From and including 1st of January 2020, declarants must keep an overview of all rentals that will fall under the duty of disclosure. The Tax Administration requires electronic submission of the information by 1st of February of the year following the year of income.

Background

Sharing of goods and services has become easier and more prevalent in the last few years. This is possible due to the opportunities offered by the digital economy and new business models.

In the sharing economy, participants are mostly operating in markets where traditional businesses have a duty of disclosures as a third party.

A duty of disclosure for rental agents can lead to more equal treatment and a simplified tax reporting for the landlords/service providers.

The tax authorities will then have a better foundation to follow-up, offer guidance and perform controls of the tax liable participants. The high degree of digitalisation and automation of processes in the sharing economy provides a good basis for accessing information.

The scope of the reporting duty

Information must be provided by enterprises acting as rental agents of properties, or by enterprises who enter into an agreement to rent property on behalf of a landlord in accordance with the Tax Administration Act, section 7-5, subsections 8 and 9.

The duty of disclosure does not apply to those who solely act as rental agents for rooms, cabins, apartments, etc. in hotels, boarding houses or similar enterprises, or the rental of properties owned by the state, county councils or municipal authorities. However, if someone acts as a rental agent for private lessors in relation to hotels, boarding houses or similar business activity, the rental agent has a duty of disclosure for all private rentals, regardless of the lessor’s circumstances.

The duty of disclosure does not apply to those who are not conducting commercial activity.

The duty of disclosure is not limited to Norwegian companies.

Information about payments to the landlord must be provided for each rental unit in the period 1st of January to 31st of December of the taxation period.

Required information

The declarant must provide the following information:

• The name and organisation number of the party providing the information.
• The Norwegian national identity number, D-number , D number or organisation number, name, address and account number to whom the amount is paid.
• The amount per rental (after deducting the fees, etc. paid by the tenant to the rental agent).
• Any fee, etc. the tenant pays to the rental agent for each rental.
• Provision the landlord has paid to the rental agent per rental or per billing period.
• The number of days in the rental period for every rental (from date and to date).
• The property’s street address, or if none is available, the land register address. By street address, we mean the road name, house number, rental and property unit number. By cadastre address, we mean the property’s cadastral unit number and property unit number, any leasehold number and sequence number.

For more details, see Guide on how to complete and submit third-party information for renting out real property from rental agents, etc.

If more than one declarant has information about the same rental, they can arrange that one of them provide the information. Such agreements do not exempt them from enforcement fines or non-compliance penalties under the Tax Administration Act, sections 14-1 and 14-7 if the duty of disclosure is not fulfilled.

Reporting deadline

The deadline for reporting information on agent services, rental of property received in 2020 is 1st of February 2021.

Useful links

Consultation – Duty of disclosure for rental agents, etc. (in Norwegian only)

NOU 2017: 4 Sharing Economy – Opportunities and challenges

Regulation on changing the Tax Administration Regulation