I will be emigrating to Norway in 2011 to live with my fiancée Anne-Gudrun. On this page I keep a list of things that should be taken care of. This information could be specific to my situation only.

Language course

You will be able to survive pretty well in Norway with only English, though it is very recommended to learn Norwegian. It improves your chances highly on the Norwegian job market, and also in contact with other people it is good to be able to talk in Norwegian. I have recently done an intensive language course A1 level for beginners which I can highly recommend to dutch speaking people. The teacher was drs. Nathalie van Wijk from NoorsOnline. She offers group courses, private courses at home or on Skype, and intensive courses. I had a great time there, and I learned a lot of basic Norwegian in 5 days of 6 hours each. She offers all levels (A1, A2, B1 and B2) and I’m sure I’ll take more courses Norwegian language in the future from NoorsOnline. She also translates documents into Norwegian (officially), see for more information a ScandiText.

Moving

You have a lot of options here. You can hire a moving company that does everything for you. From demounting to packing, loading and moving the goods and arranging all the papers. They are often quite costly, for 18 m3 it is approximately 4500 euro in Holland and 3500 in Germany. To only move the goods (without packing,loading,etc), but inclusive insurance and custom papers, a company asked 2400 euro’s. I have chosen to drive myself with a rented minivan (at Diks Autoverhuur, which allowed free kilometers if you rent the van more 7 or more days).

Levensloopregeling

The “levensloopregeling” is a Dutch specific tax-friendly arrangement to save money for free time, e.g. a sabbatical, stopping earlier with working, etc. Because The Netherlands is the only country that has such arrangement, emigration will affect this arrangement.

When emigrating, and the emigration is associated with termination of employment, further investment will not be possible. It is however possible to “buy off” the deposit, but you have to pay tax over it. In my situation it would mean that more than half of the credit would be lost. Depending on the situation, there is also a possibility to transfer it to your pension arrangement.

To be continued…