Content
About the statistics
Definitions
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Name and topic
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Name: Migrations
Topic: Population
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Responsible division
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Division for Population Statistics
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Definitions of the main concepts and variables
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Resident: Who is regarded as a resident of Norway and where in Norway a person shall be counted as a resident, is stipulated in the Population Registration Act of 16 January 1970. The regulations to the act were amended effective 1 February 1980.
The following main points from the registration rules decide who is regarded as a resident of Norway:
Persons from countries outside the Nordic countries are regarded as residents of Norway when they have lived here or intend to live here at least 6 months, even though the stay is temporary. The same six-month rule applies to migration from Norway to a country outside the Nordic countries.
The aforementioned six-month rule does not always apply to migration between Norway and another Nordic country. In Denmark, for example, a person is registered as a resident if the person intends to stay in the country at least 3 months. The same limit is used for out-migration. In Sweden and Finland the limit is one year. For persons who come/move to Norway from another Nordic country, the six-month rule is still valid, as residence is decided by the country of immigration's rules, cf. the Nordic agreement on inter-Nordic migration dated 8 May 1989. This agreement replaced a similar agreement from 5 December 1968.
People living in Svalbard, on Jan Mayen or in Norwegian dependencies who on departure were registered in the population register of a Norwegian municipality shall still be counted as residents of that municipality. The same rules apply to people on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Norwegian foreign and consular service staff and Norwegian military personnel posted for duty abroad are counted as residents of Norway. The same applies to their families.
Foreign staff at foreign embassies and consular services and foreign personnel attached to NATO are not counted as residents of Norway. The same applies to their families.
The main rule for where in Norway a person is regarded as a resident is that the person resides where he/she has their regular daily rest (night's sleep). If the daily rest is taken in shifts at one or more places, the person is regarded as residing where, overall, they can be said to live on a regular basis. Spouses with a joint home and persons sharing a joint home with their children are regarded as residing in this home without regard to where they have their daily rest.
Single persons who attend school in another municipality are as a main rule still regarded as resident of the place they lived before starting school (the residence of their parents). Similar registration principles also apply to conscripts serving their initial military service, alternative national service conscripts, prisoners, and people admitted to hospitals. Persons admitted to or placed in other institutions or private care are as a main rule regarded as residents when the stay is intended to last, or turns out to last, at least 6 months.
From March 1987 to January 1994 asylum seekers were usually counted as immigrants and hence also as residents even though the processing of their application for residence had not been completed. Before and after this period, only asylum seekers with residence permits have been registered.
In-migration, out-migration: Migration is when one person moves from one Norwegian municipality to another or between a Norwegian municipality and abroad. If a person moves several times during the same calendar year, each move counts. In the migration figures for counties and regions moves between the municipalities in the county/region are not counted.
Net migration: The difference between in-migration and out-migration.
Rate: Events in a period divided by population. The period is often 1 year. For five year periods the tables are published with the average for the five-year period, e.g. internal migration broken down by five age groups per 1 000 mean population in the same age group.
Centralisation: Centralisation is the geographical location of a municipality compared to an urban settlements of a particular size. The level of centralisation is classified in 4 main categories, coded 3 – 0. Code 3 centralisation is achieved when the physical centre of the population of a municipality is within 75 minutes of travel from an urban settlement with a population of minimum of 50 000 inhabitants (90 minutes from Oslo). To achieve code 3, an additional requirement is that the urban settlement in question acts as a regional centre. Code 2 means a maximum travel of 60 minutes to an urban settlement with the minimum of 15 000 inhabitants. Code 1 means a maximum travel of 45 minutes to an urban settlement with the minimum of 5 000 inhabitants. The municipalities that do not fulfil any of these requirements get the code 0.
“Central municipalities” is coded 3, “Fairly central municipalities” is coded 2, “Fairly remote municipalities” is coded 1, and “Remote municipalities” is coded 0.