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I recently entered a Norwegian port and was issued a fixed penalty notice for exceeding the cigarettes allowance, I therefore have to pay a fine of 400 kroner. I am now back in the UK and the fine has to be paid by Friday 26th of January. I have taken the giro slip to my bank but they do not understand it as it is all in Norwegian. Is there a way I can pay this fine quickly using my credit card, by phone for example?

Jacob Bundgaard
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user72942
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    You should be able to find out the IBAN. – gerrit Jan 24 '18 at 14:39
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    There’s honesty and there’s wanting to be able to visit Norway again. Not paying would likely make it hard for OP to travel to Norway without fear of being detained or refused at the border. – RoboKaren Jan 24 '18 at 16:06
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    Norway is part of Schengen so OP could be refused in other Schengen countries as well. Since UK is more or less surrounded by them (with some exceptions) that would limit his/her options much more than @RoboKaren comment implied. – Maja Piechotka Jan 24 '18 at 17:45
  • If Norway is part of Schengen, then shouldn't one be able to resolve this in Calais? Seriously though, try scanning and posting the document, blanking out personal info. Perhaps someone can translate all the Norwegian. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 24 '18 at 17:54
  • Did you try to look the form in google? (the title of form, and word "English", copy paste from wikipedia for the "special letters"). Often a page with translated form is provided (by authorities or expats). Additionally google translate and consulate could help. – Giacomo Catenazzi Jan 25 '18 at 08:57
  • @Harper Probably cant be sorted in Calais, Norway has its own customs checks and is not in the EU’s customs union. – BritishSam Jan 25 '18 at 16:19

1 Answers1

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Assuming that the payment is due to Statens Innkrevningssentral (the government collection agency), you can pay online with credit card by going the their web site, click on 'pay by card' and follow the instructions in the popup. They ask for a KID, which you will find on the bank giro slip you already have. Card payments are charged an additional NOK 40 fee.

Here some clarifications related to the comments on the question:

As long as the UK is a member of the EU and assuming that the OP is a UK citizen, he can't be refused entry to Norway because of an outstanding fine. There is no Schengen wide cooperation for fine collection, so this case can't be resolved in Calais and it is very unlikely that a failed payment will result in a SIS entry causing any issues for the OP trying to enter other Schengen countries.

What may happen if the fine is not paid is that:

  • The Norwegian authorities can 'forget' the claim. We are talking about a roughly 40€ fine and they can deem it not worth the effort to follow up on their claim.

  • They can forward the claim to a UK debt collection agency, which is likely to add substantial additional fees to the claim and at least annoy you for some time with letters and phone calls trying to persuade you to pay. The fine is not covered by any EU/EEA wide fine collection agreements and there are no bilateral agreements between Norway and the UK, so a UK agency will still probably (IANAL) have no legal right to enforce payment.

  • If not paid, the fine comes with a subsidiary penalty of one day imprisonment. If you fail to pay and you go back to Norway within the next 5 years (after which the claim lapses), the Norwegian authorities have the legal possibility to put you in jail.

Since we are talking about a very humane fine here according to Norwegian standards, I would not hesitate to pay it (about 45€ including payment fees) and resolve the issue. I mean the larger part of the penalty was likely that your cigarettes were confiscated by Norwegian customs and they had a 'street value' in Norway of at least a few hundred euros.

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
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    @Fattie Just keep in mind that the penalty for speeding in Norway may include free board and lodging and can not always be resolved with a credit card :-) – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Jan 24 '18 at 20:27
  • good to know! :) – Fattie Jan 24 '18 at 20:29
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    @Fattie I'm not sure about Norway, but if their system is at all similar to Finland, a speeding ticket (if you are charged for reckless speeding) is fined according to a day fine scale. So if you are caught doing 150 km/h in a 100km/h zone the fine may come out to be "whatever you make in a month" (minus deductions for the number of dependents and such). – Jyrki Lahtonen Jan 24 '18 at 21:53
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    its a very sensible system..... – Fattie Jan 24 '18 at 22:49
  • @JyrkiLahtonen We do not follow your model (unfortunately, some might say) - income plays no part in determining the fine, only the actual speed versus the speed limit. If you find the language odd, for example the usage of '£' instead of the correct 'kr' (for NOK currency), that's Google Translate's fault. Divide by 10 to get the actual £-value. – Vegard Jan 25 '18 at 10:13
  • Thanks @Vegard. (I could probably read this in Norwegian as it's close enough to Swedish, and I can hanlde Swedish passably). Now we need to locate a Swede. Finland doesn't usually come up with something like this on our own, more often than not we copy the Swedes (for better or for worse:-). For us it changes from a flat-rate fine of 100 euros to a day fine at some point. The exact point depends on many conditions (on a super highway in rural areas and no other traffic I would expect them to be quite forgiving). I did get a 320 euro fine for running a red light once because of the day fines. – Jyrki Lahtonen Jan 25 '18 at 10:58
  • Even though it wasn't really a red light. It was what we call "old green" (or "pink") – Jyrki Lahtonen Jan 25 '18 at 10:58
  • @Vegard You are wrong. Even if the Norwegian legal system does not use the term 'day fine', the practical application of the concept is still used. The regulation you are linking to only covers smaller traffic violations, which are sanctioned with a fixed fine (just as in Finland). If e.g. the speed limit is 60km/h or less and you drive more than 25km/h too fast, the case is sent to court and a judge will set a fine depending on your income. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Jan 25 '18 at 11:31
  • @Tor-EinarJarnbjo Sure - in some cases. But at speeds of that sort, you're also looking at suspension of your driving entitlement and jail or community service, which often means that the fine is not adjusted a lot - if at all. At any rate, any income adjustment that does happen is far less severe than in Finland - and applies almost exclusively to cases where the defendant has poor economic means, not the other way around. A billionaire will, for example, not get a substantially higher fine than someone else, especially not if you view the fine in relation to their taxable income. – Vegard Jan 25 '18 at 11:43