Recognition of foreign tertiary vocational education

Who can apply?

You can apply for recognition if you have tertiary vocational education from abroad, which is placed at a higher level than craft and journeyman’s certificates.

NOKUT can assess your education against norwegian tertiary vocational education. Your education will be approved if it meets NOKUT’s criteria.

What is Norwegian tertiary vocational education?

Norwegian tertiary vocational education is named fagskoleutdanning or høyere yrkesfaglig utdanning in Norwegian. Norwegian tertiary vocational education gives students the practical skills they need in order to function in a profession from day one.

Norwegian tertiary vocational education institutions offer short practically oriented vocational programmes within specific fields. The programmes build on secondary education programmes. The admission requirements are secondary vocational education (craft or journeyman’s certificate) or general secondary education, or equivalent experience. The programmes emphasize practical skills that can be related to working life, and have less emphasis on research and academic learning. The programmes last from six months to two years (in some cases three years).

What does NOKUT recognise?

Legal basis

The legal basis for the scheme can be found in lov om høyere yrkesfaglig utdanning (fagskoleloven) § 7 (in Norwegian) and in forskrift om høyere yrkesfaglig utdanning (fagskoleforskriften) kap. 9 (in Norwegian).

What are NOKUT’s minimum requirements for recognition?

1. The education must be sufficiently documented by the school or education authorities in the country where it was achieved. The education must be completed at the time of application.
2. The education must be at the same level as accredited Norwegian tertiary vocational education (fagskoleutdanning). The education must be be placed on a level above upper secondary education, or equivalent prior learning, and must provide competence that can be used in the labour market in the country where it was achieved, without further training.
3. The education must have a content and scope equivalent to at least half a year.
4. The education is normally recognised on the basis that one year of nominal study time in the country where the education was achieved, is equivalent to one year of nominal study time in Norway.

Documentation requirements

On this page, you will find information about the documentation you must upload together with your application for recognition. 

• NOKUT requires documents in the original language and translations of these documents (read more about translations). You must upload all pages of the document.
• You may upload other relevant documents not mentioned in NOKUT's requirements together with a short description and explanation why you include them.
• The submission of fraudulent documentation and/or false statements will be reported to the police.

NOKUT reserves the right to ask for additional information; this could be for instance original educational documents, identity documents and original translations. The application will be rejected if we do not receive the requested documents.

A) Diploma confirming completed tertiary vocational education

A document confirming your tertiary vocational education. This may be a certificate or a diploma.

B) Trancripts of grades

Transcripts of grades or report card from your tertiary vocational education. By transcript of grades/report card we mean a list/overview of subjects/grades for all the years of your tertiary vocational education.

C) Upper secondary education

The final certificate from upper secondary school/high school. Alternatively, the final diploma or certificate form the education that gave you access to tertiary vocational education.

D) Proof of name change

This is relevant only if you have changed your name.

Valid documents for proof of name change:

• Marriage certificate (Norwegian or foreign) that contains both your old and new name
• Divorce certificate (Norwegian or foreign) that contains both your old and new name
• Confirmation of name change issued by the competent official authority in the country where you had your name changed
• Confirmation of name change issued by the Norwegian National Registry

E) Applicants without MinID

If you do not have MinID, please upload a copy of your identity document:

• Please upload a copy of the page showing your full name, date of birth and photo. If this information is on different pages, please upload copies of all pages containing name, birth date and photo.
• Please do not upload copies of blank pages.

Valid identity documents:

• Valid international passport (including emergency passport)
• Family passport
• National identity card issued by an EEA or EFTA country
• Norwegian refugee travel document
• Norwegian immigrant’s Passport

How to apply?

• Complete your application in NOKUT’s applicant portal and upload all required documentation. You can log into the portal by clicking on “Apply for recognition” below.
• Double check that you upload all required documentation.
• You are responsible for providing the required documentation, and for making sure that the uploaded documents are clear and legible. NOKUT recommends that you upload scans of the original documents. See guidelines for uploading documents.
• NOKUT does not return original translations or (apostilled) copies.

What happens with my application?

Processing time starts as soon as we have received all the requested documents. Since the recognition scheme is newly established, it may take time to process your application.

To be able to process the application, NOKUT must assess the education system and qualifications at this level in the country where the education has been completed. You will be notified if we need additional information regarding your education. 

In most cases, you will receive a reply within four months. You will be notified if processing time will be longer than four months.

Have you already applied for recognition of foreign vocational education and training? You will find your application and correspondence with us in the Document overview in NOKUT’s applicant portal.

Digital mailbox

NOKUT uses digital mailbox. This means that if you are to receive important letters from us digitally, you'll need to create your own digital mailbox.

Questions?

You can find more information about recognition of foreign vocational education and training on the page for Frequently Asked Questions. If you cannot find the answer to your question there, please contact us:

Telephone: + 47 21 49 56 09 (Tuesdays and Thursdays 12–14)
Email: enic-naric@hkdir.no

* Please keep in mind that all email is unencrypted. We therefore recommend that you do not disclose sensitive personal data when you contact us. If you choose to give us more information than we need, we are obliged to inform you that such information will be deleted. To ensure that you are familiar with our privacy statement and your rights, we provide this information before you contact us. You will find more information on how NOKUT processes personal data in our privacy statement.

Personal data

NOKUT is processing your personal data when we are evaluating your application and receiving inquiries. You have to create a profile in our applicant portal to register an application. It is necessary for NOKUT to process your personal data from your profile to process your application. We encourage you not to provide sensitive information in your profile. We would like to inform you that if you choose to register more or other personal data than what we ask for, these data will be a part of your profile and your application.

We provide this information to ensure a level of knowledge about our Privacy Notice and to inform you about your rights.

Further information about how NOKUT process personal data can be found in our Privacy Statement.

Important when logging in

• When logging in to NOKUT's applicant portal, use one of the following browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge. Please do not use Internet Explorer.
• We recommend that you apply from a PC, not from a mobile
  
  

Apply for recognition