About Nav
What is Nav?
Nav is the Norwegian name for the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration. Read about what Nav is, how we are organised and how we carry out our social tasks.
Contents
In Nav, the state and municipalities cooperate in providing a single gateway into public labour and welfare services.
Nav’s social task is to provide social and financial security and to facilitate the transition into work and activity. Our aim is to create an inclusive society, inclusive working life and a well-functioning labour market.
Nav is an important part of the safety net in the welfare state. We will ensure that more people are in work and fewer are on benefits, and at the same time provide those who require it with income and financial security by providing the correct financial support at the right time.
To fulfil this social task, Nav administers around a third of the state budget via schemes such as facilitated work, unemployment benefit, work assessment allowance, sickness benefit, pensions, financial social assistance, parental benefit, child benefit and cash-for-care benefit.
Nav’s services, grants and benefits
Nav provides services, grants and benefits to both private persons and employers. To ensure holistic services, we cooperate closely with employers, businesses, municipal, health and education sectors, other state agencies, and voluntary organisations.
Nav shall contribute to a well-functioning labour market, in which more people get into work and fewer are disengaged in working life.
Employers are our most important partners in creating a good and inclusive working life. Among other things, we offer recruitment services, cooperation in training initiatives and appropriate adaptation, various forms of support schemes and subsidies and assistance in following up on sickness absence. Nav follows the labour market closely and assists in bringing in sought-after skills and relocating manpower where it is needed most.
Nav has a large database of available jobs. Nav also offers meeting arenas for companies and those seeking work, for example at job fairs. Via the EURES cooperation network, we offer job recruitment services throughout the entire EEA area.
Further information:
In total, Nav is responsible for more than 60 different financial support schemes. Nav’s financial support schemes shall provide financial security by ensuring an income and compensating for special expenses in various life situations.
Important financial support includes unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, work assessment allowance, disability benefit and retirement pension. We are also responsible for several financial support schemes for families, such as parental benefit, cash-for-care benefit, child benefit and support for single carers.
Would you like to know more about Nav’s financial support schemes? (in Norwegian):
Municipalities are responsible for providing social services at Nav offices. The range of services offered by the municipality via Nav offices varies; however, all municipalities must provide:
- Financial assistance
- Qualification programme
- Information, advice and guidance, including financial advice
- Temporary accommodation
- Individual plans
Further information:
Nav’s strategy has a starting point in our social tasks and how we will work to resolve these in the coming years.
We have three principal ambitions moving towards 2030:
- Mobilising a labour market in a working life that is undergoing significant changes
- Everyone will receive the funds they have the right to receive - simple and predictable
- Together we will find solutions for those who need them most
These ambitions will help to address identified challenges and give Nav its direction in the coming years.
Are you curious about what is behind these ambitions? The answer is found in our strategy (in Norwegian):
Nav is a nationwide public enterprise, comprised of both municipal and state services.
Nav is comprised of the National Labour and Welfare Administration and a partnership with each individual municipality.
Nav has around 22,000 employees. Of these, approximately 15,500 are employed by the state, and approximately 6,500 are employed in the municipalities.
Labour and Welfare Administration
The Labour and Welfare Administration is a state administrative agency. The agency is comprised of The Directorate of Labour and Welfare and four other departments that are outside the Directorate itself:
- Work and Service Department (arbeids- og tjenestelinjen)
- Benefits Department (ytelseslinjen)
- Accounting Department (økonomilinjen)
- Complaint and Appeals Department (klage- og ankelinjen)
The Directorate is responsible for managing, leading and developing the agency. The departments are responsible for Nav services and daily operations, processing of applications, making decisions, providing advice and guidance, payments, accounting and for processing appeals.
The Directorate is responsible for managing, leading and developing Nav, tasked by The Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion.
The Directorate has the overarching responsibility for ensuring that Nav achieves its goals and results for this task and for implementing labour market, benefits and pension policies.
The Directorate of Labour and Welfare is the specialist body in the labour and welfare area and regarding municipal social services. This means that the Directorate has a national specialist responsibility, it administers and interprets legislation and ensures that policy guidelines are implemented in practice.
The Directorate is organized into eight departments:
- Knowledge Department (kunnskapsavdelingen)
- Communications Department (kommunikasjonsavdelingen)
- HR Department (HR-avdelingen)
- IT Department (IT-avdelingen)
- Work and Services Department (arbeids- og tjenesteavdelingen)
- Benefits Department (ytelsesavdelingen)
- Finance and Control Department (økonomi- og styringsavdelingen)
- Legal Department (juridisk avdeling)
Four of these departments - Finance and Control Department, Legal Department, Work and Services Department and Benefits Department have subordinate offices outside of the Directorate that carry out Nav’s core tasks.
