Privacy policy

The Norwegian Tax Administration processes personal data necessary for fulfilling its legal obligations, i.a. to ensure that the National Registry is up-to-date and the correct payment and assessment of taxes and duties.

This supports the Norwegian Tax Administration's social mission, which is to secure an economic basis for the public sector.

We process personal data in a variety of contexts, e.g. when we collect, register, combine, store and distribute personal information.

Why do we process your personal data?

The Norwegian Tax Administration processes your personal data in accordance with the law in order to perform tasks such as:

  • ensuring that the National Registry is up-to-date
  • ensuring that taxes and duties are correctly assessed and paid
  • ensuring that other claims are correctly assessed and paid, such as penalties and child maintenance dues
  • providing guidance and carrying out controls and audits.

We also process your personal data for other tasks, which are part of the Norwegian Tax Administration's activities. These tasks include the preparation of in-house statistics and analysis and the distribution of information to third parties.

The Tax Administration may also process personal data when completing analyses and reports or in the development of models. As part of this processing, software utilising artificial intelligence may, in some cases, be used.

What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?

The Norwegian Tax Administration’s processing of personal data is primarily regulated by law. It is not generally possible to opt out of such processing. Some relevant laws are:

  • The Tax Administration Act
  • The Tax Payment Act
  • The National Registry Act
  • The A-opplysning Act
  • The VAT Act
  • The Excise Duty Act
  • The Norwegian National Collection Agency Act

Where do we obtain the data from?

The Norwegian Tax Administration collects personal data from both private and public individuals and organisations, such as:

  • other government agencies, such as the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV), the Directorate of Immigration (UDI), the Brønnøysund Register Centre and the Norwegian Customs (Tolletaten)
  • employers who report via the A-ordning scheme
  • banks, insurance companies, owners of units in jointly owned housing properties, kindergartens, voluntary organisations
  • information from all taxable entities or parties registered in the National Registry
  • foreign tax authorities with whom we have an agreement.

What personal data do we process?

The Norwegian Tax Administration processes data concerning, amongst other things:

  • identity (e.g. name, national ID number, D number, gender, citizenship)
  • residence and contact details (e.g. postal address, residential address, e-mail address and telephone number)
  • relationships with others (e.g. spouse, cohabitants, children, marital status)
  • financial circumstances (e.g. income, pension, benefits, wealth, shareholdings, debt, claims and defaulted claims, property ownership)

How do we process your personal data?

The Norwegian Tax Administration processes your personal data using various registries and systems. Here are some examples of central systems and registries that the Norwegian Tax Administration uses:

  • The National Registry is an official registry of all persons in Norway who have been assigned a D number or a national ID number. The registry forms the basis for the tax register and the electoral roll. It also forms the basis for the population census, which is important for the planning of public services. An accurate national registry is essential to ensure that all citizens receive information from government agencies and that their rights and obligations are safeguarded.
  • The tax deduction card system is used to produce tax deduction cards and process applications for the amendment of tax deduction cards throughout the year.
  • An IT solution for the accounting and collection of taxes to the state and municipalities. The system manages payment flows from taxable entities and employers. The system is used by employees of the Norwegian Tax Administration.
  • An IT solution for tax returns and tax assessment notices is a central system used for processing tax returns and assessment. It contains information concerning all taxable entities in the country and is used for both manual and automated processing.
  • An IT solution for the accounting and collection of other claims for the state, municipalities or private individuals. The system is used by those on whose behalf taxes are collected and by the department responsible for such collection within the Norwegian Tax Administration.

The Norwegian Tax Administration processes your personal data using both manual and automated processes. In the case of the latter, no examiners will look at the cases. This applies for example to the calculation of your taxes, the imposition of certain fines or the performance of analysis to select subjects for controls or audits. When such automated processing affects you to any significant extent, you have the right to request manual processing and to appeal against any such decision. You can ask to be informed of the criteria behind the automated processing at any time.

Personal details when you chat with us: 

  • You cannot get a status update on ongoing cases.
  • We save your conversation for up to a year, in case we need to retrieve it and to improve our services.
  • For privacy reasons, we ask you to not enter personally identifiable information, such as your national identity number, health information and address details.
  • Names, national identity numbers and health information that you enter in the chat window is not visible to us (even if you can see what you're writing), and the information will automatically be deleted.
  • Your device's IP address (PC, smartphone, and tablet, etc.) will automatically be deleted from our systems when the chat is ended.

The Norwegian Tax Administration's chat-robot will answer general and frequently asked questions around the clock. The chat-robot does not answer questions that require looking-up personal details.

  • The chat-robot is an anonymous service
  • You can delete the chat log yourself 
  • You can also download your chat conversation

Chat with an adviser on the Norwegian Tax Administration's chat service during opening hours on weekdays.

  • If you want to be anonymous, you can choose not to state your name and e-mail address.
  • If you've stated your name and e-mail address, you can get the conversation with the adviser forwarded to you. We cannot find conversations from anonymous users.

Who has access to your personal data?

Norwegian Tax Administration employees can only process personal data necessary for the fulfilment of their duties.

