After you graduate
Rules read 19 Aug 2026
What Norway's own immigration authority currently publishes. Not a ranking, not a guarantee, and not the same as what any agent or forum will tell you. Whether someone actually obtains residence depends on occupation, points, funds and policy that can change between application and graduation.
Money you must prove before the visa
NOK 15,488per month
Shown as a balance in a bank account. You keep control of it.
Figure published for: 2026 This amount is revised regularly, so check it again before you transfer anything.
For a full academic year at a university college or university (NOK 170,368/year, same figure annualised). Studying for a single semester instead needs a smaller, differently-split amount: NOK 77,440 for the autumn semester or NOK 92,928 for spring. Funds may be student loans, grants, money already in a Norwegian bank account (including the institution's own deposit account), or income already offered from a confirmed part-time job in Norway. If tuition fees are payable, money to cover them (or proof they are already paid) is required on top of this living-cost figure. Separate, higher figures apply to folk high schools (NOK 130,745 for 2026/2027) and religion/belief-based (Bible) schools (NOK 154,880/year).
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Work during study
The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) states that a study permit automatically comes with permission to work up to 20 hours a week while studying, and full-time during holidays. UDI's separate guidance on renewing a study permit adds a further route: a student may apply for a permit to work full-time during the academic year itself if the work is part of their education plan (e.g. a mandatory internship), requested in writing at the time of application or later — though the renewal page also states a student 'can only work if your place of study is of the opinion that you will be able to manage to work in addition to your studies,' and that a study-permit holder cannot be self-employed or run their own business in Norway.
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Post-study work visa
Residence permit for job seekers (jobseeker permit for skilled workers who have completed studies in Norway)
UDI states that a foreign national normally needs a job offer in Norway before they can apply for a residence permit for work, but that a skilled worker may in some exceptional cases get a residence permit to stay in Norway specifically to look for work. This includes a foreign national who holds a Norwegian study permit at a university college/university or vocational school, or is a pupil at upper-secondary school, and who has completed their degree/education in Norway: they can apply for a residence permit as a job seeker before their study permit expires (UDI recommends applying at least one month before expiry), and must have already finished their Norwegian qualification at the point of applying.
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Route to permanent residence
UDI's own guidance for people renewing a permit states the residence-length threshold directly: a foreign national who has held a residence permit in Norway for three years may be eligible to apply for a permanent residence permit, which allows the holder to stay and work in Norway indefinitely and gives added protection against expulsion. A separate UDI page on permanent-residence requirements adds that the applicant must have lived in Norway continuously for the qualifying period (three years for most categories, longer for some), must have held residence permits that themselves form a valid basis for permanent residence throughout that period and have met those permits' own conditions the whole time, and must not have been convicted of a criminal offence or sentenced to compulsory mental-health care during that period.
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Route to citizenship
UDI's own guidance states the general residence-length threshold for citizenship directly: a foreign national who has lived in Norway for at least eight years, or who belongs to a group with a shorter residence requirement than eight years (UDI names age, date of arrival in Norway, and marriage to a Norwegian citizen as factors that can shorten this), may be eligible to apply for Norwegian citizenship. Applicants between 18 and 67 must also have passed, before submitting their documents to the police, an oral Norwegian test at level B1 or higher and either the citizenship test or the social studies test conducted in Norwegian (some applicants — stateless persons, or those over 55 who came to Norway seeking protection or as a resettled refugee, among others — only need to pass the oral test at the lower A2 level). On dual nationality, UDI's own definitions page states plainly: 'From 1 January 2020, it is allowed to have one or more citizenships in addition to a Norwegian citizenship' — Norway has permitted dual citizenship since that date, and applicants are not required to renounce their original nationality.
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New entry added 19 August 2026. One Norwegian government domain added to IMMIGRATION_DOMAINS in scripts/verify.mjs: udi.no (Utlendingsdirektoratet, the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration). This entry draws on several distinct UDI pages beyond the four cited directly in each Sourced field's provenance: the full-time-during-academic-year work detail in workDuringStudy comes from udi.no/en/want-to-renew/study-permit/ (snapshot 7d54a07e2c22e317, retrieved 2026-08-19T13:16:58.191Z); the 8-year citizenship residence threshold and 3-year permanent-residence threshold both come from the same single summary page (udi.no/en/want-to-renew/); and the B1 language/citizenship-test detail in citizenshipRoute comes from udi.no/en/word-definitions/test-requirements-norwegian-citizenship/ (snapshot 09aca1a52919a1bb, retrieved 2026-08-19T13:15:25.754Z) — each described in the relevant field's prose but not independently re-cited as a second provenance object, consistent with how other entries in this dataset describe more supporting detail in prose than a single quote can carry. UDI's own detailed eligibility wizard pages for both permanent residence and citizenship (e.g. citizenship-for-people-who-hold-a-residence-permit-in-norway) are nationality-branching interactive forms whose static HTML contains only the country-selector dropdown rather than rendered criteria text, so this dataset relied on UDI's plain-language summary pages instead. inDemandOccupations is left null: no shortage-occupation list was found tied to the Skilled Worker or Job Seeker routes on udi.no. naturalisationStatus set to 'published-route': UDI publishes real, numbered residence-length thresholds for both permanent residence and citizenship, concrete language/test requirements, and an unambiguous, dated statement that dual citizenship has been allowed since 1 January 2020 — per the doc comment on ResidencyPathway.naturalisationStatus this field records only whether criteria are published, not how demanding Norway's 8-year route or B1 test are in practice. citizenshipTerms cites the UDI page already archived for residencyRoute (snapshot deda6b2de3b25408), which states the eight-year threshold; the word-definitions page cited by citizenshipRoute covers dual citizenship. UDI names age, date of arrival in Norway and marriage to a Norwegian citizen as factors that can shorten the period.
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