In English

Norwegian citizenship test practice questions: examples with English translations

The questions are short, the options are three, and the words are the hard part. Here is what to expect, and how to practise.

What the questions actually look like

If you are searching for Norwegian citizenship test practice questions, the first thing to know is the format, because it is simpler than most people fear.

HK-dir, which runs the tests, describes the citizenship test in three lines: «Statsborgerprøven har 36 oppgaver», you need «24 riktige svar» to pass, and it lasts at most one hour. On the social studies test, most tasks are multiple choice with three options, and only one of them is correct: «De fleste av oppgavene er flervalgsoppgaver som har tre svaralternativer, der bare ett svar er riktig.»

So a practice question is a short question in Norwegian and three short answers. You read, you choose, you move on. There is no essay and no writing.

Three examples from our own bank

Here are three questions we wrote ourselves. The Norwegian is the kind of language you will meet on the screen; the English is our translation, so you can check that you understood the question. Try to answer before you read the last line of each.

1. «Hvor mange landsdeler er Norge delt inn i?» How many regions is Norway divided into?

• Tre (three)
• Fem (five)
• Ni (nine)

Answer: Fem. Norway has five regions: Nord-Norge, Trøndelag, Vestlandet, Sørlandet and Østlandet.

2. «Hvilket nummer ringer du til legevakten når det haster, men det ikke er en nødssituasjon?» Which number do you call for the out-of-hours doctor when it is urgent but not an emergency?

• 113
• 116 117
• 112

Answer: 116 117. The other two, 112 and 113, are emergency numbers. This is a classic trap: two of the options are numbers you already know, so they feel safe.

3. «Hva kreves når en arbeidsgiver sier opp en ansatt?» What is required when an employer dismisses an employee?

• Oppsigelsen må være skriftlig og saklig begrunnet (the dismissal must be in writing and have an objective reason)
• Ingen begrunnelse er nødvendig (no reason is needed)
• Det holder med en muntlig beskjed (a spoken message is enough)

Answer: the first one. The word to learn is saklig, meaning based on objective grounds. If you did not know it, you would not get the question right by knowing Norwegian working life alone, and that is exactly the point of practising in the real language.

Where to find practice questions

There are three honest sources, and you should use all of them.

1. HK-dir's official sample test. Free, on the site that runs the real test. HK-dir says: «Du kan øve deg på oppgaver som ligner på de du får på prøven.» Notice «ligner», which means resembles. Nobody publishes the real tasks.
2. samfunnskunnskap.no. The official learning resource, with texts and exercises on the same syllabus. It covers three subject areas: education, competence and working life; family, health and everyday life; and Norway past and present.
3. Our own questions. We are an independent practice service. We never reproduce tasks from the real tests, and we do not sell a bank of real exam questions, because one does not exist. Every question is written by us for the same syllabus, and every answer has an explanation and a memory rule.

A word of caution about other sites. If a website promises the actual questions from the citizenship test, it is either mistaken or lying. There are also third-party practice tests online that are not made by HK-dir. They can be useful for practice, but they are not official and they are not an answer key. Treat them as practice, never as a prediction.

How to practise so it sticks

Answering questions is not the same as learning. A few habits make the difference.

Read the explanation when you are wrong. That is where the learning happens. Seeing «wrong» and clicking on is the most common way to spend an hour without learning anything.

Come back the next day. Facts about municipalities, emergency numbers and dates do not stay from one sitting. They stay from being asked again on Thursday. That is why our app puts the questions you got wrong back in front of you first.

Guess rather than skip. With three options, you can often cross out one that you know is wrong and choose between the other two.

Time yourself at least twice. The test is 60 minutes for 36 tasks on the citizenship test, or 38 on the social studies test. Take a full mock exam under time pressure before the day, so the clock is not new to you.

Learn the words, not only the facts. Most people who struggle do not lack the fact. They lack the Norwegian word wrapped around it, such as saklig, egenandel or tillitsvalgt.

What is free, and what is not

Here, 20 questions a day are free, and so is one full mock exam. You do not need an account or a card. If it turns out we are not what you need, you have lost nothing.

Full access costs 199 kroner, paid once, with no subscription. It gives you unlimited questions and mock exams, the whole study book, an audiobook and saved progress.

The honest limit: it is all in Norwegian

The test is in Norwegian, and so is everything we practise with: the questions, the explanations, the book and the audiobook. We do not have an English version of the app, and that is deliberate: practising in English would prepare you for a test you are not taking.

If your Norwegian is still weak, that is not a reason to give up. The citizenship test is written at level A2, the questions can be read aloud through audio files, and if you cannot read well enough you can apply to take it orally, without a doctor's statement. Our guide on this is in Norwegian, and the basics are on the English start page.

If you are taking the social studies test in English instead, for example for permanent residence, the official free resource at samfunnskunnskap.no is the right place. Read the difference between the two tests first, because passing in English does not count for citizenship.

What we could not confirm

• How many of the real tasks use each topic. HK-dir publishes no weighting by topic. Any percentage you see, including ours, is a pattern in practice material and not an official figure.
• Whether the real tasks are ever reworded between sessions. Not described anywhere we could find, checked 29 September 2026.