Country guide · Norway

Your own car in an enkeltpersonforetak: 3,50 kr per km, the kjørebok, and the 6 000 km line

By Andrei Zamiralov · Updated 18 Oct 2026

The short answer

Self-employed in Norway? If you run an enkeltpersonforetak and drive your own car for the business, the per-km rate applies as long as the car is not taxed as a yrkesbil. For such a car the takseringsregler (the Tax Directorate's yearly valuation rules) allow a deduction of 3,50 kr per km of business driving (2026). The rule is in § 1-3-20: "For bil som ikke skattlegges som yrkesbil, kan det fastsettes fradrag for bruk i yrket med kr 3,50 per km". You must be able to document the kilometres, and the usual way is a kjørebok.

What decides the method is the yrkesbil line. A car with at least 6 000 km of business driving a year, or one used mostly for the business, is a yrkesbil. Then the 3,50 kr per km no longer applies, and your regnskapsfører tells you which method does. The rest of this page covers the log, the supplements, that line, and a worked example.

What the self-employed kjørebok holds

Nobody is obliged to keep one. Skatte-ABC B-5-4.1 says "Skattyter har ikke plikt til å føre kjørebok", and the tax authorities cannot order you to. The same handbook adds that "Skattyter må kunne dokumentere yrkeskjøringen, f.eks. med kjørebok" (B-5-3.3). A log is how you meet that.

For the self-employed, Skatteetaten's list is short: "dato, strekningsbeskrivelse (fra-til), hvorfor du kjørte og antall kilometer pr kjøring". So each business drive needs four things:

1. The date.
2. The route, from and to.
3. Why you drove.
4. The kilometres.

B-5-4.1 asks for more detail than that list. The log must be kept "fortløpende og daglig", and it must give the day's starting point, "hvilket firma, byggeplass eller lignende som er besøkt", where the driving ends, and the distance by the car's counter.

The purpose must be konkret og etterprøvbart. Skatteetaten's own example is «Kundebesøk hos Olsen Bygg AS, Drammen», so who you visited is part of the purpose. "Bilens kilometerstand må minst hver måned avleses fra kilometertelleren og anføres i boken".

Private driving does not have to be in the log: "Skattyter bestemmer selv om han vil føre den private bruken." You may still want it there, because the share of business use decides whether the car is a yrkesbil.

Supplements for passengers and forest roads

§ 1-3-20 adds two supplements for the self-employed, in its own words:

• Passengers: "Har skattepliktige har hatt med passasjerer, økes satsene ovenfor med kr 1,00 per km per passasjer." That is 1 kr per km for each passenger.
• Forest and construction roads: "Ved kjøring på skogs- og anleggsvei, økes fradragssatsen med kr 1,00 per km."

Skatteetaten's 2026 rate page also lists 1 kr per km for a trailer or equipment. Under § 1-3-20 the self-employed get no such supplement, so do not add it to a self-employed claim. It belongs to the employee's rate rules.

The yrkesbil line: 6 000 km, or more than half

Whether a car is a yrkesbil is decided by Skatte-ABC B-5-3.3. There are two limbs, and either one is enough:

• "yrkeskjøringen utgjør minst 6000 km per bil per år", or
• "yrkesbruken utgjør den overveiende del av den totale bruken, dvs. mer enn halvparten av totalbruken".

The handbook says "Forholdene over en treårsperiode bør legges til grunn", so one busy year is not automatically the answer. So the three-year picture should count, and you must be able to document the business driving.

What changes at the line (skatteloven § 6-12): the per-km rate no longer applies at all, and the car is treated as a yrkesbil. That is a different bookkeeping job, and it is where your regnskapsfører comes in.

Business and private kilometres are the two numbers behind both limbs. Without a log you cannot show which side of the line the car is on.

Worked example: 5 200 km in 2026

You drove 5 200 km for the business in 2026 and 7 000 km privately, and earlier years looked the same. That is under 6 000 km and under half, so it is not a yrkesbil on either limb.

• Base: 5 200 km × 3,50 kr = 18 200 kr.
• Passengers: 300 of those km with one passenger. 300 km × 1,00 kr × 1 passenger = 300 kr.
• Forest road: 120 of those km on a skogsvei. 120 km × 1,00 kr = 120 kr.
• Total: 18 200 + 300 + 120 = 18 620 kr.

Now the line. At 6 000 km of business driving the car reaches the first limb. If that holds across the three-year view, the car is a yrkesbil and the 3,50 kr is gone. So the last 800 km can decide which method applies, not only whether you get another 2 800 kr. If your total is near 6 000 km, or business use is near half, talk to your regnskapsfører before you file.

How long to keep it

Your kjørebok is documentation of booked entries, and the retention period is five years after the end of the accounting year (bokføringsloven § 13 annet ledd). Skatteetaten can order it kept longer during a control. One old Skatteetaten ruling still says ten years; the change to five took effect on 1 February 2014. The full account is in Reiseregning or elektronisk kjørebok in Norway.

An electronic kjørebok has its own conditions

Skatte-ABC B-5-4.2 lets you use a "GPS-basert elektronisk kjørebok", but it must record actual distance, date and time, and "Kjøreboken skal ikke gi mulighet for å rette eller slette disse opplysningene." A handwritten or spreadsheet log is not held to that.

How DriveHub helps

With location access set to Always, DriveHub records every drive in the background — and if it ever misses one, it tells you. It files most trips as Business or Personal by your places, past routes and working hours, and asks you about the rest. You can answer Business, Personal or Commute, and Commute is the answer for home to work.

For a Norwegian self-employed car, the report lists date, route, purpose and distance for each trip. Odometer figures come from the readings you enter. Each trip's distance is measured by the phone's location, not read off the odometer. You can add passengers to a trip. DriveHub's report warns when the figures point to a yrkesbil.

Its warning is a prompt from one report's figures, not a ruling. The three-year view and the final judgement stay with you and your regnskapsfører.

DriveHub is a log you keep with its own edit history. It is not the tamper-proof electronic kjørebok described in B-5-4.2.

DriveHub is on the App Store for iPhone. The Norwegian rules are on the Norway page, and setting up automatic tracking takes a few minutes, once.

More for Norway

Employees using their own car are in a different regime: see Reiseregning or elektronisk kjørebok in Norway for the reiseregning and its passenger names. A company car is a different case: see firmabil and the kjørebok. The drive between home and a regular workplace is covered in reisefradrag.

This page states what takseringsreglene § 1-3-20, skatteloven § 6-12, bokføringsloven § 13 and Skatte-ABC say, and names the paragraph so you can check. It is not tax advice. It can't account for your circumstances. Where money is involved, ask your regnskapsfører, and bring your kjørebok.

Longer reads

• Reisefradrag for the drive to work in Norway — how avstandsfradrag is calculated, and what DriveHub computes
• Do you need a kjørebok for a firmabil in Norway? No duty, but 40 000 km needs one
• Norway has two mileage documents, and only one of them can be an app you installed yourself