To be entitled to unemployment benefit, your working hours must usually have been reduced by at least 50 per cent. You must meet the general requirements for unemployment benefit in Norway and be willing to do any kind of work. As a main rule, you must live or reside in Norway.
To receive unemployment benefit, you must be registered as a job seeker at www.nav.no or at your NAV Local Services. You must then complete the Unemployment Benefit Claim Form. School pupils and students are, as a rule, not entitled to unemployment benefit.
You may be entitled to unemployment benefit if you are temporarily laid off. If you are a frontier worker, you can stay in your country of residence while receiving unemployment benefit from Norway. Cross-border workers are persons who live in one country and work in another and who travel to their country of residence at least once a week.
Entitlement to unemployment benefit earned in another EEA country can be transferred to Norway using form E-301 from the country where you used to work. The conditions for transferring the rights must be met.
On certain conditions, you may keep your Norwegian unemployment benefit for up to three months while you are applying for a job in another EEA country. In such case, you must submit a written request for form E-303, which entitles you to stay in another country as a job seeker while receiving unemployment benefit from Norway.
If you are job seeking in Norway while receiving unemployment benefit from another EEA country, you must bring form E-303 with you from the country from which you receive employment benefit. You must register as a job seeker when you arrive in Norway and comply with the Norwegian rules that apply to registration as a job seeker with NAV, i.e. submit an employment status form every 14 days to your NAV Local Services.
For citizens of Bulgaria and Romania, transitional rules still apply, i.e. certain limitations relating to freedom of movement and the right to unemployment benefit.
