Norway may scrap its national non-EEA tuition-fee floor from August 2026, letting universities set their own fees including zero

Norway ends its national tuition-fee floor for non-EEA students

Norway's parliament, the Storting, approved a change to the Universities and University Colleges Act that removes the national requirement for full-cost tuition fees on students from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland. The new rule takes effect on 1 August 2026, according to the Norwegian government . Individual universities and university colleges now decide their own fee levels for these students, instead of following a fixed minimum set by Oslo.

Under the old system, introduced for the 2023-24 academic year, every public institution had to charge non-EEA students a fee covering the full cost of their education. The Storting originally passed that fee requirement by a wide margin in June 2023, with The PIE News reporting an 86-11 vote in favor. The Local Norway reports that enrolment from outside the EU and EEA dropped by around 80% after the fees started, as students chose cheaper destinations instead.

Why the government changed direction

The government wants universities to compete for international students again after the enrolment collapse. Norway Handbook reports the drop hit specialized programs hardest, with some STEM courses losing most of their international applicants. Universities including NTNU and the University of Oslo saw their international classrooms thin out as a direct result of the 2023 policy.

Removing the national fee floor gives institutions room to lower fees, add scholarships, or waive charges entirely for programs where they want to keep an international student mix. It does not restore universal free tuition across the board. Each university now sets its own policy, so fees for 2026-27 will differ from one institution to the next.

Who counts as a non-EEA student

The rules apply to students who are not citizens of an EU or EEA country and not Swiss nationals. The EEA covers the EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway itself, so citizens of those countries pay no tuition regardless of this reform. Students from the UK, the US, most of Asia, Africa and Latin America fall under the non-EEA category and are the group affected by both the 2023 fee introduction and the 2026 reform.

Norway had been the last of the larger Nordic countries to keep tuition free for students outside this group. Denmark, Sweden and Finland each moved to charge non-EU students years before Norway followed the same path in 2023. The 2026 change does not return Norway to a fully free model, but it ends the requirement that every institution charge the same full-cost minimum.

What this means for your application

The practical effect depends entirely on where you apply. A university that kept full-cost fees under the old system might now charge less, or nothing, for programs it wants to keep internationally competitive. Another might keep fees close to where they were. There is no single new national rate to check.

• Check each university's own fee page for non-EEA students for the 2026-27 academic year, since the national minimum no longer applies.

• EU, EEA and Swiss students are unaffected and continue to study tuition-free in Norway, as they did before this reform.

• Institutions that keep charging fees often still offer scholarships or fee waivers for specific programs, so check funding pages alongside tuition pages.

• If you already applied under the old full-cost rules, contact the admissions office directly to confirm your 2026-27 fee under the new policy.

Sources

• Government of Norway: Storting adopts lower tuition fee proposal
• The Local Norway: government tuition fee proposal
• Norway Handbook: the 2026 tuition fee proposal
• The PIE News: Norway's 2023 non-EU tuition fee vote