Norwegians love to have pets, and you will meet both cats and dogs everywhere you go in Norway. If you’re moving to Norway, then you will probably want to bring your pet with you, but there’s a lot of stuff to consider when bringing a pet to Norway.
One of these questions is what you should do in cases where the pet get sick and need to go to a veterinarian. What’s the veterinary status like in Norway, and how much do you need to pay for a visit to the vet?
All veterinary clinics in Norway are private, and are considered to be very expensive. Most Norwegians has an insurance for their pets, and most of these cover around 80% of the vet expense, making it much more manageable to pay for expensive vet visits.
How common are veterinary clinics in Norway?
Veterinarian clinics are pretty common to see in cities, but all municipalities are legally required to have at least one vet on standby at all times. This means that you should be able to get in touch with a vet in case of emergency no matter where in Norway you are located.
The vet on standby is both for pets as well as for farm animals, and you can find the telephone number to get in touch with the emergency vet at the municipality’s website.
Some vet franchises also have digital vets that can be called pretty much around the clock no matter where you are, so check out Agria Vet Guide or Anicura-appen to learn more about these digital vets.
Bigger cities will have plenty of vet clinics, and even some towns with less than 5,000 inhabitants can often have its own regular vet clinic for pets. You should usually not have any issues finding a vet clinic in Norway unless you are at a very remote location.
How expensive are the vets exactly?
The cost of taking your pet to a veterinary clinic is considered to be very expensive, especially when you need an operation, surgery, x-rays, sedation or anything like that. Annual health checks and vaccine as not too bad, but the cost runs very high for unexpected visits.
Below is a table for the average cost for a lot of the most common issues you need to visit the vet to fix. Keep in mind that vet clinics in Norway are free to choose their own prices, so the price is just the norm, and it can be either cheaper or more expensive depending on which clinic you choose to go to.
| Type of consultation | Average price | Average price in USD |
| 15 minute regular consultation | 700 NOK | $73 |
| Health check | 800 NOK | $84 |
| Vaccine kit for dogs | 650 NOK | $68 |
| Rabies vaccine | 650 NOK | $68 |
| Vaccine kit cat | 600 NOK | $62 |
| Neuter male cat | 1.500 NOK | $156 |
| Neuter female cat | 2.400 NOK | $250 |
| Removal of dental tartar (dogs) | 1.000 NOK | $104 |
| Patella surgery (dog) | 15.000 NOK | $1,500 |
| X-rays to check HD for dogs | 1.500 NOK | $156 |
It’s very difficult to tell you exactly how much to expect to pay for cases where the dog or cat needs surgery or other big operations since this can change a lot depending on the equipment needed, the time of day etc.
However, I have heard of people who have ended up with bills in the range between 20,000 to 50,000 NOK for an emergency surgery for their car or dog.
Most vet clinics also charge premium if you need to visit them outside of regular business hours, so it’s going to be a lot more expensive to visit one during public holiday dates, on Sundays or in the evenings.
Even a rather routine visit to the vet in a Sunday afternoon can cost 10.000 NOK if your dog needs a bit of medicine, an x-ray scan or a few people taking care of it.
You might want to get your pet insured
It is very common for Norwegians to insure their pets. This insurance won’t cover your expenses to get vaccines, health checks or regular checkups, but it will cover a lot of the expenses in cases of injuries, diseases or other complications.
The pet insurance is mostly to cover the huge bills that you can often acquire from operations and surgery, and most of the pet insurances cover around 70 – 80% of the cost of the operation.
I would expect to pay around 200 – 500 NOK per month for pet insurance in Norway, depending on the type of pet and of course the breed. Bigger breeds and breeds that are more exposed to genetic diseases cost more to insure, while “healthy breeds” are cheaper.
Where to get a pet insurance in Norway
There are plenty of different pet insurance brands in Norway, and some of the most popular ones are:
- Agria. Agria is a specialized pet insurance, and one of the reasons why I often use them personally is because they offer unlimited free digital vet consultations. This is very nice for when the pets have a minor injury that i can treat myself with some help from a vet.
- If. If is one of Norway’s biggest insurance agencies, and their pet insurance is rated as pretty good.
- Gjensidige. Another of Norway’s major insurance agencies that offer a pet insurance.
- Most of the major banks like Sparebank 1 and DNB also offer insurances for pets.
One tip is to look a bit past just the monthly cost. What does the insurance offer in the cases where your pet gets sick? That’s often a bigger factor to consider than a 50 NOK price difference in my opinion.
