Staying connected in Norway.

If Longyearbyen is on your itinerary, read this before you buy anything. Svalbard is listed as a separate destination by the US carriers, sits outside the EU roaming zone, and is excluded from a lot of travel eSIM plans sold as covering Norway or Europe. Coverage in and around Longyearbyen itself is fine; the problem is what you are paying for it.

The sharper risk on Svalbard is at sea. Once a boat is away from the settlement, a phone can latch onto a maritime or satellite network billed at rates that make a day pass look like nothing, so turn data roaming off on any boat trip and leave it off until you are back ashore. The same warning applies to the coastal Hurtigruten in mainland Norway.

Coverage follows the coast and the valley floors, so a Norwegian road trip crosses in and out of it. Expect gaps on the high mountain passes, across the Hardangervidda, in inland Finnmark and on long empty stretches of the E6 north of Tromso. Norway also has more road tunnels than any country, many of them kilometres long, and most take your signal with them.

So plan a driving day offline: download the whole route rather than the next leg, check vegvesen.no for pass closures and conditions before you set off, since a summer pass can shut in an afternoon, and keep your accommodation details available without a connection. 112 reaches emergency services and can sometimes connect on a network you have no subscription with.

For the parts of Norway most visitors spend most of their time in, coverage is genuinely strong: Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Tromso, the fjord towns, Lofoten's main road and the Bergen and Flam railways all hold up, with fast 4G and urban 5G. So this is largely a cost question after all.

Roaming is about 10 to 12 dollars a day, so 70 to 84 dollars a week, with AT&T capping at 10 daily fees per line per bill period and Verizon having no equivalent cap. T-Mobile's tiers include 5GB to 30GB before slowing to 256kbps. Norwegian prepaid from Telenor or Telia is available but pricier than most of Europe, so a Nomad eSIM at a few dollars per gigabyte is usually the better value here. This guide is written for US travelers departing the US. For more, see cash or card in Norway, taxis and apps in Norway, and the Norway money guide.

Common questions

Quick answers.

More on Norway

The little money things nobody warns you about.

• Taxis in Norway, and checking the priceNorwegian taxis are among the priciest anywhere, and since deregulation their fares vary a lot between companies, so it pays to check before you ride. The train usually wins. Here is how it works.
• Tipping in NorwayNorway is not really a tipping country. Wages are high and service is included, so tipping is not expected. Round up for good service if you like. Here is what you actually owe.
• Do I need cash in Norway, or can I use cards?Short answer: a card for everything, and almost no cash. Norway is nearly cashless like its Nordic neighbors, uses the krone rather than the euro, and is one of Europe's most expensive countries. Here is how to handle it.
• Bringing your dog or cat to Norway.Norway is a destination some US pet owners choose, and it follows the EU pet-entry rules: microchip, rabies in the right order, and an EU health certificate on a 10-day clock. No quarantine, no rabies titer. Norway adds one thing the big EU countries do not: a timed tapeworm treatment for dogs. Here is what that means, and the local parts worth knowing.
• The Norwegian city charge for studded winter tyresNorway is the rare country that charges you to use studded winter tyres rather than banning them. Whether it costs you anything comes down to one question at the rental counter, because studless tyres are exempt and most rentals have them. Here is the fee, and how to tell if it is yours to pay.
• What does getting sick in Norway cost a visitor?Norway has a strong public health service organised around its own residents, and a geography that makes reaching it the first question in half the country.