Norway is in the EEA but outside the EU VAT area and outside the customs union. That combination catches out almost every European seller: goods move freely enough to feel domestic, and then VAT and customs behave like a third country.
VOEC is the scheme Norway built to make that manageable. It stands for VAT On E-Commerce. This page covers who has to use it, how it works, and the decision most sellers get wrong, which is whether to use it at all.
We are a domain trustee, not tax advisors. What follows is an accurate summary written for people trying to work out what applies to them. Skatteetaten, the Norwegian Tax Administration, is the authority, and anything with real money on it deserves an accountant.
The short version
If you sell to Norwegian consumers, have no registered business address in Norway, and your sales to Norway pass NOK 50,000 in any rolling 12-month period, you have to collect Norwegian VAT.
VOEC is the simplified way to do that. You register with Skatteetaten, charge VAT at checkout, and file quarterly. You do not need a Norwegian company, a Norwegian address, or a fiscal representative.
That last point is why the scheme exists. Norway wanted foreign sellers to comply, so it removed the requirement to establish anything locally.
Who VOEC covers
Two categories, and they behave differently.
Low-value goods
Physical items under NOK 3,000 per item. The threshold is per item, not per consignment, a NOK 10,000 order of five NOK 2,000 items still qualifies. Shipping and insurance are excluded when working out whether an item clears the threshold, though once it qualifies, VAT is calculated on the full amount the customer pays including shipping.
Remotely deliverable services
Software, subscriptions, digital downloads, online services. No per-item value limit here, the NOK 50,000 turnover threshold is the only one that matters. This part of the scheme is older than the goods part; it replaced the earlier VOES arrangement for electronic services.
Both are strictly B2C. Sales to Norwegian businesses fall outside VOEC, for remotely deliverable services, the Norwegian business accounts for the VAT itself under the reverse charge.
What VOEC does not cover
Register for VOEC and then ship something on this list, and it will be stopped and taxed at the border anyway:
- Any item at or above NOK 3,000
- Food and foodstuffs
- Goods subject to excise duty, alcohol and tobacco
- Restricted or prohibited goods
For these, VAT and any customs duty are collected at import in the normal way.
There is also no small-parcel exemption left. Norway removed the old NOK 350 de minimis threshold in stages and abolished it completely on 1 January 2024. Every consignment is now in scope of something.
How it works in practice
1. Register with Skatteetaten. Online, no Norwegian entity required. You receive a VOEC number.
2. Charge 25% VAT at checkout. The Norwegian customer sees a VAT-inclusive price and pays nothing further on delivery.
3. Mark the shipment with your VOEC number. This is the step people skip, and skipping it is expensive, without the number in the shipping data, customs treats the parcel as untaxed, charges the customer VAT again, and adds a handling fee. Your customer pays twice and blames you.
4. File quarterly. Returns are due by the 20th of the month following each quarter, 20 April for January to March, and so on.
Goods shipped correctly under a VOEC number also clear customs duty-free below the NOK 3,000 threshold, which is a genuine advantage over not registering.
The part most sellers get wrong
VOEC is simple, and simple is not the same as cheapest.
Under VOEC you cannot deduct input VAT. Any Norwegian VAT you pay, on warehousing, fulfilment, local services, marketing, equipment, is a sunk cost. Under ordinary MVA registration, you reclaim it.
So the real decision looks like this:
VOEC is right when you ship from abroad, sell direct to consumers, and have essentially no Norwegian cost base. Most cross-border e-commerce, most SaaS, most digital products.
Ordinary MVA registration is right when you have meaningful Norwegian costs to reclaim VAT on, when you sell B2B as well as B2C, or when a significant share of your items sit above NOK 3,000.
Ordinary registration is not optional if you hold stock in a Norwegian warehouse and dispatch from there. Storing goods in Norway and selling from that stock is a domestic supply, and it puts you outside VOEC regardless of item values.
One wrinkle worth checking against your own situation: ordinary MVA registration for a non-established business may require a Norwegian VAT representative, depending on whether your country has a mutual assistance agreement with Norway on VAT collection. Most EEA states are exempt from the requirement; sellers from further afield often are not. VOEC never requires a representative. If you are choosing between the two from outside the EEA, price that in before you decide.
Voluntary registration
You can register for VOEC before hitting NOK 50,000.
Often worth it. Registering early means Norwegian customers see a final price at checkout and are not ambushed by a customs bill and a handling fee on delivery. On low-value orders, that fee can be a meaningful fraction of the order value, and it produces the kind of experience that ends in a refund request rather than a second order.
If you are testing Norway seriously rather than taking occasional orders, register from the start.
The VOEC calculator applies these conditions to your own sales, and the Norway import cost calculator shows what a Norwegian buyer pays with and without registration.
The wider Norway checklist
VAT is one item. The others that catch foreign sellers:
Customs
Norway is outside the customs union. Every shipment needs a declaration, and rules of origin determine whether duty applies.
Consumer law
Norwegian rules on the right of withdrawal and complaints are broadly EEA-aligned but not identical to your home market’s.
Marketing
The Marketing Control Act governs advertising, price claims and affiliate disclosure, and it is enforced.
Payment
Vipps matters in Norway in a way no amount of card support substitutes for.
The domain
Norway restricts .no to holders with a Norwegian organisation number and a Norwegian postal address, which is a wall foreign sellers hit at roughly the same point in the process as this one. Same shape of problem: the rule is about registration status, not about how much business you do in the country. The routes through it are set out in Can a foreign company register a .no domain?
Every customer of ours can ask about any of the above for as long as they are a customer, included in the price. If you are working through the Norwegian setup list and something on it is unclear, ask us.