The processing of data takes place within a strict legal framework. This helps to protect personal privacy by ensuring predictability in regards to which information is collected, who can use it and what it can be used for. All employees are subject to a strict obligation of confidentiality regarding data concerning capital and income, as well as other financial, commercial and personal circumstances that they have access to as part of their work.

How do we safeguard your personal data?

The Norwegian Tax Administration manages large volumes of personal data, which imposes exacting requirements as regards security. The Administration has established its own management system to ensure that applicable requirements regarding information security are met. Among other things, this encompasses physical security, IT system security, risk management and planning regarding continuity, preparedness and crisis management.

When we use external suppliers, we impose correspondingly stringent requirements regarding security, control and documentation in order to protect your personal data.

Who do we disclose your personal data to?

The Norwegian Tax Administration only discloses personal data when there is a legal basis to do so. Among other things, we disclose to:

  • government agencies
  • private financial institutions
  • research and statistical organisations
  • foreign tax authorities with whom we have an agreement.

Many stakeholders receive personal data from the National Registry, for example

  • other government agencies, such as the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV), the Directorate of Immigration (UDI), the Norwegian Armed Forces, the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, enforcement officers and the police, fire and ambulance services
  • electoral authorities
  • Statistics Norway (SSB)
  • banks and insurance companies
  • employers
  • researchers

How long do we keep your personal data for?

The Norwegian Tax Administration stores data for as long as is necessary in order to perform our legal obligations and in accordance with the Norwegian Tax Administration’s regulations. Data is generally deleted when it is no longer needed, unless we have a legal obligation to retain it under other laws, such as the Archive Act.

Who is the data controller?

The Norwegian Tax Administration, represented by the Director, is the data controller.

What are my rights?

You have the right to be informed of which personal data we are processing about you. If you request access to your data, you can for example find out:

  • where your personal data was obtained from
  • what purposes (tasks) we process your personal data for  
  • whether the personal data has been disclosed to others and, if so, to whom

You can find personal data about yourself here:

For access to other personal data, you can contact us by logging in to Altinn

Exceptions from the right of access

In some cases, access may be denied when it is strictly necessary to carry out certain tax administration obligations and the legal conditions are met, e.g. in order to identify breaches of tax legislation or protect other people's rights and liberties.

If you discover that the Norwegian Tax Administration has registered inaccurate, outdated or incomplete information about you, you have the right to have it corrected or updated.

If you believe that your tax deduction card contains errors, you can seek an amendment.

To correct errors in the National Registry, you can read more about what you need to do.

Enquiries regarding errors concerning data submitted by others must be addressed to the original source of the data, e.g. your employer. If there are any errors that originate from your employer, you can request access to the a-ordning scheme, where you will be able to find out what data your employer has submitted to us.

You can appeal if you believe that the Norwegian Tax Administration is processing your personal data in breach of the applicable laws. For more information about your right to appeal, please visit skatteetaten.no/appeal.

Enquiries to our data protection officer

Our data protection officer can provide advice if you have any general questions about the Norwegian Tax Administration’s processing of personal data or the protection of data that we have registered about you.

You can contact the data protection officer by

  • e-mail: [email protected]
  • or by letter to:
    Personvernombudet
    Skatteetaten
    Postboks 9200 Grønland
    0134 OSLO

To protect your privacy, please do not send sensitive personal data by regular e-mail.

Requests that should not be sent to the data protection officer

The data protection officer cannot reply to all types of questions. The data protection officer cannot reply to general questions concerning tax assessments, or enquiries concerning your cases or decisions affecting you.

The processing of personal data on Skatteetaten.no

Cookies are small text files that our website stores on the user's computer/device. These files can only be read by the user and the Norwegian Tax Administration. For example, cookies are used to determine whether the user has visited the site before, the time of the visit and the site from which the user came. These cookies can contain personal data. You can prevent cookies from being stored on your computer by changing your browser settings.

The Norwegian Tax Administration uses cookies to analyse general user patterns. One aim behind this is to further develop skatteetaten.no and the Administration’s other services in order to improve the guidance that we provide.

List of cookies on websites where the Norwegian Tax Administration is the domain owner (in Norwegian only):

The Tax Administration uses the web analytics services Google Analytics 4.0 and Matomo to gather information about how you use the Tax Administration’s website.

The Tax Administration gathers and processes web analytics from your visit, such as which web browser you use, which city you are in, the model and name of your device, your operating system, the time of your visit, the language settings in your web browser, which pages you click on, and which website you come from.

Both web analytics services use cookies. The Tax Administration decides what data, including personal data, we retreieve and process from these websites. Most web browsers’ default setting is to accept cookies. You can manage, delete or block cookies in the settings of your web browser.

When we use Matomo, we collect, store and process the information in our own servers and systems.

When we use Google Analytics, it is Google that collects and processes the information. IP addresses are collected from and processed in servers located in the EEA. The IP addresses are neither logged nor stored at a location. The IP addresses are not transferred outside of the EEA.

Information, including any personal data that is collected, falls under both the Tax Administration’s privacy statement, Google's privacy guidelines and Matomo’s privacy guidelines.