Financial assistance

If you are unable to find the means to cover the bare essentials, you can apply for financial assistance in the municipality where you currently are.

If you have nowhere to sleep and stay for the next 24 hours, you can also apply for help with finding temporary accommodation.

If you are in an emergency situation, please contact NAV in the municipality where you are located immediately. You can also call NAV at 55 55 33 33 if you want to talk to us.

Find your local NAV office

You can apply for assistance with expenses needed to live, so-called living expenses or subsistence.

When we say living expenses, we mean expenses for food, housing (such as rent), electricity, heating, municipal fees, etc. Other examples of living expenses include dental expenses, clothing and leisure activities.

You can also apply for assistance with expenses for special occasions, such as holidays and confirmations.

Expenses for appointments with a doctor, psychologist or dentist, as well as for necessary medication, are considered necessary to live, so-called living expenses, and you can apply for assistance with these expenses.  Normally, you will not be entitled to assistance for expenses incurred in connection with alternative types, forms or places of treatment that are not part of the public health service or covered by national insurance.

dentist expenses 

If you have a hard time paying for dental treatment, contact your dentist to see if it is possible to devise some sort of payment plan for your treatment. If you do not qualify for assistance from Helfo, and your financial situation makes it impossible to come up with a payment plan, you can apply to NAV for assistance with covering some or all of these costs. 

In order for us to be able to assess your case, you must provide information about income, expenses and any other assets you may have. In addition to that, we need a so-called cost estimate, specifying what the treatment will cost, as well as any X-rays and a statement from your dentist about the treatment. Prices may vary (in Norwegian) from dentist to dentist, and NAV may choose to grant financial assistance to cover a less expensive treatment option. 

If you needed emergency dental work, you must include the bill and a statement from your dentist if you are applying for financial assistance with the bill. 

You can apply for assistance with covering the deposit when you sign a lease if you do not have the means to cover it yourself.

NAV normally provides this type of assistance in the form of a deposit guarantee, but may also offer financial assistance in the form of a deposit to an escrow account.

Many people are getting very high electricity bills right now and are struggling to be able to pay them. Several temporary arrangements have been established to help households with high electricity costs.

What can NAV help you with?

If you need financial assistance with your electricity bill, you may qualify for financial assistance from NAV.

When the NAV office is considering your application, they may require you to apply for housing allowance from the Norwegian State Housing

Housing allowance from the Norwegian State Housing Bank

If you have low income and high housing expenses, housing allowance from the Norwegian State Housing Bank can be an option for you. The housing allowance is paid the month after you apply.

The Storting has extended this housing allowance scheme until the end of 2023. This means more people may qualify for housing allowance and more people are being granted a housing allowance.

Those who receive a housing allowance for October, November and December 2023 will receive an additional amount to cover electricity costs in addition to the regular amount. On the Housing Bank’s website, you can also read more about the extra electricity allowance through the housing allowance scheme. (in Norwegian).

Read more and apply for housing allowance at husbanken.no. Remember to apply by the application deadline specified on the Housing Bank’s website.

Other assistance schemes to cover electricity costs

• Compensation scheme for high electricity costs: The Storting has decided that households will get a deduction in the bill from their grid company or electricity provider when electricity prices are extraordinarily high. The scheme will be active throughout 2023. Go to regjeringen.no to read more about the electricity support scheme (in Norwegian).

If you are married, you and your spouse have a mutual obligation to provide for each other. This means that we will consider your collective financial situation when we assess your need for financial assistance.

If your spouse has an income, but they are not supporting you financially, we will consider your financial situation and potentially grant financial assistance. Examples of situations where this could be relevant include:

• if you are staying in a crisis shelter
• if you are living in hiding from an abusive spouse
• if you are trying to get away from a forced marriage
• if your spouse is serving time in prison
• if your spouse is not providing for you for other reasons

If you have children, other obligations and arrangements apply when you are applying for financial assistance. We emphasize children’s needs in our assessment.

Child benefit does not affect how much you can get in financial assistance.

If you are not the custodial parent for your children, you can apply for assistance with expenses in connection with contact. Financial assistance for contact will normally be considered based on the scope of contact.

Children over the age of 18 have the right to have their situation assessed on an individual basis in terms of financial assistance. As a parent, you may be ordered to provide for children over the age of 18, provided the child is in school and you have the means to do so.

