The Norwegian border: what your removal van passes for free — and what never

Whoever moves from one EU member state to another notices nothing of the border. Norway is different: an EEA member, so you may live and work there — but outside the customs union, so your things are simply imported. The good news: the scheme for removal goods is generous. The bad news: it only works if you know the paperwork.

The exemption: generous, with three conditions

Your household goods are exempt from import duties and VAT as flyttegods, and the value doesn't matter. The conditions: you have lived outside Norway for at least one continuous year, you have owned and used the things in that time, and you import them within a year of the move. For an ordinary Dutch emigrant all of that is automatically true.

Mind the flip side of "owned and used": new things are not removal goods. The laptop you bought just before leaving, the mattresses still in their plastic — VAT is simply due on those. So buy big things well before departure, or there.

The paperwork: the declaration and the list

You claim the exemption with the flyttegodserklæring (form RD0030) plus an inventory list. That list needn't be absurdly detailed: "Box 1 – Clothing" suffices, as long as every box is on it. You declare in the red zone at the border or on the ferry quay.

One detail that brings moves to a standstill: if a removal company — or a helpful brother-in-law — drives the load across the border without you, the driver must be able to show your signed declaration plus a power of attorney. Without those two papers the van stands at the border and you're on the phone. And whoever doesn't yet have a Norwegian personal number applies for a temporary customs number in advance.

What may never come along for free: the alcohol trap

Alcohol is never removal goods — the scheme excludes it explicitly. What's allowed: the ordinary traveller's quota (one litre of spirits, one and a half litres of wine, two litres of beer — or variants on that). Above that you can pay extra for up to 27 litres of wine and beer via the simplified clearance: some NOK 71 per litre of wine, settled in the app or the red zone. More than that becomes a real import declaration at full excise duty.

For most households this is a footnote. For whoever has a wine cellar it's a real item: moving fifty bottles is possible, but never free — count on the excise duty, or drink the cellar empty in the Netherlands and start again there. Above 60% is prohibited altogether.

Also not automatic: weapons, medicines, cash

Three smaller reporting duties the EU mover doesn't know: weapons need a border declaration and a Norwegian licence even within the EEA, medicines may come along up to a year's supply with a prescription or pharmacy label attached, and cash above NOK 25,000 you declare separately. None of it is prohibited — all of it is a reporting duty, and the red zone is the answer each time.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 3 of 5 of the journey: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Norway.