You must submit your complaint to the Nav office that processed your application. The term of complaint is 3 weeks from the date on which you received notice of the decision.

Find a Nav office

You may complain Nav’s decisions relating to a labour market scheme. This type of case is regulated by the Public Administration Act.

You may complain if you

• do not want to participate
• want to participate in a different labour market scheme
• are not offered participation in a labour market scheme you have requested

Verbal decisions

You may complain even if you only received a verbal decision with no written justification.

Term of complaint

• The term of complaint is 6 weeks.
• If the labour market scheme involves an employer, the term of complaint is 3 weeks.

How to complain

When you receive a decision relating to a labour market scheme, the notice will include information on how to complain. Complaint forms can be found at nav.no/klage/en. Specify the decision you are complaining about, why you are complaining and describe your reasoning. 

Exceptions from the right to complain

If you are refused participation in a labor market course (AMO), you do not have the right to appeal this decision. This is regulated by the Public Administration Regulations (Section 33) (text in Norwegian).

You may submit a digital complaint against many different services or benefits provided by Nav.

The complaint and appeal forms are available at nav.no/klage/en.

Even if you missed the complaint deadline, Nav may still review your complaint if:

• you cannot be blamed for the delay, or
• there are special reasons that make it reasonable to review the complaint.

For Nav to process your case, you must document and justify why your complaint should be processed after the deadline.

If more than one year has passed since you received the decision, we cannot review your complaint. For further information on complaint deadlines, see the circular for Section 31 of the Public Administration Act.

How to request that Nav review your appeal after the deadline

You must send us a complaint via the "Complaint and appeal" page.

The complaint must contain documentation and an explanation of why you believe that Nav should process your complaint after the complaint deadline has expired.

If the complaint deadline has passed and there is no basis for disregarding it, you can request that Nav reverses the decision.

For Nav to consider such a request, you must explain why you believe the decision is incorrect. For example, if the decision was based on incorrect information, you must provide documentation of the correct information. If your situation has changed since the decision was made, you must submit a new application.

Requests that are not adequately substantiated may be rejected. For more information on reversing decisions, see the circular for Section 35 of the Public Administration Act.

How to request that Nav reverses the decision

You can:

• submit a claim through the service Write to us, or
• submit a claim on paper with your signature

Your request must include a description of what you believe is incorrect in the decision. You should provide as much documentation as possible.

If your case can be heard by the National Insurance Court, the National Insurance Court must complete its assessment of your case before you can bring it before a court.

That is because you must exhaust avenues of appeal with Nav and the National Insurance Court before you can bring your case before another judicial authority.

You must initiate legal action in a regular court within 6 months of receiving the order issued by the National Insurance Court.

If the National Insurance Court cannot hear your case 

The National Insurance Court cannot hear all types of cases. If your case is one of them, you need to see if you have exhausted all your appeal options within Nav. Before you can bring your case before a court, this is something you must do.

You must also check to see what the time limit is for initiating legal action before a regular court.

If you have exhausted all of your public administration appeal options, you can file a complaint with the Parliamentary Ombud.

This could, for example, be an option if you believe that a decision is incorrect, or that your case has been handled unfairly or inappropriately.

If your claim for damages concerns municipal services, you must contact the Nav office in the municipality you believe made the error.

Municipal services include financial assistance, temporary housing, the qualification programme and qualification benefit, individual plans or advice and counselling (economic counselling).

You can apply for damages if:

• You have suffered financial loss. This includes things like lost income, lost holiday pay, interest costs, legal fees, childcare expenses, etc. You need to document your loss when you submit your claim.
• You have lost all or part of your parental leave, and you want to take parental leave to compensate for the lost time now. This applies whether you were denied due to an error from Nav, or did not apply because of the error.

What your claim must include

To process your claim for lost time under parental leave, we need:

• Confirmation from your employer that you will get unpaid leave.
• Documentation of your current income.
• The number of days of unpaid leave you want to take.

How to submit your claim

You must write your claim on a separate document and send it along with the other documentation.

If you are claiming damages on grounds of a breach of privacy regulations, 

• you must have experienced a breach of privacy
• you must have incurred costs as a result of the breach of privacy, or the breech must have constituted a violation severe enough that it would be reasonable for you to claim damages. This refers to a loss that cannot be measured in money, such as loss of something with sentimental value or pain and suffering. You can claim damages on both types of grounds
• there must be a connection between the breach of privacy and the loss or injury you have incurred

How to submit the claim