If you are a nurse trained outside the EU/EEA and Helsedirektoratet has told you your education is not equivalent to the Norwegian one, that letter is not necessarily the end of the road. For nursing specifically, Norway runs a complementary education — kompletterende sykepleierutdanning — at four universities, designed to close exactly the gaps the directorate identified. Two things about it surprise people: the decision saying you need it is what qualifies you to apply, and completing it also discharges the language requirement.

Last reviewed 30 July 2026. Sources: Helsedirektoratet — Tilleggskrav for søkere utdannet utenfor EU/EØS; OsloMet — Kompletterende sykepleierutdanning; OsloMet — Søke på kompletterende utdanninger; OsloMet — Trenger du godkjenning for å jobbe i Norge?; OsloMet — programplan SKOMPD; NTNU — Starter opp utdanning for sykepleiere som mangler norsk autorisasjon.

What it is, and who runs it

It is a 60-credit programme, offered at NTNU, HVL, OsloMet or VID.

The programmes exist because a real problem needed solving. Nurses trained outside the EU/EEA do not always receive Norwegian authorisation, and the consequence is visible in the workforce — people with nursing degrees working as healthcare assistants, or in entirely different sectors. NTNU’s programme was established after a municipality approached the university asking for exactly this: a course covering the subject areas that non-EU/EEA nursing educations are typically missing.

Similar programmes exist beyond nursing. Helsedirektoratet also recognises a 90-credit qualification programme for dentists at UiB, and a qualification programme at UiB for manual therapists. Complementary education also exists for bioengineers, and for teachers — though the teaching route goes via HK-dir rather than Helsedirektoratet.

The part worth knowing before you plan anything: it documents the language requirement

This is where the programme does more than close a curriculum gap, and it is worth being precise because the wording matters.

Helsedirektoratet’s list of accepted ways to document the language requirement includes, alongside Norskprøven and the Bergenstest, completed complementary nursing education at NTNU, HVL, OsloMet or VID (60 credits) — and the equivalent dentist and manual-therapist programmes at UiB. So finishing the programme satisfies the language requirement for authorisation. You do not then need to go and sit Norskprøven separately.

Note what this is not. Helsedirektoratet grants no exemption from the language requirement — that is stated flatly, and no amount of work experience changes it. This is not a loophole around the requirement; it is one of the recognised ways of meeting it. The distinction matters if anyone tells you the programme lets you skip the language standard. It does not. It is an alternative route to documenting the same standard.

Keep separate from that the language requirement to get into the programme, which is a university admission matter handled through the ordinary Samordna opptak rules — and which includes English as well as Norwegian. Two different requirements, at two different bodies, and easy to run together.

The sequencing, which is the thing most people get wrong

You do not choose this route. You are directed into it.

The order is: apply to Helsedirektoratet first. The directorate assesses your education and decides whether complementary education is what you need. Its decision then becomes your admission qualification — OsloMet requires a Helsedirektoratet decision, dated after 1 June 2015, stating that complementary education must be taken in order to reach an equivalent Norwegian nursing education.

One programme states the target group even more directly: applicants must have had their Norwegian authorisation application refused, and must hold a decision from Helsedirektoratet requiring complementary education as a qualifying measure toward authorisation.

Read that the right way round. A refusal is not a verdict on whether you can ever be a nurse in Norway. For this route, it is the document that gets you in.

Afterwards you apply for authorisation again, attaching your transcript from the complementary education. The process closes the loop it opened.

What you actually study

The content is built on the tilleggskrav regulation and the national curriculum regulation for nursing education, which is why it looks the way it does. Across the programmes it covers:

  • How the Norwegian health and care service is organised
  • Cultural understanding
  • Nursing as practised in Norway
  • Health promotion and prevention
  • Medication handling — including drug calculation, which at OsloMet is formally equivalent to the corresponding course in the ordinary bachelor’s degree
  • Norwegian working life and communication

That drug-calculation point is worth following up if you are on this route. Because the component is equated to the ordinary bachelor’s course, the standard described in our page on medikamentregning is the relevant one — an error-free paper, not a percentage threshold. Confirm the exam format with your own institution, but do not expect a gentler standard than nursing students face.

And it is not classroom-only. NTNU’s programme includes two practice periods, one in elderly care and one in mental health. OsloMet’s decentralised programme in Nordland runs 16 weeks of patient-facing practice across municipalities, all of it supervised.

The preparatory teaching for those placements is worth noting for what it prioritises. OsloMet’s programme plan states that theory preparation for this particular student group places emphasis on communication in clinical training with patients, next of kin and colleagues. The institution has looked at who these students are and concluded that communication is where the preparation needs to be concentrated.

Admission, and some details worth knowing in advance

  • A completed nursing education from outside the EU/EEA, at a level corresponding to at least two years of Norwegian higher education.
  • The Helsedirektoratet decision described above.
  • Both Norwegian and English language requirements met via the ordinary Samordna opptak rules.
  • Ranking is by grade points from your nursing bachelor’s degree.
  • Applicants with a refugee background are prioritised. The programmes are open to other outside-EU/EEA nurses where places remain, but where applications exceed places, refugees are given priority.
  • Active participation is required — this is not a distance-learning qualification you can complete passively.
  • One practical condition, stated plainly by OsloMet: face-covering clothing is not compatible with completing the study, and during clinical placements you must follow whatever dress guidelines apply at each individual practice site. If that affects you, it is better known now than at enrolment.

One counterintuitive point that catches people: these programmes are at bachelor level. Holding a master’s degree or even a doctorate does not exempt you. OsloMet’s own coordinator makes this explicit — some applicants have completed both a bachelor’s and a master’s and still need complementary education to obtain authorisation. The assessment is about matching the Norwegian nursing qualification specifically, not about academic seniority.

Where language sits in this

If you trained inside the EEA none of this applies to you — which side of that line you fall on depends on where you trained rather than your citizenship.

For everyone else, language appears at both ends. It is an admission requirement to get in, and completing the programme is then what documents the language requirement for the rest of the authorisation process. In between, you spend up to sixteen weeks in supervised clinical placement where the university has specifically flagged communication with patients, relatives and colleagues as the focus of your preparation.

That is a fair signal of what the route actually demands. B2 is the level the wider authorisation framework is built around, and it is a floor rather than a target for work this patient-facing.

Speaking is the hardest part to judge from the inside, because it is the only skill you cannot rehearse silently. Practising it out loud against exam-style prompts is what muntligb1.com is built for.