Bulk dividend-tax refund files switch XSD schema on 6 January 2027

Foreign shareholders in Norwegian companies who have had too much withholding tax (kildeskatt) deducted from dividends can claim a refund of the excess. The standard deducted rate is as a rule 25 per cent, and the refund bridges the gap to the lower rate the shareholder is entitled to under a tax treaty, the exemption method (fritaksmetoden) or the shareholder model (aksjonærmodellen). To qualify, the shareholder must be resident in an EEA country or in a country with a tax treaty with Norway, and must not be tax-resident in Norway. Anyone who was previously resident in Norway must have emigrated for tax purposes before claiming a reduced rate. Amounts below 50 kroner including interest are not paid out, and no refund is available where the correct rate was already deducted. The application deadline is five years from the end of the year the dividend was received, and the payer's window to correct the deduction must have passed first, which in practice means waiting about four months after the payout.

Representatives — banks, custodians and tax advisers — file on behalf of shareholders. For each shareholder represented, the filing carries the documentation for the claimed basis plus a signed fullmakt confirming the representation and the representative's own tax identification number with proof of it. The electronic route accepts the claim, and paper remains the route for shareholder-model claims. One file can cover several shareholders at once (bulk): the file must be in XML format in accordance with the technical specifications, with the XSD schemas downloaded from the refund page and the use-and-upload guidance followed.

The schemas now carry validity dates. The existing XSD set is labelled valid through 05.01.2027Skatteetaten, and a new XSD set is labelled valid from 06.01.2027Skatteetaten. A bulk file submitted from 06.01.2027 must therefore validate against the new specificationSkatteetaten. Representatives with an automated filing setup should fetch the new set, adjust their generation and validation routines, and test an upload before the January switch, rather than discovering a schema rejection on a live submission. Files validated against the outgoing set remain the correct choice only for submissions up to and including 05.01.2027Skatteetaten.

Nothing else about the refund changes with this switch. Treaty claims still turn on the difference between the deducted rate and the treaty rate, documented with a tax identification number, a bank-issued dividend voucher showing the ISIN, amounts and dates, payment details and a certificate of residence for the distribution year. Exemption-method claims remain available only to EEA-resident corporate shareholders that correspond to a Norwegian company type covered by skatteloven § 2-38 and are genuinely established and active in the EEA. Incomplete applications can be rejected or refused, and paper applications take longer than electronic ones to process.

Legal basis: skatteforvaltningsforskriften §§ 9-6 and 9-6-1 on applications for refund of tax determined by withholding and their documentation, applied through Skatteetaten's bulk XML filing with XSD sets valid through 05.01.2027 and from 06.01.2027.