Can I Claim Datautstyr og Kontormøbler (IT Equipment and Office Furniture) as a Business Expense in Norway?
Fully deductible. Items costing under NOK 15,000 (ex-MVA) can be immediately expensed in the year of purchase. Items above NOK 15,000 are depreciated using the saldoavskrivning (declining balance) method: EDP equipment (saldogruppe d) at 30%, office furniture and equipment (saldogruppe c) at 20%.
What Skatteetaten (Norwegian Tax Administration) says
Skatteloven § 6-10 and § 14-41 to § 14-43. The NOK 15,000 immediate deduction threshold applies to single assets with an economic life under 3 years, or to any item below the threshold. Above NOK 15,000, assets are allocated to a saldogruppe and written down by the prescribed declining balance rate annually.
When you can claim
- Laptops, desktops, tablets, phones under NOK 15,000 — immediate deduction
- Servers, high-end workstations above NOK 15,000 — saldogruppe d (30% annual depreciation)
- Office desks, chairs, shelving under NOK 15,000 — immediate deduction
- Furniture above NOK 15,000 — saldogruppe c (20% annual depreciation)
- Software licences — typically annual subscriptions are immediately deductible; perpetual licences over NOK 15,000 depreciated as intangibles
- Mobile phones used for business — full deduction; if used privately, standard benefit rules apply
When you cannot claim
- Equipment used purely for private purposes
- An employee's personal laptop purchased by themselves (must be company asset to deduct in company)
- Luxury items with no business justification (gaming chairs for a trading company, etc.)
Good to know
Pro tip: Where possible, buy items under the NOK 15,000 threshold to get an immediate deduction rather than multi-year depreciation. For a small AS, spreading a NOK 30,000 equipment purchase into two components of NOK 15,000 each (if genuinely separate assets) gives double immediate deductions versus one depreciating asset.
Important: When an AS provides IT equipment for an employee's personal use at home (e.g. a home computer), there is no taxable benefit as long as the equipment is primarily for business use. However, purely personal IT equipment provided by the employer is a taxable benefit.
Stop guessing what you can claim in Norway
AccountsOS automatically categorises expenses with Skatteetaten (Norwegian Tax Administration)-aware rules and tells you exactly what is claimable.
Try Free