The subordinate offices report to the Directorate of Labour and Welfare. The directorate reports to the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion.
The Work and Services Department is comprised of Nav’s county authority section, state section of Nav offices and other offices that fall under this department.
The department is led by the Work and Services Director in the Directorate of Labour and Welfare.
Nav Assistive Technology and Adaptation
Nav Assistive Technology and Adaptation assists persons with various forms of disabilities in their daily lives and at work, enabling them to have an active, independent life.
We provide individual arrangements and help with training, rehabilitation, adaptation of assistive technology, personal assistance and other support initiatives.
The area is among other things comprised of eighteen assistive technology centres (in Norwegian).
Assistive Technology and Adaptation (in Norwegian).
Nav Call and Service Centre
Nav Call and Service Centre (Norwegian: NKS) is Nav’s professional first-line point of contact, by telephone, chatbot/chat, ‘Write To Us’ service and via social media.
The Call and Service Centre receives around 5.4 million enquiries annually. This corresponds to 16 000-20 000 enquiries every day.
We respond to enquiries concerning work, health, families, pensions, disability benefits or social services. In addition we have separate services for, among other things, employers, doctors/treatment providers, financial guidance and technical user support.
Empathic and professionally competent advisers work in NKS. They provide responses on initial contact in around 70% of enquiries.
We also provide guidance and support in the use of Nav online services. If you need to speak to someone in Nav, we will put you in touch with the right person.
NKS is comprised of 12 contact centres distributed around the country, with around 1000 staff. NKS is coordinated by a supervisory office with its headquarters in Bodø.
Nav County
Nav has twelve county/regional offices, each with its own Director.
The county offices follow up, coordinate and support local offices and other specialist departments for which the county is responsible, via result monitoring, training and skills exchange.
Nav in your county (in Norwegian)
Nav-offices
Nav-offices are the users’ physical point of contact with Nav, and are the gateway into state and municipal labour and welfare services.
State and municipal employees cooperate at Nav offices in municipalities and districts across the country to provide good, holistic services to users.
Find your Nav office (in Norwegian) (login required)
Nav Employment Guidance
Nav Employment Guidance supplements Nav local offices and provides services to users who require services beyond those offered by local offices.
Employment Guidance offices shall make it easier for users facing health-related, psychological or social challenges to get into work. Jobseekers with musculoskeletal problems or reading/writing difficulties are often referred to this office.
There is one Employment Guidance office in each county.
Nav Inclusive Working Life Centre
Nav Inclusive Working Life Centre is a resource and competence centre for an inclusive working life and assists businesses in achieving goals in the agreement on inclusive working life - i.e. in reducing sickness absence and recruiting and retaining employees with reduced functional ability and persons of immigrant background.
There is one Working Life Centre in each county.
EURES service in Nav
Nav participates in the EURES network (European Employment Services). EURES promotes free movement of labour within the EU/EEA area on a fair basis.
The Nav counties are appointed EURES Members responsible for providing services to employers and workers.
Nav can assist employees in recruiting workers from EU/EEA countries and Switzerland, and can assist jobseekers in applying for work in the EU/EEA and Switzerland. EURES is an integrated service in Nav’s service provision to end-users.
Services and functions that Nav can perform at a regional or national level are combined in the Benefits Administration.
The Services Office is organised into three result areas that have a national responsibility within various areas.
Each result area is led by a Director who reports to the Services Director in the Labour and Welfare Directorate.
All offices are responsible for both domestic and foreign cases.
Nav Work and Benefits
Nav Work and Benefits is responsible for processing applications for various benefits and assistive measures.
Most cases concern work-related benefits such as employment benefit, work assessment allowance, sickness benefit, wage guarantees on bankruptcy and support for single mothers or fathers; however, the offices are also responsible for other areas such as disability benefits, basic and supplementary benefits.
Nav Family and Pensions
The task of Nav Family and Pensions is to ensure welfare for children and parents, retirees and users who have suffered an occupational injury or occupational illness.
This involves case processing and responsibility for national insurance pensions and child support, cash-for-care benefit and child support payments.
Nav Control
Nav Control precludes, discovers, reviews and reports benefits fraud and criminality in working life.
Nav Control is also responsible for processing applications for membership in the national insurance scheme and social security, along with major tasks associated with data register administration.
