Authors
If you’re a self-employed author, you must pay tax on your income, and you’ll be entitled to deductions for expenses related to your activity as an author.
Does this apply to me?
This applies to you if you're an author and self-employed. Learn more about what counts as business activity.
An author is a person who writes books and texts in various genres such as fiction, academic literature, non-fiction, children's books, and plays. An author can be, for example, a poet, lyricist, playwright, or film scriptwriter.
Self-employed authors can have a sole proprietorship (ENK) or a private limited company (AS).
Read more about types of legal structure (Altinn).
Specific information for private limited companies
When authors organise their business as an AS company, the company is the employer. The author is employed by the company and receives a salary.
What you need to do
Tax deduction card and advance tax
Check your tax deduction card, and remember to pay advance tax. You must pay advance tax on the expected profit from the business.
Accounting
You must keep accounts. Record the business's income and expenses continuously throughout the year. The accounts form the basis for completing the business information.
Income and expenses
Selv-employed authors must enter income and expenses in the accounts.
Sales revenue
Examples of sales revenues: all types of royalties, such as minimum fees when signing an agreement with a publisher, royalties for books sold by the publisher, royalties from translations of the book that are paid out via agency agreements, and royalties from bookstore chains.
Fees from participation in events such as lectures, readings, book signings, writing courses, and consultancy assignments.
The sale of used equipment that’s not depreciated in the balance sheet, such as used office equipment, must also be included as sales revenue.
Other income
Grants, prizes, competition prizes, and expenses in connection with assignments.
Grants received to cover specified expenses and expenses in connection with assignments must be included as income for the portion that exceeds the expenses it’s intended to cover.
Expenses
Operating costs
Expenses for, for example, telephone, internet, insurance, office supplies, membership, membership fees, travel expenses that are not covered by the publisher or others, expenses for study trips related to a specific writing project, and expenses for academic literature or other fiction that is important to one's own work.
If you run a sole proprietorship and use a room in your own home as a home office or writing room, you can claim a deduction under the rules for home office.
More about relevant deductions: Topics and deductions for businesses
Equipment and assets in the business
Examples of equipment and other assets are computers and office furniture.
You can continuously deduct expenses for equipment and assets that cost less than NOK 30,000.
Amount limit
- from and including the 2024 income year: NOK 30,000
If the equipment costs NOK 30,000 or more, you can claim deductions for depreciations. Depreciation means you can claim deductions for the purchase price as the assets are used and worn out. You’ll not be entitled to a deduction for the entire purchase price in the accounts in the year of purchase, but over several years.
More about Deductions for acquisitions (purchases, etc.) – The Norwegian Tax Administration
Wealth
Authors' rights are not taxable assets as long as they’re owned by the originator (author).
Tax return
You must submit the tax return with the business information by 31 May at the latest.
The tax return for private limited companies and other types of companies must be submitted through an accounting or annual accounts system.
The tax return for sole proprietorships can be submitted through an accounting or annual accounts system or directly at skatteetaten.no. Sole proprietorships with an audit obligation ordforklaring must submit through an accounting or annual accounts system.
Specific information for sole proprietorships
If you have a sole proprietorship, you must calculate and state personal income for your business activity.
If you have sales revenue of less than NOK 50,000, you’ll receive a simplified business information that’s adapted to you.
Value added tax
If you’re registered in the Value Added Tax Register, you must submit VAT returns. You must also submit a VAT return for periods when you have no income.
You do not have to pay value added tax on:
You do not have to pay value added tax on royalty income and income from the sale of rights.
You do not have to pay value added tax on fees you receive when, for example, you attend a book evening and present your book, read from the book at an authors' meeting, give a lecture about the book, or attend a book signing.
If you run a private limited company and the company owns the rights to your authorship, the value added tax exemption for royalties and fee income does not apply. The exemption only applies if the rights are owned and the income is received by the artist personally.
If you have income from teaching, for example writing courses, you do not have to calculate and pay value added tax on the income. Teaching is exempt from value added tax.
You must pay value added tax on:
If you have other types of income from the sale of goods or services in addition to your authorship, you may be obliged to register in the Value Added Tax Register for this income. If the income is more than NOK 50,000 in a twelve-month period, you must register the enterprise in the Value Added Tax Register. Once you’ve received confirmation that the business is registered, you must calculate and pay value added tax. Consultancy assignments for a literature festival, for example, are subject to VAT.
If you’re unsure whether you should register in the Value Added Tax Register for all or part of your business, you can contact the Tax Administration.
You can deduct value added tax for:
If you must calculate and pay value added tax on income, you can claim deductions for the value added tax you pay on purchases for this part of the business.
