Forest owners' income

Forest property

Property with at least 25 decares of productive forest area. Property parcels belonging to the same owner within one municipality are treated as one property.Personal forest owner

Forest owner owning forest area as an individual owner. Forest areas owned jointly by several individuals are included for one of the owners; the reference owner.

Legal owners

Central government, the Educational Fund, common forest owned by the central government (Statsallmenning), common forest not owned by the central government (Bygdeallmenning), limited company, foundation, municipality etc.

Gross income

Total wages and salaries pesnsins, entrepreneurial income and proeprty income.

Personal wages and salaries

Comprise payments in cash and in kind, taxable sick pay and unemployment benefit.

Pensions

Cover all benefit paid by social security and private pension and life insurance benefit.

Entrepreneurial income

A result of activities of a self-employed person, and is estimated from profit and loss account and balance sheet. The entrepreneurial income is transferred to the tax return and is included in the calculation of ordinary income.

Entrepreneurial income from agriculture

This is positive entrepreneurial income from agriculture according to tax return. Including 2011, entrepreneurial social security benefits in agriculture,forestry and fishery are included. As from 2012 social security benefits from primary industry are include in total entreprenurial income. Deductions such as membership payments to industry organisations, the year's entrepreneurial deficit, interest on debt and a separate agricultural deduction are not deducted.

Entreprenurial income from forestry

This is positive entrepreneurial income from forestry according to tax return. In addition, entrepreneurial income from forestry also comprises sickness benefit for persons without entreprenurail income in agriculture and fisheries.

Other income

Consist mainly of interest income, dividends, realised capital gains, rent and other income from property.

Classification of forest properties by size class

Name: Forest owners' income
Topic: Agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishing

Division for Housing, Property, Spatial and Agricultural Statistics

County.

The statistics are published annually. It usually takes about 70 weeks from the end of the year until the figures are published.

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The purpose of the statistics is to provide an overview of personal forest owners income, dept and property. The statistics also provide information on age, sex, income and education of forest owners.

Statistics on forest owners income based on sample surveys were published in the 1990's and after The sample survey of forestry 2004.

The main users of the statistics are professional forestry organisations, The Ministry of Agriculture and Food and various research and educational institutions.

No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

Statistics on the farmers' income and property are provided yearly. These statistics comprise natural persons operating agricultural holdings.

Statistics Norway also presents income statistics for all self-employed persons .

The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).

Including 2010, the statistics built on properties in the Farm Register of the Norwegian Agricultural Authority with personal owner and at least 25 decares of productive forest area. Information about the owners came from the Land Register/Cadastre owned by The Norwegian Mapping Authority.

As from 2011, the number of forest properties and productive forest area are based on new cartographic data analysis and data on owners and properties from the cadastre (Land Register) in combination with data from the Farm Register.

In the statistics on personal forest owners, the forest owners' productive forest areas in Norway are aggregated, independent of municipality borders. Statistics on incomes are based on the forest owners' municipality for tax purposes. Other individual statistics on personal forest owners are based on the municipality where the forest owners live.

Statistics on average incomes, debt, gross property and assessed taxes are published for personal forest owners with positive self-employment income from forestry. Married couples and registered partners / cohabitants who jointly operate the forest property, may share the taxable entrepreneurial income. Statistics are therefor also made on average incomes, debt, gross property and assessed taxes for forest owners and their spouses, registered partners and cohabitants.

The statistics are derived from existing administrative data files.

The Farm Register of the Norwegian Agricultural Authority served until 2010 as the backbone of the statistics and information about the owners came from the Land register. As from 2011, the number of forest properties and productive forest area are based on new cartographic data analysis and data on owners and properties from the Cadastre in combination with data from the Farm Register.

More information about the personal forest owners comes from the Central Population Register, the Register on Personal Tax Returns and the Register on Tax Assessment for Personal Taxpayers.

The statistics are derived from the whole population of personal forest owners.

The statistics are based on existing administrative registers and are based on linked data files that were edited separately when established. Editing is defined here as checking, examining and amending data., and there are not any editing on the linked data.

Employees of Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures if there is a risk of the respondent’s contribution being identified. This means that, as a general rule, figures are not published if fewer than three units form the basis of a cell in a table or if the contribution of one or two respondents constitutes a very large part of the cell total.

Statistics Norway can make exceptions to the general rule if deemed necessary to meet the requirements of the EEA agreement, if the respondent is a public authority, if the respondent has consented to this, or when the information disclosed is openly accessible to the public.

More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.

To ensure confidentiality, the suppression method is used in these statistics.

In the period 2007-2010, the Farm register has been updated and improved. The improvement has resulted in 3 000-4 000 more forest properties.

As from 2011, the number of forest properties and productive forest area are based on new cartographic data analysis and data on owners and properties from the cadastre (Land Register) in combination with data from the Farm Register. This resultet in more than 10 000 new forest properties. Most of them have had minor forestry activity.

Statistics on the forest owners' income based on sample surveys were published in the 1990's and in the Sample survey of forestry 2004. As from 2005, statistics on the forest owners' income based on registers have been published annaully.

The most important source of error is that taxpayers may fill in incorrect information on income, deductions, property or debt in the personal tax return or place amounts under wrong items. In most cases this will be detected and corrected by the local tax offices. Nevertheless, errors that do not influence the assessment of taxes may be ignored. Furthermore, errors may also originate during the scanning of the tax return forms, despite of the fact that controls are executed.

Another concern is the quality of the registers. The productive forest area of properties or the property borders are sometimes missing or erroneous. Furthermore, errors may arise when data are entered into the various administrative registers.

With regard to co-operative ownership, the statistics on forest owners comprise only the reference owner. Self-employment income from forestry for the remaining personal owners in the co-operative is not included. Analysis from 2011 show that entrepreneurial income from forests for these owners were approximately 0,4 per cent of the total entrepreneural income from forestry. In total, 3-4 per cent of the self-employment income from forestry is missing.

In reality, the number of personal forest owners with entrepreneurial income from forestry is higher than in these statistics show, because only the reference owner in a co-ownership is included here. Some personal forest owners are deceased and no new owner has been registered, some live abroad or information is missing for other reasons. These owners amount to 3-4 per cent of the personal forest owners and are excluded from the statistics on incomes.