Minimum wage rules apply in Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund

Norway's statutory minimum wage rules for nine industries apply in Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund from Friday 6 November 2026, the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority said on Monday 9 November. The same date brought new minimum rates in those industries across Norway.

The nine are construction, cleaning, accommodation with food service and catering, electrical work, road freight, coach transport, the car trade, fish processing, and shipbuilding and shipyards. Agriculture and horticulture, the tenth industry with a statutory minimum wage in Norway, is not part of the extension and keeps its rates from June 2025.

The hourly rates

Cleaners in private cleaning companies must be paid at least NOK 247.29 an hour, or NOK 196.05 under the age of 18, the authority's rate tables show. For night work between 21:00 and 06:00 Svalbard time a supplement is agreed case by case, of at least NOK 29 an hour.

In accommodation, food service and catering the minimum is NOK 215.29 for workers over 20 and for those over 18 with four months' experience.

In construction the minimum is NOK 276.48 for skilled workers, NOK 250.63 for unskilled workers with no experience and NOK 260.45 after one year. For workers who install and maintain electrical systems it is NOK 282.95 for skilled workers and NOK 254.27 for others.

Drivers of road freight vehicles over 2.5 tonnes must be paid at least NOK 244.50 an hour, and coach drivers NOK 229.62.

The rates apply to every worker in the industry, Norwegian or foreign, whether or not they belong to a trade union. Among other measures, the authority can order breaches corrected, impose fines, stop work or order the employer to pay wages owed.

How the rules were extended

The law that makes such rates binding has applied in Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund since 1 July 2025, the Government said. The date for Svalbard's other settlements is to be set later.

The regulations for each industry did not follow automatically. The Tariff Board, the state board that decides whether the pay rates of a collective agreement become binding for a whole industry, had to decide each one.

The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise, the main employers' organisation, wrote on 28 August that the board must decide independently whether the conditions are met on Svalbard. It wrote that making pay rates binding can in some cases be a suitable and proportionate measure. It also wrote that it can be questioned in principle whether this is the right measure against problems in parts of working life, and that it is meant to be temporary.

The confederation's federation for service and retail businesses supported applying the cleaning regulation in Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund. ## What inspectors found

In a letter to the board on 20 August, the Labour Inspection Authority said it carried out 15 inspections on Svalbard from 2024 to 2026 in the industries concerned and recorded breaches in seven. The inspections covered, among other things, employment contracts, working and rest time, time records and wage payment. They were not aimed at the minimum wage rules, which had not applied on Svalbard, the authority wrote.

In construction it recorded breaches in three of nine inspections, and in accommodation and food service in four of six. Two inspections of cleaning businesses recorded none, which the authority called a limited basis.

Many cleaners on Svalbard are citizens of countries outside the European Economic Area, especially from South-East Asia, the authority wrote. It described ordinary employment, one-person businesses and work done without clear or documented employment. It saw a real risk that workers may be on conditions worse than the national collective agreements.

In electrical work the authority has carried out no inspections that shed light on contracts, working time or other central conditions on Svalbard. Its experience is that businesses established there mainly use Norwegian workers and that pay appears to be at or above the agreed level. Larger projects, however, often use mainland firms, and for these the same concerns apply as on the mainland, it wrote.

The authority told the board there were clear grounds for applying the regulations for construction, accommodation and food service, cleaning and the car trade in the two settlements. Its experience spoke for applying the other regulations too, it wrote. ## The union

Svein Jonny Albrigtsen leads the Svalbard branch of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions. In an article published on 6 November he told the trade union paper Arbeidsmanden that firms on Svalbard had been able to pay people NOK 10 an hour without being punished. The authority now gets a tool to check and stop that, he said.

In June he told the paper that most employers had begun to pay above the minimum rate after the law took effect, but that there were still cases where it was not done.

Earlier: Minimum wage for cleaners takes effect in Longyearbyen (6 November 2026)

Coverage: NTB Kommunikasjon, Frifagbevegelse.no