Norwegian business entity data

This vignette documents the structure and quirks of data from Norway’s Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities (Enhetsregisteret). Understanding these details prevents misinterpretation in research.

Organization numbers

Every Norwegian legal entity receives a unique 9-digit organization number (organisasjonsnummer) upon registration. The number uses modulus-11 check digit validation:

library(tidybrreg)
#> tidybrreg: bulk data not yet downloaded for: enheter, underenheter, roller.
#> Run brreg_snapshot() for full network/panel support. See ?brreg_status for details.
brreg_validate(c("923609016", "984851006", "123456789"))
#> [1]  TRUE  TRUE FALSE

Numbers starting with 8 are assigned to sub-entities (underenheter), numbers starting with 9 to main entities (enheter). Historical numbers starting with other digits exist but are no longer assigned.

Three registries, one API

The brreg API exposes three distinct registries:

Enheter (main entities): The legal entity itself — the company, association, or government body that holds rights, obligations, and is the unit of taxation.

Underenheter (sub-entities): Physical locations or operational units belonging to a main entity. A company with offices in Oslo and Bergen has one enhet and two underenheter. Sub-entities have their own organization numbers and are linked to their parent via overordnetEnhet.

Roller (roles): Board members, officers, auditors, accountants, and shareholders registered for each entity. Roles link persons (by name + birth date) or entities (by organization number) to entities.

Legal forms

The organisasjonsform field classifies entities. Common codes:

legal_forms[legal_forms$code %in% c("AS", "ASA", "ENK", "NUF", "DA", "ANS", "SA", "STI"), ]
#> # A tibble: 8 × 4
#>   code  name_no                                 expired name_en                 
#>   <chr> <chr>                                   <chr>   <chr>                   
#> 1 ANS   Ansvarlig selskap med solidarisk ansvar <NA>    General partnership (jo…
#> 2 AS    Aksjeselskap                            <NA>    Private limited company 
#> 3 ASA   Allmennaksjeselskap                     <NA>    Public limited company  
#> 4 DA    Ansvarlig selskap med delt ansvar       <NA>    General partnership (sh…
#> 5 ENK   Enkeltpersonforetak                     <NA>    Sole proprietorship     
#> 6 NUF   Norskregistrert utenlandsk foretak      <NA>    Norwegian-registered fo…
#> 7 SA    Samvirkeforetak                         <NA>    Cooperative             
#> 8 STI   Stiftelse                               <NA>    Foundation

Key distinctions for research:

AS (Private limited company): ~300K entities. Minimum NOK 30,000 share capital. Board optional for small AS.
ASA (Public limited company): ~220 entities. Listed or intending to list. Gender quota on boards (≥40% each gender since 2008).
ENK (Sole proprietorship): ~400K entities. No board, no separate legal personality. Often zero employees.
NUF (Norwegian-registered foreign entity): Branch offices of foreign companies. Limited data available.

NACE industry codes

The naeringskode1 field uses the Standard Industrial Classification (SN2007, based on NACE Rev. 2). The brreg API switched to SN2025 (NACE Rev. 2.1) in September 2025. Use brreg_harmonize_nace() to map between the two.

# Translate NACE codes to English descriptions
brreg_entity("923609016") |> brreg_label(code = "nace_1")
#> nace_1 = "Extraction of crude petroleum"
#> nace_1_code = "06.100"

# Or fetch the full dictionary
nace <- get_brreg_dic("nace")
nace[nace$code == "06.100", ]

Up to three NACE codes may be registered per entity (nace_1, nace_2, nace_3). The primary code (nace_1) determines industry classification.

Employee counts

The antallAnsatte field reports registered employees. Important caveats:

Source: NAV’s Aa-register (employer/employee register), updated ~10th of each month.
Since September 2023, entities with 0–4 employees show NA (previously showed exact count). This means NA is ambiguous: the entity may have 0–4 employees or the field may genuinely be missing.
harRegistrertAntallAnsatte (logical) distinguishes “has a count registered” from “no count registered.”
ENK (sole proprietorships) typically show NA regardless of actual employment.

Addresses

Each entity may have two addresses:

forretningsadresse (business address): Legal registered address. Norwegian entities must have a Norwegian business address.
postadresse (postal address): Mailing address. May be a PO box or abroad.

Sub-entities use beliggenhetsadresse (location address) instead of forretningsadresse.

Each address contains: adresse (street lines), postnummer (postal code), poststed (city), kommune (municipality name), kommunenummer (4-digit municipality code), land (country), landkode (ISO country code).

Municipality codes and the 2020 reform

Norway reduced municipalities from 428 to 356 on January 1, 2020 (with further changes in 2024 reverting some mergers). Historical data contains old codes that no longer exist. Use brreg_harmonize_kommune() to remap:

panel <- tibble::tibble(
  municipality_code = c("0301", "1201", "0602"),  # Oslo, Bergen (old), Drammen (old)
  year = 2019
)
brreg_harmonize_kommune(panel, target_date = "2024-01-01")

Dates

Key date fields and their meaning:

Column	API field	Meaning
`founding_date`	`stiftelsesdato`	Date the entity was founded/incorporated
`registration_date`	`registreringsdatoEnhetsregisteret`	Date of registration in the central register
`articles_date`	`vedtektsdato`	Date of latest articles of association
`bankruptcy_date`	`konkursdato`	Date bankruptcy was opened
`liquidation_date`	`underAvviklingDato`	Date voluntary liquidation began
`deletion_date`	`slettedato`	Date the entity was deleted from the register

registration_date is more reliable than founding_date for determining when an entity entered the register — some entities have founding dates predating the electronic register.

CSV vs JSON bulk downloads

The bulk download endpoints return different column sets:

Feature	CSV (`/lastned/csv`)	JSON (`/lastned`)
Size (enheter)	152 MB	196 MB
Columns	~90	~67 (after flattening)
Extra fields	Dissolution dates, foreign insolvency	`kapital.*`, `vedtektsfestetFormaal`, `paategninger`
Address format	Flat (one column per field)	Nested (array of address lines)
Delimiter	Comma (despite common belief it’s semicolon)	N/A

Neither format is a superset of the other. The package’s algorithmic unnesting produces flat tibbles from both formats. Choose JSON when you need share capital data (kapital.*) or articles of association text; choose CSV when you need dissolution details.

CDC update stream

The change data capture endpoints track modifications to the register:

Enheter/Underenheter: /oppdateringer/{type} returns change events with type (Ny/Endring/Sletting) and optional field-level RFC 6902 patches (since September 2025).
Roller: /oppdateringer/roller returns CloudEvents indicating which entities had role changes (no field detail — fetch the entity’s roles separately).

Field-level patches provide only new values, not old values. For before/after comparisons, use brreg_events() to diff two snapshots.

Data update schedule

The brreg bulk files are regenerated nightly. The Last-Modified HTTP header on the download response indicates when the file was last regenerated (typically between 02:00 and 06:00 CET). The CDC stream is near-real-time during business hours.

Data license

All data from Enhetsregisteret is freely available under the Norwegian Licence for Open Government Data (NLOD 2.0). No API key is required. There is no formal rate limit, but the package applies a 5 requests/second throttle as courtesy.