VOEC stands for VAT On E-Commerce. It is Norway's simplified VAT scheme for shops outside the country, and if you sell to Norwegian consumers it is almost certainly the register you belong in rather than ordinary Norwegian MVA.
What VOEC is
Norway charges VAT on goods coming in. For years that meant small parcels were handled at the border, slowly and inconsistently, with the customer paying a handling fee on top for the privilege. VOEC moved the collection point to the seller. You charge 25 percent at checkout, the parcel carries your VOEC number in its documentation, and it crosses the border without being assessed again.
The number is the whole point. A VOEC registration with the number missing from your shipping documents produces the exact problem the scheme exists to avoid: the parcel gets taxed at the border, your customer pays twice, and you refund one of them.
Who this is for
This is for you if
- You have no registered business address in Norway.
- You sell goods worth under NOK 3,000 per item, or services delivered remotely, or both.
- Your customers are Norwegian consumers rather than Norwegian businesses.
- You have sold, or expect to sell, NOK 50,000 or more into Norway across twelve months. Below that you may still register voluntarily, and there are good reasons to.
Do not buy this if
- You already have a registered business address in Norway. VOEC is closed to you, and ordinary MVA registration is your route.
- Your typical item costs more than NOK 3,000. Those are cleared at the border whatever you do, and VOEC will not change it.
- You sell only to Norwegian businesses. B2B sales sit outside the scheme and the buyer accounts for the VAT themselves.
- You sell food, alcohol or tobacco, which are excluded from the scheme.
If the right-hand column describes you, say so when you write and we will tell you what you need instead. Selling you the wrong registration is worse for us than selling you nothing.
The registration itself is free
Worth saying plainly, because you will find it out in one search and we would rather you heard it here. Skatteetaten charges nothing to register in the VOEC register, and nothing to keep the registration. There is no government fee at any point.
What you are paying us for is the ninety minutes of deciphering, the judgement about which register you belong in, and the part almost everyone gets wrong on their own, which is getting the number onto the shipping documentation in the form the carrier and the border both expect. If you would rather do it yourself, the form is at skatteetaten.no and we will not mind at all.
What we do
- 01
Check you belong in VOEC at all
The eligibility test above, run against what you sell rather than what you think you sell. This is where people find out they need ordinary MVA registration instead, and it is better to find out now.
- 02
Register the business
We submit the registration and set your start date. That date can sit before you begin selling, so you can be registered and compliant from the first order rather than backfilling later.
- 03
Get you your VOEC number
It comes back from Skatteetaten and it is yours. Not ours, not held on your behalf. It belongs to your company and it stays with you if you stop working with us tomorrow.
- 04
Put it where it has to appear
Written instructions for your carrier and your checkout, so the number travels with every parcel. This is the step that stops your customers being charged twice.
- 05
Take access for the filings
You add our username to your VOEC account through the portal's own access screen. You can revoke it in one click, whenever you like, without asking us.
The quarterly filing
VOEC reports four times a year. The deadlines are the 20th of January, April, July and October, and they cover the quarter that just ended. Both the return and the payment are due on the same day.
Two weeks before each deadline we ask you for two numbers: what you sold in goods, and what you sold in services. We convert to Norwegian kroner on a consistent basis, file the return, and send you the payment details. The money goes from you to Skatteetaten directly. It never passes through us.
One detail that catches people out: you must file even in a quarter where you sold nothing. A zero return is still a return, and a missing one is still late. That quarter costs you the same as any other, which is a fair thing to be annoyed about and not something we can change.
What it costs
- RegistrationFixed, once
- Eligibility check, the registration itself, your VOEC number, and the shipping documentation instructions. Quoted before we start, once we know what you sell.
- Quarterly returnFixed, four times a year
- Preparation and submission of one quarterly return, including a zero one. The figure is set once and does not move with sales volume.
- Both togetherOne combined quote
- Commit to a year of filings and the setup fee is folded into the first quarter's invoice rather than charged separately.
Invoiced, not checked out. There is no cart button on this page because the first thing worth doing is finding out whether you belong in this register, and that conversation is free.
What is not included
We prepare and submit the return from the figures you give us. We do not audit those figures, keep your books, or reconcile your sales data, and we are not your accountant. If your reporting is a mess, this service will file a tidy return full of messy numbers.
We also do not pay the VAT. It goes from your account to Skatteetaten on the same deadline as the return. If it is late, that is between you and them, and no part of that liability sits with us.
And we do not act as a VAT representative, which is a different thing with a different legal weight behind it. Most European companies do not need one at all. This guide explains who does.
Where the rules are
Everything above comes from Skatteetaten, and none of it is hard to verify. We would rather you checked than took our word for it.
Check it yourself
Registration in the VOEC Register sets out who may register, the NOK 3,000 item value, the NOK 50,000 threshold over twelve months, and the fact that you can set a start date before you begin selling.
Submit VAT return (VOEC) gives the quarterly deadlines, confirms a return is required even for an empty quarter, and describes the access screen you use to add us: the person you want to grant access to creates their own VOEC user, and you then grant that username access to your business.
If you want the longer explanation before deciding anything, the VOEC and MVA guide covers both registers, the thresholds, and where the line between them falls. The VOEC calculator applies the thresholds to your own sales figures.
Tell us what you sell
Say what you sell, roughly what a typical item costs, and which country you ship from. That is enough for us to tell you whether VOEC is the right register for you, or whether you need something else entirely.