My kingdom for a fødselsnummer

We’ve been in immigration purgatory for the past two months due to an error by the immigration office; due to this error we’ve been “granted a residence permit” but are not residents of Norway (this is somehow different?) until a second set of paperwork is processed. This will certainly get corrected, if for no other reason than I don’t think the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration wants another in-person appointment with this tough customer:

In the meantime, there is SO MUCH we can’t do. We really need our fødselsnummers.

A fødselsnummer is the Norwegian tax ID number and identifies you as a person who lives, pays taxes, or is a citizen in Norway. Ours will arrive when we’re officially residents. In an infuriating twist of fate, it turns out Allison’s and my fødselsnummers are the same ones we had in 2017, which we had no idea we should have kept.

Norway can be a bit insular, in that they have systems that work well for Norwegians, without worrying about if they fit into a global community or anything like that. Are you Norwegian, and live a standard Norwegian life? Stuff works, really well. Are you visiting or trying to work with Norway from the outside? Oh, man, you’ll have to figure something weird out, good luck with that.

A great example is Norway’s solution to identity theft and online fraud, BankID. BankID is a phone app which attests that a Norwegian bank has verified your identity. Nearly anything that matters requires that you first authenticate with BankID. It works really well (we’re told)! Banks naturally only provide verification for their customers, and Norwegian banks only serve Norwegians, or people who legally live in Norway. There is no non-bank authority that can connect you to BankID. Your proof that you’re someone a Norwegian bank might want to do business with is your fødselsnummer.

Below is a list of things we have discovered you cannot do in Norway while awaiting a fødselsnummer.

• Watch the Olympics. Watching the Olympics requires getting a subscription to HBO and Eurosport. Getting a subscription to HBO requires payment from a Norwegian bank account. You are not allowed to have a Norwegian bank account without a fødselsnummer.
• Watch the Olympics using someone else’s TV package. Should a friend kindly add you to their TV package, you must sign on by verifying a texted code. This code can only be sent to a Norwegian phone number. You are not allowed to have a Norwegian phone number without a fødselsnummer.
• Be invited to a birthday party. Annalise was invited to a classmate’s birthday party, via the barnehage app. Signing onto the app requires BankID, which requires a fødselsnummer.
• Purchase a used bike or secondhand children’s clothes. Norway has their own Craigslist equivalent, finn.no, which is heavily used. Anybody buying anything secondhand on finn.no who is paying in a manner that does not require BankID is probably a scammer, and will be ignored. BankID requires a fødselsnummer.
• Sign up for gym classes. The gym app requires two-factor authentication to your cell phone. These codes can only be sent to Norwegian phone numbers. To have a Norwegian phone number, you must have a fødselsnummer.
• Pay for a gym membership. Paying requires activation of an online gym account. This involves two-factor authentication to a cell phone. These codes can only be sent to Norwegian phone numbers. To have a Norwegian phone number, you must have a fødselsnummer.
• Rent the car you have already paid for. Trondheim public transport period tickets come with the ability to borrow a rented car for two hours each month. Doing this in the app requires BankID, which requires a fødselsnummer.
• Pay rent. Paying rent requires a Norwegian bank account, which requires a fødselsnummer. You cannot get a fødselsnummer without having residency. Residency requires proof of a lease, which requires you to pay rent.
• Receive a fødselsnummer. Mail will not be delivered unless the recipient is registered at the post office. Registering at the post office requires a fødselsnummer. Legally, for security, the government can only tell you your fødselsnummer via mail. If you call the post office to fix this, they can see your fødselsnummer, but they are not allowed to read it to you.

Please send us our fødselsnummers.