Doing Business in Norway: our guide for international companies

Norway is an attractive market for international business, with a stable economy, a highly digitalised public and private sector and strong purchasing power. It is not, however, a straightforward market to enter. The VAT rules differ from EU standards, corporate structures follow Norwegian specifics, and mistakes made at the incorporation stage can be expensive to correct later.

Our Doing Business in Norway guide provides practical insights into the key legal, tax and regulatory issues foreign companies, investors and founders should consider when entering the Norwegian market. It is written both for those who are considering establishing operations here, and for those already operating in Norway who want to be confident that the fundamentals are in place.

What the guide covers

The guide answers the questions foreign companies ask us most often, like:

Which corporate vehicle fits your investment?
Whether a branch or a limited liability company serves you better?
How shareholders’ agreements work under Norwegian law?
What Norwegian law expects of a board of directors?
Where the tax and VAT rules differ from the ones you know?

More articles are on the way, including employment law and public procurement.

Why we have written it

The guide has been compiled by a cross-functional team of lawyers at Brækhus, led by Christoph Morck, who heads our corporate law and finance team and is responsible for the firm’s International Desk.

“Through our work with international companies, we see that businesses entering Norway often face the same legal and practical questions. We created this guide to provide clear, practical and business-oriented guidance, helping companies understand the Norwegian legal framework and make well-informed decisions from the outset,” says Christoph Morck.

Local knowledge, global reach

Brækhus is one of Norway’s most internationally oriented law firms. Through our memberships in the international lawyers’ networks Meritas Law Firms Worldwide and Andersen Global, and the global accounting network Crowe Global, we assist our clients across national borders. Our lawyers work in all the Scandinavian languages – Norwegian, Swedish and Danish – as well as English, German, Spanish, Italian and Polish.

Through our company BD VAT and Tax Services we assist more than 300 foreign companies with tax, VAT, payroll and company establishment. BD VAT is lead by Brækhus Partner Nils Eriksen who is the only Norwegian member of the OECD’s Technical Advisory Group on international VAT.

Our clients rarely have a purely Norwegian problem. It may be a German parent company, a shareholders’ agreement governed by English law and a Norwegian subsidiary, all at the same time. Our global networks mean that we can coordinate the whole picture, and not only the Norwegian part of it
Christoph Morck, Partner and Head of International Desk at Brækhus

Brækhus is recognised by Legal 500, Chambers and ITR World Tax. Christoph Morck is ranked among Norway’s leading international lawyers in Kapital’s annual survey.