As a Norwegian citizen I feel it is my duty to help other travelers obtain a Norway tourist visa so they can explore this mesmerizing country in the North! Norway is a country that traditionally didn’t get have a high number of visitors, Norway has been working towards attracting more tourists from all over the world.
Norway’s capital, Oslo, has gone from being a “stopover” for tourists headed to the fjords, to becoming one of Europe’s hippest gastronomical capitals in just a few years. The city has seen a massive architectural boom, with the building of a new Edward Munch museum by the harbor, Aker Brygge, as well as the development of a new bar code style skyline. In this post we’ll tell you what you need to know to apply and be accepted for a Norway tourist visa so that you can experience Norway’s most famous scenic sights like Prekestolen, Flåm-banen, the Northern lights, fantastic fjords and mountains and the impressive Atlantic Ocean Road.
Remember that everyone who travels to a Schengen member state is required to have a valid travel insurance. Unfortunately we don’t offer travel insurance through Schengen visa flight reservation, however after a lot of research we have proudly partnered with Visitor’s Coverage for all your travel insurance needs. Visitor’s Coverage can offer different plans to suit different travel needs, and is guaranteed to meet the Norway tourist visa requirements. Have a look at Visitor’s Coverage.
Norway Tourist Visa and Understanding the Schengen Visa:
Norway is a part of the Schengen area, but not a part of the E.U. Many people get confused by this, which is more than understandable. The Schengen Visa Application Agreement was made specifically to make border crossings between the Schengen Member States easier, so even if it seems like a daunting task now to apply for your Norway Schengen Visa, just remember that once you have it, you can travel freely within 26 Schengen Member States for 90 days!
The Norway Schengen Visa is the same as any other Schengen Visa. The visa gives you the right to travel all the Schengen countries as you wish for a period of up to 90 days, within a 180 day period. You can leave the Schengen area (and thereby “stopping” the countdown on your visa) by entering a Non-Schengen country, like the UK.
Remember that your 90 days are only valid within a period of 180 days. This effectively means that you can travel in and out of the Schengen Area for 6 months, as long as the combined stay in the Schengen Area does not exceed 90 days in total, and as long as you hold a valid multiple entry Schengen visa (we will write a post on the different Schengen visa types shortly!). To understand the rules of the Norway tourist visa, or the Schengen visa, better, we’ve made a little calculation below for you to illustrate it:
Trip start date: May 1st. 2016
Trip end date: September 28th
As you can see, this trip will last a 150 days in total. But you are only allowed 90 days in the Schengen area on one Schengen Visa. So how is this possible?
It’s really not that complicated. Let’s say you spend a total of 45 days traveling Norway, Iceland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Malta. Then you go to Great Britain for the next 30 days. Even if you have now traveled for 75 days, you still have 45 days left on your Norway Schengen visa, because you left the Schengen area and went to a Non-Schengen country, within a 180-period.
Let’s say you go to Portugal (a Schengen member state) after your stop in Great Britain; your Schengen visa countdown will now start again, and you have 45 more days to travel the Schengen countries.
Below is a list of all the current 26 Schengen countries:
- Austria
- Belgium
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
Countries that are not Schengen member states (yet), and that can be traveled to within Europe to “stop the Schengen visa clock” are:
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Ireland
- Romania
- The United Kingdom
You can also use this Schengen Travel Day Calculator:
Calculator of travel days remaining under a Schengen short-stay visa.
Norway Tourist Visa – Requirement Check List:
When you begin your application process for your Norway Schengen visa, the best place to start is, Want to Apply for Norway Visa OR holiday Visa.
Fill in your nationality, and click “Choose“, and then click “Visitor’s visa to Norway” on the next page.
On the next page that appears you will be able to choose what your purpose for visiting Norway is; general tourism, visiting family, visiting a boyfriend or girlfriend, business, etc.
From this page you look through the requirement, and click “How to apply“. The reason for this somewhat complicated process is that there are slight variations in required documents depending on your nationality. However there are some requirements that are generic, and we have compiled a list of all of them below:
- Passport – not older than 10 years, and valid for at least 3 months after your departure date from the Schengen area
- Paid visa fee (normally 60 Euros)
- Filled out application form submitted through the application portal (double-check that this applies to you by using the link want to apply first)
- Passport copy
- 1 or 2 passport photos not older than 3 months, size: 4,5 cm x 3,5 cm with white background. No glasses can be worn on the photo, and it must be glued to the cover letter)
- Personal covering letter for Schengen Visa
- Copy of a flight booking – a very important requirements as this is the embassy’s indication of whether you plan to go home or not. Check our flight reservation for visa pricing and services for single or multiple destination round trip flight bookings that are 100 % genuine! Save on money; not flexibility.
- Travel insurance – This insurance has to meet many requirements, among others: Validity for your entire stay, plus an additional 15 days, minimum coverage of €30,000 that also covers repatriation, emergency hospital care and is valid in all Schengen countries. We recommend Visitors’s Coverage for low-cost insurance that meets all the requirements.
- Proof of financial means (at least 500 NOK per day in Norway)
- A full travel itinerary for the Schengen countries – this requirement with the requirement below of a hotel booking. If you want to maximize your chances of having your visa accepted, we definitely recommend choosing the hotel itinerary option from our home page. From here you can choose to book an entire itinerary’s worth of hotels, for the fraction of the cost of even a weekend stay in a hotel. Protect your flexibility, while meeting your Norway tourist visa application requirements with our hotel reservation option!
- Hotel reservation or official invitation from host in Norway (The embassy states that “You must normally have booked accommodation for the first days of your stay in Norway.”)
There you go! Let us know in the comment’s section below what your experience applying for a Norway Tourist Visa was like!
