Photo on a CV in Norway: Required, Forbidden, or Optional?

Short answer: there is no Norwegian rule that requires a photo on a CV, and none that forbids one. It is not a requirement, not a prohibition and not a fixed answer. The honest answer is "it depends" — and this page is about what it depends on, instead of a rule of thumb that does not hold for everyone.

Said up front, because this particular question is notoriously badly handled in Norwegian CV advice: a photo does not save a weak CV, and a missing photo does not cost you the job on its own. Everything else here is about the nuances around that.

What the law actually says

There is no provision in Norwegian law saying a CV must have a photo, and none saying it must not. There is no official CV template demanding one either — NAV's CV service has been shut down, so there is no longer a single authority template to lean on.

The absence of a rule does not mean anything goes: employers are bound by discrimination rules when assessing applicants, and details like date of birth, marital status and a photo are exactly the kind of information that must not be used to sort people. That is why leaving the photo out is entirely legitimate — you are not withholding something you are obliged to give.

Why the advice conflicts so much

Practice differs between countries, and most advice is given from the adviser's own tradition. In Germany a photo is close to expected. In the US and UK it is often treated as a reason to close the document, for equal-treatment reasons. Norway sits in between: some include it, many do not, and nobody reacts much either way.

Add that Norwegian recruiters are individuals across different industries, and you have the explanation for finding three contradictory answers in five minutes. None of them are a norm.

When a photo can help

A photo gives the reader one thing: a face. That is relevant when the face is part of the job or part of the impression you need to create.

• Roles with a lot of customer contact — retail, hospitality, reception, tourism, care. Here the face is not a formality but part of what you offer.
• Direct approaches. If you send your CV to a named person you have already spoken with, or hand it over in person, a plain photo signals that you present yourself carefully.
• When you already have a good one. Then it costs you nothing.

Note that these are judgements, not rules. None of them is a requirement, and none is a good enough reason to use a bad photo.

When to leave it out

• An open posting with many applicants. There, a photo gives the reader one more thing to sort on before the qualifications are read. If you have no reason to include it, leaving it out is easier.
• When the photo is not good. A cropped holiday picture, a backlit selfie or a wedding shot is worse than having no photo at all.
• Roles where appearance has nothing to do with the job — development, accounting, warehouse, trades. There, space and attention are what count.
• When you are in doubt. Then the answer is the same as for everything else in a CV: remove what does not document anything.

One thing is documented and worth mentioning in the same breath: name discrimination exists in the Norwegian labour market. A field experiment by Midtbøen and Rogstad (2012) found that applicants with foreign-sounding names had roughly a 25 percent lower chance of being called to interview, with otherwise identical applications. You cannot control your name. That is one more reason the rest of the document should be unambiguous and easy to say yes to.

If you do use a photo: the requirements

• A professional headshot. Neutral background, even light, calm expression. A phone camera is fine if the light is good.
• Close enough. The face should fill about a third of the image. A full-body shot where you are four centimetres tall does nothing.
• Recent. The last two to three years. If you do not look like the photo when you arrive for the interview, it counts against you.
• No filters, no sunglasses, no group pictures. Do not crop yourself out of a photo with someone else half in the frame.
• The same photo as on LinkedIn. Cross-channel recognisability is a small, free plus.
• A small file. A few hundred kilobytes is enough. An 8 MB image can stop the attachment going through.
• Placement: at the top, next to your name. Not in the header — content there disappears in many systems, and that includes images.

A photo in a document read by machine

An image in a Word file or PDF does not affect the text, as long as it sits "in line" and does not float over it. Floating images and text boxes can push text out of order when a recruitment system reads the document. ATS-friendly CV covers the technical side.

If you use a template without images — such as our free Word template — leaving it as it is entirely fine. You lose nothing.

Frequently asked questions

Is a photo required on a Norwegian CV?

No. There is no rule about it, and no official template that requires one. Many Norwegian CVs have a photo, many do not.

Will I be rejected if I have no photo?

We know of no Norwegian rule or practice that makes a photo a requirement, and we have seen nothing suggesting a missing photo is a common reason for rejection. What rejects applicants is a CV that does not match the posting.

Can I use the same photo as on LinkedIn?

Yes, and it is often wise: the same face across channels makes you easier to remember. Just check that the image holds up at small size.

Should I include my date of birth?

It is common in Norway, but optional. Norwegian employers are not supposed to weigh it. If you would rather not, leave it out — it is not a red flag.

What about a photo in a digital application form?

In Webcruiter and Jobbnorge, a photo is a separate field or attachment you can skip — the application form itself is what you must fill in.

Does it cost anything to get a usable photo?

No. A photo taken in daylight against a plain wall, with the phone propped up, is enough. What you pay a photographer for is even light and retouching — not a requirement.

Next step

The photo is a detail. What decides is in the Norwegian CV guide and in how to write a CV. To see what a plain document without a photo looks like, there are finished examples in Norwegian CV examples.