Children are not obligated to provide for their parents or siblings. If your child has a job in their spare time or in school holidays, this income will not be included in the family’s finances when we assess the need for financial assistance.

Partners who live together do not have a mutual obligation to provide for each other. However, if you have a child together, we will normally consider both of your finances when we assess the need for financial assistance.

Parents who live together and have joint children have an obligation to provide for their children within the framework of their financial situation. This means that the one of you who has an income high enough to provide for your joint child, is expected to do so alone. In families where one or both parents have children from previous relationships, we may assess part of the family separately.

• proof of identity
• a valid residence permit
• your tax return
• your tax settlement
• your pay slip, if you have a job
• bank statements for all of your bank accounts, including current balances
• documentation of housing (lease)
• bills for what you have applied for assistance with, such as rent or electricity 

You can download the application on paper here

Download the application for financial assistance

If you want to use municipality’s own application, you can find it on their website. You can find your municipality’s website at:

www.[your municipality].kommune.no
such as www.oslo.kommune.no

Get the paper form at your NAV office

If you can’t find the form on your municipality’s website, you can go to the NAV office to get a paper form.

You can find the address and telephone number to your closest NAV office under find your NAV office.

How to submit your application

You can submit your application to the NAV office or send it by mail.

If you need help

Please contact your NAV office if you need help finding or filling out the application form.

If you have applied digitally

You can submit information for a digital applicaation. This is how you do it:

• Go to the list of your applications
• Find the application you want to submit information for
• Upload the attachments you want to include

Make sure you upload your attachments to the correct application.

Dine søknader

If you have applied on paper

If you submitted an application on paper, you must submit any additional information to your NAV office. You can also submit information by mail.

• You start earning more or less than what you have previously told NAV.
• You get a payment in the form of dividend on shares, funds, the sale of property/assets, etc.
• Your marital status changes, such as getting married or divorced, moving in with or separating from a partner, or your partner/spouse dies.
• Your family situation changes because you have a child, one of your children moves out, or you no longer provide for your child or children.
• You are planning an extended stay abroad or planning to move abroad.
• You are moving out of the municipality you currently live in.

NAV may require, often called a condition, that you reduce your expenses, increase your income and participate in activities in order to qualify for financial assistance.

Activity requirements

The goal of requiring your participation in an activity is for you to be able to provide for yourself.

For example, NAV may require that you

• attend counselling interviews,
• apply to relevant jobs,
• participate in employment seminars and schemes,
• participate in work training or other employment activities,
• participate in education and training programmes

For applicants under the age of 30

If you are under 30 years old, NAV will require you to participate in certain activities in order to qualify for financial assistance. The goal is to help you find employment or start an education, so that you will be able to provide for yourself with your own income.

If you fail to meet the requirements

If you fail to meet the requirements you agreed to with NAV, it may have consequences for your financial assistance from NAV.

Submit your appeal to the NAV office that processed your application. The term of appeal is three weeks from the date on which he received notice of the decision.

There is no digital appeal form on nav.no, so you must submit your appeal by mail or submit it to your NAV office directly. Find the visiting address and mailing address to your NAV office here.

What should the appeal include?

• The decision against which the appeal is made. You can also include the decision you are appealing.
• What you believe the error is, and why you believe an error has been made.
• Your signature

You can include information as an attachment with your appeal.

Do you need help with an appeal?

Your NAV office can help you if you need help writing your appeal. Request a meeting at your NAV office. If you want to bring a person you trust with you, you can do that.

You can also go through a lawyer or authorize someone else to appeal on your behalf.

Municipalities may have different processing time for appeals. If it is more than one month, you will receive a notification that the processing time is extended.

Appeals are processed again by the NAV office that originally processed your application. It varies from municipality to municipality how long you have to wait for a response. If more than a month goes by, you are entitled to a preliminary response. If your appeal is successful, you will receive another notice of decision.

If your appeal is not successful, it will be forwarded to the County Governor, who will do a new assessment of your case. The NAV office will notify you in writing if this happens. The County Governor will inform you of processing times and what will happen next with your appeal.

Once the County Governor has decided your case, you will be notified in writing. If the County Governor sides with you, the NAV office must process your application again and you will receive a new notice of decision.

If your appeal succeeds, you may be entitled to compensation for necessary costs incurred in connection with getting the decision changed. One example of such costs are legal costs. If that is relevant for you, you can submit a claim for compensation for legal costs to the NAV office that changed, sometimes called revised, the decision.