Rate for:

Board – Rate for food in connection with overtime work (overtime subsistence)

If the employer pays for your food, it’s generally taxable. This is because it’s considered coverage of private expenses.

However, if you have long workdays outside your home, your employer can buy you a meal or cover your documented expenses for food and beverages tax-free. 

It’s the number of working hours and not the absence from your home that decides whether you can get tax-free overtime subsistence.

The employer can cover expenses for a meal in connection with overtime/long workdays tax-free if the following conditions are met:

  • You work a minimum of 10 hours continuously away from home. (The meal can be eaten before you’ve worked 10 hours, as long as total working hours exceed 10 hours).
  • The expenses are covered as benefits in kind or as a reimbursement of your expenses, limited to the rate below.
  • If your overtime subsistence expenses are reimbursed, the expenses must be documented with receipts/invoices, etc.

Subsistence allowances paid without documentation are taxable as salary income. This applies even if the subsistence allowance rate below is not exceeded.

When coverage of food in connection with overtime work exceeds the tax-free amount

If the coverage you receive for food in connection with overtime work exceeds NOK 200, the amount that exceeds NOK 200 is taxable and subject to withholding tax. This applies as long as the employer splits the allowance into one part that is not subject to withholding tax and one part that is subject to withholding tax at the time of payment. 

If the amount is not split or if the other conditions that are mentioned above are not met, the whole amount will be taxable. 

The rate for board for one free meal is not applicable to overtime subsistence

A rate is set for the benefit gained from an employer’s coverage of food (one meal). This rate is used in cases where it’s difficult to determine the sales value of the benefit to the individual taxpayer. An example could be the valuation of a free meal in a canteen.

The rate for one meal (NOK 52 in 2024) can still be used when the employee eats dinner in a subsidised canteen and the conditions for tax-free overtime subsistence are not met, for example if the workday is shorter than 10 hours.


  Rate

Maximum amount for overtime substinence that is tax-free and not subject to withholding tax

NOK 200 per day