Once the enterprise is registered in the Value Added Tax Register, you can claim a deduction for value added tax on purchases for the vatable part of the business.
Allocation of paid value added tax on purchases
If you have expenses on purchases that are only related to income that you must calculate and pay value added tax on, you’ll be entitled to a deduction for the entire amount you pay in value added tax on the purchases.
If the purchases are linked to both vatable and non-vatable income, you’ll only be entitled to a deduction for value added tax for the portion that applies to the vatable income.
The allocation must be proportional to how much you have actually used the purchases in the vatable and non-vatable part of the business.
If it’s difficult to allocate value added tax to purchases based on actual use, you can allocate it according to the size of vatable and non-vatable turnover.
More about deductions and allocation of value added tax. Here you’ll also find good examples of how to allocate the value added tax.
Specific information if you
Receive a work grant or guaranteed salary from the state
For authors who have received a work grant or guaranteed salary from the state, the amount is automatically filled in in the tax return. This income must not be entered into the business information.
Receive grants and must pay tax
The general rule is that author grants are taxable when they’re related to the authorship.
The general rule is that prize money is taxable when it's linked to the author's activities. This also applies to the prize received in connection with competitions.
The following prizes are not taxable and should not be included as income: culture and honorary prizes awarded by the state, county or municipality, including the Nordic Council Literature Prize.
Salary income is pre-filled in your tax return and must not be entered into the business information.
Example: Translation fees or salary income from other employments, freelance and client assignments.
Royalties and fee income from abroad is taxable in Norway if you're a tax resident in Norway or the company is tax resident in Norway.
If you've paid tax abroad on the income, you can claim a deduction in Norwegian tax for the tax paid abroad according to the rules on credit deductions. More about Credit deductions for sole proprietorships and persons and Companies and credit deductions
You can save tax by claiming equalisation of personal income when you have income from your own authorship, such as royalties, the sale of rights and fee income (intellectual property income).
The need for equalisation may arise when the personal income for the year is significantly higher than the average personal income for the last two years.
Conditions for claiming equalisation of personal income:
- Part of the increase in total personal income must be due to income from the authorship such as royalties, the sale of rights, and the like.
- The income from the authorship must be a significant part of the year's total personal income.
Examples where equalisation may be relevant:
You work for two years writing a book, and it gets published in year three. The book is a bestseller, and your income this year becomes significantly higher than the previous two years.
You must include an attachment to your tax return to equalise tax
In the attachment, you must state that you want to split personal income into equal amounts each year, according to the rules for intellectual property income (author income).
You write this as a simple document and attach it to the tax return.
If the tax on personal income is lower, the Tax Administration will recalculate the tax for the last three years. The reduction in this year's tax will result in a slight increase in tax in the two previous years.
As an author, you can create and publish a book with yourself as the publisher. You can also publish through a publisher and pay for the publication yourself.
Income
If you publish books with yourself as the publisher or self-publish in another way, the sale of your own books is income.
Deductions
You can claim a deduction for expenses for printing, production expenses, and other expenses you have in connection with the publication and sale of the book.
Stock
Stock include books that have been produced and published to be sold as part of the business and have not been sold by December 31.
The value of the stock for books that are self-published is the sum of what it has cost to produce them.
Examples of production costs are printing expenses and services you purchase to get your manuscript ready for printing.
Value added tax
The sale of books is zero-rated in the last stage of the sale. The last stage of sales is the consumer, the person who buys the book.
In this context, a book means a publication that’s not a newspaper or magazine. The zero-rating does not apply to activity books for completion, picture books that only have short texts with names of places, people, or the like. Nor does it apply to booklets that contain, among other things, circulars, instructions, agreements, course catalogues, printing of judgments, and the like.
Zero-rating means that the rules in the VAT Act apply, but the VAT rate is 0 percent for the sales revenue.
This means that:
- You’re obliged to register in the Value Added Tax Register if you sell books that you publish yourself for more than NOK 50,000 in a twelve-month period.
- You do not have to pay value added tax on income from the sale of books (the VAT rate is 0 percent).
- Once you’ve received confirmation that the enterprise is registered in the Value Added Tax Register, you can claim a deduction for the value added tax you pay on purchases you make for this portion of the enterprise.
If you’re unsure whether what you publish is defined as a book and is zero-rated under the rules of the VAT Act, you can contact the Tax Administration.
More information about value added tax: How VAT works - the Norwegian Tax Administration.
Supporting documents
You do not need to send us any supporting documents, but you must be able to provide them if we ask for them.