Oslo - Post Report Question and Answers
What is the relative size of the expatriate community? How would you describe overall morale among expatriates?
The expat community is huge for the size of Oslo. Lots of folks involved in oil/gas, but this has expanded into many other fields as well. Plus a very large number of expats that have married Norwegians and moved here. This tends to make the community pretty dispersed. Outside work and the schools, it is very hard to meet people. - May 2026
Quite a few expats in the diplomat corps, and oil/gas and tech communities. - Dec 2022
Oslo is nice but a bit boring. US expat are pretty active - other expats scattered across the city. Diplomatic functions are like in any European city. - May 2021
Decent expat community. Some expats really loved it, some less so. Those with active kids probably benefitted from Oslo the most. - Jan 2020
The morale was pretty low. The local staff acted as if they ran the place. There weren't many CLO events and spouses rarely met each other. Everyone lived apart. CLO at the time was a DOD spouse on a first Embassy assignment. Many Embassy events inevitably excluded family members including the 4th of July Party and the Christmas Party. - Dec 2016
Most expats are "lovepats," i.e., married to Norwegians and well-integrated into Norwegian society. Many of them love Norway and many of them don't, due to all the reasons mentioned above (pros are mostly generous welfare for Norwegians, work-life balance; cons are high cost of living, long winters, closed society). In general, though, I would say morale among true expats (those who are not settled permanently in Norway) is low for those reasons. - Dec 2015
It's a decently large but not at all a cohesive group since there is so much to do and see, travel throughout Europe is easy, and there are not a lot of activities where this group comes together on a regular basis. - Jun 2015
Pretty large. - May 2013