The Accounting Department is comprised of the financial units Nav Accounting - Benefits, Nav Accounting - Pensions and Nav Accounting Services.
The Accounting Department is responsible for, among other things, payment and accounting tasks for all benefits and for payment of wages to department employees.
The Department is led by the Accounting and Control Director in the Directorate of Labour and Welfare.
Nav Accounting - Benefits
The principal task of Nav Accounting – Benefits is to pay out and keep accounts of all benefits/support in Nav, except pensions and disability benefits.
Nav Accounting - Pensions
The principal tasks of Nav Accounting - Pensions is to pay out pensions and disability benefits and to submit correct accounts for these benefits.
Nav Accounting Services
Nav Accounting Services is an internal service provider providing national financial functions to Nav.
We disburse wages to state Nav employees, we are a central invoice processor for Nav, and we carry out accounting for support payments and operations of Nav. In addition, we carry out a range of other accounting and reporting tasks.
The Complaints and Appeals Department is comprised of the Nav Complaints Agency. The Director of Nav Complaints Agency reports to the Legal Director in the Labour and Welfare Directorate.
Nav Complaints Agency processes all complaints and appeal cases in Nav across over 40 different benefit areas.
We also contribute to increasing skill levels in decision-making offices by providing feedback on quality in cases undergoing processing. We also process all service complaints.
Organisation chart and overview of management
Cooperation between state and municipality
Via the partnership in Nav, the state and municipalities cooperate in providing a single gateway into public labour and welfare services. The state and municipalities have joint responsibility for the operation of Nav offices and shall ensure coordinated, good and accessible provision of services.
The state and municipalities have an independent responsibility for each of their own services. The Labour and Welfare Administration is responsible for state labour and welfare services within employment, benefits and pensions, whilst municipalities are responsible for social services. Read more about partnership in Nav (in Norwegian):
In this chapter
The tasks of the Labour and Welfare Directorate are specified in more detail in the instructions and letter of allocation received annually from the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion.
The letter of allocation specifies goals, principal prioritisation, frameworks and guidelines for the Labour and Welfare Directorate, and makes resources available for the work of the Directorate.
At regjeringen.no you will find an overview of letters of allocation, instructions and annual reports.
The Annual Report is Nav’s summary of 2023. Among other things, it contains descriptions of important events, achievements of goals and statements of accounts. In the annual report for 2023, you can read about how the funds we manage are used, our prioritisations and how ongoing social developments will influence Nav in the coming years.
Annual Report for 2023 - in Norwegian (pdf)
Also published with the annual report is:
Nav works continually on statistics, analyses, research and development (R&D). The knowledge acquired forms the basis for decisions, guidance and recommendations made by us in our role as specialist labour and welfare agency.
The aim of Nav’s R&D work is to develop a solid knowledge base. Our R&D plan describes how we intend to work on R&D in the future, and our thematic priority areas.
Arbeid og velferd is Nav’s internal professional publication, published three times a year. It contains analyses of developments in the labour market and analyses of various themes within the welfare areas for which Nav is responsible.
Nav is one of Norway’s major providers of official and public statistics. Statistics from Nav form an objective knowledge basis for analyses and research in the area of labour and welfare. We provide aggregated statistics, open data and individual data to researchers. In addition, we publish aggregated statistics on most services within national insurance and the labour market. Read more about practices, routines and guidelines concerning official and public statistics from Nav.
Further information:
The trust reform is the government's project to develop and renew the public sector. At Nav, the reform will be about giving employees the confidence to use their expertise and having room for action to find good solutions together with the users.
Our goals with the trust reform in Nav
- We give our employees more room to develop and use their expertise and competence to find the right solution together with the users.
- Provision is made for locally rooted service development and trials are established with greater room for action locally.
- We strengthen the cooperation between the parties in the Employment and Welfare Agency and the cooperation between the parties must take place at all levels in line with the intention of the Main Agreement in the State and with the agency's adjustment agreement.
- The target and results management ensures a good balance between local room for action and the need for management, requirements for quality, equal treatment and good administrative practice.
- We further develop the trust we show when meeting with users.
What is needed to achieve the goals of the reform?
During the spring and summer of 2023, we investigated what we need to improve on. Our focus has been to find the areas that challenge the trust and room for action in Nav. Nav will achieve the goal of the trust reform through several measures in competence, culture, management and service development. The report "The trust reform: Recommendations for improvements" (pdf - in Norwegian) highlights measures that will help us further develop trust internally and increase the room for action for employees.
Updated 03/26/2025