Nor­way untigh­tens ent­ry requi­re­ments – for Nor­we­gi­ans

The Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment has announ­ced to untigh­ten ent­ry rest­ric­tions in a press release on 21 May..

On the day the new regu­la­ti­ons ente­red force, on 27 May, the govern­ment released ano­ther note with addi­tio­nal infor­ma­ti­on, inclu­ding an ent­ry ban for tou­rists as one key point. One might get the impres­si­on that the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment took this as an impli­cit­ness that did not requi­re expli­ci­te men­tio­ning bey­ond insi­nua­ti­on in the said release.

Non-nor­we­gi­an tou­rists are NOT allo­wed to enter Nor­way

The abo­ve-men­tio­ned release from 27 May says among­st others:

“The­se (add: per­sons) can not enter Nor­way (appli­es to citi­zens of all count­ries, inclu­ding citi­zens from EU/European eco­no­mic zone and scan­di­na­vi­an count­ries):

• Tou­rists
• …

Fol­lo­wed by a list of groups that are curr­ent­ly not allo­wed to enter Nor­way (unless an excemp­ti­on appli­es to them on an indi­vi­du­al case basis), inclu­ding distant rela­ti­ves (such as grand­par­ents!), for­eign stu­dents (inclu­ding tho­se from scan­di­na­vi­an count­ries), per­sons with resi­dence or work per­mit but who do not alre­a­dy live in Nor­way, busi­ness-rela­ted tra­ve­lers, owners of holi­day hou­ses etc. (not com­ple­te).

Men­tio­ning tou­rists as the first group in this list, and with the sin­gle word “tou­rists” in con­trast to all other groups, sends a clear mes­sa­ge: tou­rists are curr­ent­ly not wel­co­me in Nor­way.

Air­port at Oslo Gar­de­r­moen: inter­na­tio­nal tou­rist traf­fic is a one way road at the time being: Nor­we­gi­ans may visit other count­ries, but not the other way around.

The­re are excemp­ti­ons for tra­ve­lers who may enter Nor­way despi­te of the gene­ral ent­ry ban. This includes, among­st others, non-Nor­we­gi­ans who live in Nor­way, peo­p­le from regi­ons or count­ries which suf­fi­ci­ent­ly low inci­dence that the qua­ran­ti­ne obli­ga­ti­on does not app­ly, visi­tors to clo­se rela­ti­ves, peo­p­le in cer­tain pro­fes­si­ons (for exam­p­le jour­na­lists, sea­fa­rers, medi­cal per­so­nell from cer­tain count­ries, …) and peo­p­le who are regis­tered resi­dents in Spits­ber­gen.

It is the map of the FHI, the Nor­we­gi­an natio­nal health aut­ho­ri­ty, that will play an important role in this con­text for ano­ther while. Curr­ent­ly, almost all Euro­pean count­ries are lis­ted as “red”.

As you go into detail, the roles are com­plex, plea­se check with the offi­ci­al web­sites of rele­vant Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties for bin­ding infor­ma­ti­on. But in gene­ral, the mes­sa­ge is pret­ty clear, see abo­ve.

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