjon. It is an employer’s duty, not a business owner’s duty, and that is the distinction people miss.
You have to set up a scheme as soon as you have at least two employees who each work 75 percent or more of a full-time job, or one employee without an ownership stake who does, or employees who each work at least 20 percent of a full-time job and who together fill at least two full-time positions. The minimum contribution is 2 percent of salary, and it counts from the first krone rather than only above a threshold.
If you have an AS and pay yourself a salary, you are an employee of your own company, so that duty can be about you. If you have an ENK, the business builds up nothing for you. What you can do is save into a pension scheme for the self-employed, with a deduction over your income between 1G and 12G. The percentage is adjusted now and then, so read that at Skatteetaten rather than here.
Separately from all of this, you build up alderspensjon in the folketrygd on what you earn. OTP comes on top. People used to a sector pension fund in the Netherlands sometimes find the difference startling.
Fall ill as an employee and your employer keeps paying for the first sixteen calendar days. That is the arbeidsgiverperiode. After that NAV takes over, up to an income ceiling of six times the basic amount of the folketrygd, 6G for short. What you earn above that ceiling falls outside the statutory cover. Some employers top it up, many do not, and it is in your employment contract.
If you are self-employed, there is no employer to pay those sixteen days. You get something from NAV only after them, and then at a lower percentage than an employee. For most self-employed people the real risk therefore sits in those first weeks, not in the weeks that follow.
There is a Norwegian answer to that: a frivillig tilleggstrygd with NAV. You pay a premium yourself and buy better cover with it. Starting earlier, a higher percentage, or both. It is an application to NAV, not a policy from an insurer. Arrange it while things are going well. Once you are ill it is too late.
What is actually paid out, and what the premium costs, hangs off the basic amount and changes every May. The module puts it next to a worked example and a reminder to look at it properly once during your first Norwegian year.
Price
Everything in Moving, plus everything on this page. One payment, for your whole household. Already have Moving? Then you pay only the difference later.
NOK 5 900
one-time, per household, lifetime access
inkl. mva (Norwegian VAT included)
For households where at least one of you runs a business, is bringing one along, or is starting one in Norway.
NOK 5 900, one-time, per household, lifetime access, inkl. mva (Norwegian VAT included). Pay by iDEAL or card. Compare both packages side by side or read what else is in there.