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Norway by campervan

Allemannsretten, the right to roam, gives everyone the right to walk across uncultivated land in Norway and to pitch a tent on it. It does not give you the right to park a motorhome in the landscape. Parking a vehicle is road law, driving off the road into terrain is forbidden, and the two get confused constantly. Everything else you need before the border: automatic tolls with no booths, ferries priced by the metre, kroner rather than euros, and a season that decides the whole trip.

Published 18 September 2026Last checked 18 September 2026

Basics

Basics

Norway keeps early hours and almost everyone speaks English. Shops open around 09:00 or 10:00 and shut at 20:00 or 21:00, Saturdays finish earlier, and on a Sunday or a public holiday the law closes fixed retail outlets outright. The exceptions written into the Act are small shops with a sales floor of 100 square metres or less, petrol stations up to 150 square metres, and garden centres. Do the weekly shop on Saturday morning.

Ochre-painted wooden warehouses along a quayside, with white houses on the hillside behind
Shops shut at 20:00 and all day Sunday. Saturday morning is the shop

The Norwegian week

  • Shops, roughly 09:00 to 20:00 on weekdays, shorter on Saturday, shut on Sunday and on public holidays.
  • The Sunday exception is a size rule. A shop of 100 square metres or less selling groceries may open, and so may a petrol station up to 150 square metres. That is where a Sunday loaf comes from.

Power, water and getting online

  • 230V, 50Hz, type F sockets. The same round two-pin plug as Germany and France. UK and Irish plugs need an adapter.
  • Tap water is safe across the country and is some of the best in Europe. Ask for vann fra springen.

Norway is in Schengen, so there is no passport check coming from the EU, but it is outside the EU customs area. Goods are checked, not people. That matters mainly for alcohol and tobacco, which have a duty free quota per person rather than the open allowance you have inside the Union.

Common questions about Norway by campervan

Does allemannsretten let you park a campervan anywhere in Norway?

No. Allemannsretten is a right of access on foot. Friluftsloven, the Outdoor Recreation Act, lets anyone travel on foot across uncultivated land and pitch a tent there. Norway's environment agency, Miljodirektoratet, states that motorised travel is not part of allemannsretten. Driving off the road into terrain is forbidden by the Motor Traffic Act, and where you park a vehicle is governed by road and parking law instead.

Can you sleep in a campervan in Norway?

Yes, where the vehicle is legally parked. Sleeping inside a parked vehicle is parking, not camping. Friluftsloven allows parking in uncultivated land beside a public road as long as it causes no appreciable damage or inconvenience, and on the road itself ordinary parking rules and signs apply. The owner of a private road may forbid parking on or along it. As soon as you put chairs, a table or an awning outside, you are camping.

Is wild camping legal in Norway?

Camping with a tent in uncultivated land is legal under friluftsloven, at least 150 metres from an inhabited house or cabin and for no more than two nights in the same place without the landowner's consent, with longer stays allowed in the high mountains or far from habitation. Miljodirektoratet applies the same 150 metre and two night conditions to camping with a motorised vehicle, and says camping with a car or motorhome in terrain is not permitted. Municipalities can restrict all of this locally.

How do tolls work in Norway for a foreign vehicle?

Automatically, with no booths. Gantries read the number plate under the AutoPASS system. Without a tag, the toll operator finds the vehicle through your national register and invoices you, adding a lookup fee that AutoPASS lists as 14.00 euros for Austria, 8.67 for Spain, 5.10 for Germany and 47.40 zloty for Poland. Registering with Epass24 removes that fee but gives no discount. An AutoPASS agreement with a tag gives 20 percent off most passages, and a motorhome over 3500 kg in vehicle category M1 needs that tag and agreement to be charged at light vehicle rates rather than lorry rates.