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Norway to give students 1,500 kroner more in electricity support this year

The Norwegian government and the oppositional Socialist Left Party (SV) reached an agreement on several crisis support measures on Monday, including giving students 1,500 kroner extra this year due to increased electricity costs.

Published: 24 October 2022 15:51 CEST
Student reading
Students in Norway are getting a one-off payment of 1,500 kroner. Photo by Eliott Reyna / Unsplash

On Monday, the governing parties (the Labour and Centre parties) and the SV agreed to provide students with a one-off payment of 1,500 kroner – with the total cost amounting to 210 million kroner.

READ MORE: Norwegian government secures parliamentary majority for new crisis support measures

“I am happy and proud that we have been able to get extra money for a group that has struggled with electricity bills all year. It was needed,” SV’s educational policy spokesperson Freddy André Øvstegård said, according to the news bureau NTB.

“In the winter months ahead of us, the electricity bills will be even higher, so I hope and believe this scheme will come in handy,” Øvstegård added.

Student Organization welcomes support measure

In a phone call with The Local, the leader of the Norwegian Student Organisation (Norsk Studentorganisasjon – NSO), Maika Marie Godal Dam, said that the students welcome the support – especially ahead of the cold winter months.

“First of all, we are thankful that the government and the SV prioritized students this way. We know there are a lot of students who are preparing for a cold winter, and this will help them in the coming months.

“That said, we hope for the future we will see student funding get a real lift so that students don’t need to depend on extraordinary support measures,” Godal Dam noted.

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POLITICS

How Norway’s 2025 budget will impact foreign residents

Norway’s government won’t unveil its budget for another few weeks, but several proposals, such as income tax cuts, have already been made public. Here's how foreign residents in Norway will be affected.

Published: 19 September 2024 12:06 CEST
How Norway's 2025 budget will impact foreign residents

Norway’s budget for 2025 will be unveiled on October 7th. It is the last budget the current government will present before the general election next year.

Tax cuts

Finance minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said this summer that those on ordinary incomes would pay less income tax in 2025. How much income tax will be cut is currently unknown.

Tax residents of Norway currently pay a flat tax rate of 22 percent, and then a further “bracket tax” based on how much they earn. For example, those who earn up to 670,000 kroner per year pay a four percent bracket tax, while those making between 670,001 and 937,900 kroner pay a 13.6 percent bracket tax.

READ ALSO: How does Norway’s bracket tax for income work?

Norway’s tax card system would also be tweaked to benefit those with part-time jobs. Next year, you can earn up to 100,000 before paying tax. This could benefit foreign students in Norway.

Finances

The government will continue its electric subsidy for households next year. The government announced its intention to continue the policy this spring.

Currently, the state covers 90 percent of the electricity price above 73 øre per kWh – or 91.25 øre including VAT.

Residents of Norway’s 212 least central municipalities will have 25,000 kroner of their student loans written off per year from 2026.

Those in Finnmark and Nord-Troms will have their loans written off at a rate of 60,000 kroner a year.

READ MORE: The incentives to attract people to northern Norway

Crime

The government will spend an extra 2.8 billion kroner on fighting crime. Of this, 2.4 billion kroner will go directly to beefing up the number of police officers in Norway. Some 90 million kroner would be put towards cracking down on financial crime.

Furthermore, 405 million kroner would also be spent on fighting youth crime, by creating a fast track court for young offenders and creating more juvenile detention places.

Travel changes

Up to 2.9 billion kroner extra spending will go into maintaining Norway’s rail infrastructure. Signal and track failures have been a constant source of delays in east Norway, where services regularly struggle with punctuality.

Over 12 billion kroner will be spent on Norway’s rail system.

Norway could finally reveal more details on its proposed tourist tax. The country’s industry minister, Cecilie Myrseth, has previously said that a proposal would be tabled this autumn.

The minister didn’t say whether this would be related to the raft of proposals included in the budget.

A potential tourist tax has long been promised by the current government as part of the Hurdal Agreement it was formed on in 2021.

As part of its budget cooperation with the Socialist Left Party, the government will be required to assess whether a subsidy scheme should be introduced for long-distance bus travel in Norway.

Bus routes without an alternative, such as train, could be subsidised under the scheme.

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