Personal pension saving may be something you should consider. When the time comes to reduce your working hours or retire fully, your income will decrease. How much it will drop depends on what you receive from the National Insurance Scheme and from your occupational pension. Some people only realise the actual amounts when they reach retirement age – but by then, it is too late to start building up personal pension savings.
Individual Pension Savings – IPS
The framework conditions for personal pension savings in Norway are not particularly favourable. The only product that directly targets long‑term pension saving is IPS (Individual Pension Savings). From 2026, this scheme allows you to save up to NOK 25,000 per year, with a 22 per cent tax deduction. The payout period must last for at least ten years, and the payments you receive are also taxed at 22 per cent. With IPS, taxation is therefore postponed until you start withdrawing the money during retirement.
Annuity, property or shares?
Paying down debt is saving
An annuity can also be used for retirement saving, but it offers only limited tax advantages. For most people, saving through property, a bank account, equity funds or individual shares will therefore be the more common ways to build up long‑term savings, including for retirement. Each of these products comes with different levels of risk and different expectations for returns.
A share savings account (ASK) allows you to postpone paying tax on the returns from shares and equity funds until you withdraw the money. In addition, you build up a “shielding deduction”, which helps reduce the tax you ultimately pay.
Paying down debt is also an effective form of saving.
Read more about pensions here: Pension in Norway
Self‑employed people
Self‑employed individuals can establish their own defined‑contribution pension scheme, allowing them to contribute up to 7 per cent of their business income on earnings up to 12 G per year. These contributions are deducted from your taxable business income. This type of saving is therefore particularly advantageous if your income after deductions is at least 7.1 G. The reason is that the National Insurance Scheme sets aside 18.1 per cent of your income for your pension on earnings up to 7.1 G.
